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arXiv:0708.0384 · Physical Review A

Decoherence in adiabatic quantum computation

M. H. S. Amin, D. V. Averin, James A. Nesteroff

Published Feb 6, 2009• 88 citations
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Abstract

We have studied the decoherence properties of adiabatic quantum computation (AQC) in the presence of in general non-Markovian, e.g., low-frequency, noise. The developed description of the incoherent Landau-Zener transitions shows that the global AQC maintains its properties even for decoherence larger than the minimum gap at the anticrossing of the two lowest-energy levels. The more efficient local AQC, however, does not improve scaling of the computation time with the number of qubits $n$ as in the decoherence-free case. The scaling improvement requires phase coherence throughout the computation, limiting the computation time and the problem size $n$.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.022107

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We have studied the decoherence properties of adiabatic quantum computation (AQC) in the presence of in general non-Markovian, e.g., low-frequency, noise. The developed description of the incoherent Landau-Zener transitions shows that the global AQC maintains its properties even for decoherence larger than the minimum gap at the anticrossing of the two lowest-energy levels. The more efficient local AQC, however, does not improve scaling of the computation time with the number of qubits nnn as in the decoherence-free case. The scaling improvement requires phase coherence throughout the computation, limiting the computation time and the problem size nnn.
We consider the effects of decoherence on Landau-Zener crossings encountered in a large-scale adiabatic-quantum-computing setup. We analyze the dependence of the success probability---i.e., the probability for the system to end up in its new ground state---on the noise amplitude and correlation time. We determine the optimal sweep rate that is required to maximize the success probability. We then discuss the scaling of decoherence effects with increasing system size. We find that those effects can be important for large systems, even if they are small for each of the small building blocks.
While adiabatic quantum computing (AQC) has some robustness to noise and decoherence, it is widely believed that encoding, error suppression and error correction will be required to scale AQC to large problem sizes. Previous works have established at least two different techniques for error suppression in AQC. In this paper we derive a model for describing the dynamics of encoded AQC and show that previous constructions for error suppression can be unified with this dynamical model. In addition, the model clarifies the mechanisms of error suppression and allows the identification of its weaknesses. In the second half of the paper, we utilize our description of non-equilibrium dynamics in encoded AQC to construct methods for error correction in AQC by cooling local degrees of freedom (qubits). While this is shown to be possible in principle, we also identify the key challenge to this approach: the requirement of high-weight Hamiltonians. Finally, we use our dynamical model to perform a simplified thermal stability analysis of concatenated-stabilizer-code encoded many-body systems for AQC or quantum memories. This work is a companion paper to 'Error suppression and error correction in adiabatic quantum computation: techniques and challenges (2013 Phys. Rev. X 3 041013)', which provides a quantum information perspective on the techniques and limitations of error suppression and correction in AQC. In this paper we couch the same results within a dynamical framework, which allows for a detailed analysis of the non-equilibrium dynamics of error suppression and correction in encoded AQC.
Recent experiments with increasingly larger numbers of qubits have sparked renewed interest in adiabatic quantum computation, and in particular quantum annealing. A central question that is repeatedly asked is whether quantum features of the evolution can survive over the long time scales used for quantum annealing relative to standard measures of the decoherence time. We reconsider the role of decoherence in adiabatic quantum computation and quantum annealing using the adiabatic quantum master-equation formalism. We restrict ourselves to the weak-coupling and singular-coupling limits, which correspond to decoherence in the energy eigenbasis and in the computational basis, respectively. We demonstrate that decoherence in the instantaneous energy eigenbasis does not necessarily detrimentally affect adiabatic quantum computation, and in particular that a short single-qubit T2{T}_{2}T2​ time need not imply adverse consequences for the success of the quantum adiabatic algorithm. We further demonstrate that boundary cancellation methods, designed to improve the fidelity of adiabatic quantum computing in the closed-system setting, remain beneficial in the open-system setting. To address the high computational cost of master-equation simulations, we also demonstrate that a quantum Monte Carlo algorithm that explicitly accounts for a thermal bosonic bath can be used to interpolate between classical and quantum annealing. Our study highlights and clarifies the significantly different role played by decoherence in the adiabatic and circuit models of quantum computing.
Despite more than a decade of research on adiabatic quantum computation (AQC), its decoherence properties are still poorly understood. Many theoretical works have suggested that AQC is more robust against decoherence, but a quantitative relation between its performance and the qubits' coherence properties, such as decoherence time, is still lacking. While the thermal excitations are known to be important sources of errors, they are predominantly dependent on temperature but rather insensitive to the qubits' coherence. Less understood is the role of virtual excitations, which can also reduce the ground state probability even at zero temperature. Here, we introduce normalized ground state fidelity as a measure of the decoherence-induced deformation of the ground state due to virtual transitions. We calculate the normalized fidelity perturbatively at finite temperatures and discuss its relation to the qubits' relaxation and dephasing times, as well as its projected scaling properties.
This Thesis focuses on different aspects of quantum computation theory: adiabatic quantum algorithms, decoherence during the adiabatic evolution and quantum simulators. After an overview on the area of quantum computation and setting up the formal ground for the rest of the Thesis we derive a general error estimate for adiabatic quantum computing. We demonstrate that the first-order correction, which has frequently been used as a condition for adiabatic quantum computation, does not yield a good estimate for the computational error. Therefore, a more general criterion is proposed, which includes higher-order corrections and shows that the computational error can be made exponentially small – which facilitates significantly shorter evolution times than the first-order estimate in certain situations. Based on this criterion and rather general arguments and assumptions, it can be demonstrated that a run-time of order of the inverse minimum energy gap is sufficient and necessary. Furthermore, exploiting the similarity between adiabatic quantum algorithms and quantum phase transitions, we study the impact of decoherence on the sweep through a second-order quantum phase transition for the prototypical example of the Ising chain in a transverse field and compare it to the adiabatic version of Grover’s search algorithm. It turns out that (in contrast to first-order transitions) the impact of decoherence caused by a weak coupling to a rather general environment increases with system size (i.e., number of spins/qubits), which might limit the scalability of the system. Finally, we propose the use of electron systems to construct laboratory systems based on present-day technology which reproduce and thereby simulate the quantum dynamics of the Ising model and the O(3) nonlinear sigma model.