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arXiv:0806.2830 · Physical Review B

Effect of environmental spins on Landau-Zener transitions

Dmitry A. Garanin, R. Neb, R. Schilling

Published Sep 9, 2008• 14 citations
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Abstract

Landau-Zener (LZ) transitions of a two-level system (e.g., electronic spin in molecular magnets) coupled to one or many environmental spins (e.g., nuclear spins) are studied. For rather general interactions the LZ problem is reduced to that of a Landau-Zener grid. It is shown analytically that environmental spins initially in their ground state do not influence the staying probability $P$. This changes if they are prepared in a statistical ensemble. For a more specific model with environmental spins in a transverse field, LZ transitions are studied in the case of well-separated resonances in the LZ grid. The full evolution of the system is described as a succession of elementary transitions at avoided crossings and free evolution between them. If the environmental spins are strongly coupled to the central spin, their effect on $P$ is weak. In other cases LZ transitions are strongly suppressed and $P$ is decreasing very slowly with the sweep-rate parameter $\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremath{\propto}1/v$, $v$ being the energy sweep rate.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.78.094405

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Landau-Zener (LZ) transitions of a two-level system (e.g., electronic spin in molecular magnets) coupled to one or many environmental spins (e.g., nuclear spins) are studied. For rather general interactions the LZ problem is reduced to that of a Landau-Zener grid. It is shown analytically that environmental spins initially in their ground state do not influence the staying probability PPP. This changes if they are prepared in a statistical ensemble. For a more specific model with environmental spins in a transverse field, LZ transitions are studied in the case of well-separated resonances in the LZ grid. The full evolution of the system is described as a succession of elementary transitions at avoided crossings and free evolution between them. If the environmental spins are strongly coupled to the central spin, their effect on PPP is weak. In other cases LZ transitions are strongly suppressed and PPP is decreasing very slowly with the sweep-rate parameter \ensuremathϵ\ensuremath∝1/v\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremath{\propto}1/v\ensuremathϵ\ensuremath∝1/v, vvv being the energy sweep rate.
We investigate the Landau-Zener (LZ) process in spin-orbit coupled systems of single or multiple two-level (spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​) particles. The coupling between internal spin states and external vibrational states, a simple spin-orbit coupling (SOC), is induced by applying a spin-dependent harmonic trap. Because of the SOC, the single-particle energy-level structures are modified by the Franck-Condon (FC) effects, in which some avoided energy-level-crossings (ELCs) are almost closed and some ELCs are opened. The close of avoided ELCs and the open of ELCs result in the FC blockade and the vibrational transitions, respectively. For a given low sweeping rate, the sequential LZ transitions of ladder-like population transition can be induced by strong SOC. We derive an analytical formula for the final population which is well consistent with the numerical results. For a given strong SOC, the sequential LZ transitions are submerged in the non-adiabatic transitions if the sweeping rate is sufficiently high. Further, we study LZ transitions of multiple interacting two-level Bose particles in a spin-dependent harmonic trap. The interplay between the SOC effects and the interaction effects is explored.
The Landau-Zener-Stueckelberg (LZS) effect in a model system of interacting tunneling particles is studied numerically and analytically. Each of N tunneling particles interacts with each of the others with the same coupling J. This problem maps onto that of the LZS effect for a large spin S=N/2.S=N/2.S=N/2. The mean-field limit $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{N}\ensuremath{\infty}$ corresponds to the classical limit $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{S}\ensuremath{\infty}$ for the effective spin. It is shown that the ferromagnetic coupling J>0J>0J>0 tends to suppress the LZS transitions. For $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{N}\ensuremath{\infty}$ there is a critical value of J above which the staying probability P does not go to zero in the slow sweep limit, unlike the standard LZS effect. For J<0J<0J<0 LZS transitions are boosted and P=0P=0P=0 for a set of finite values of the sweep rate for $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{N}\ensuremath{\infty}.$ Various limiting cases such as strong and weak interaction, slow and fast sweep are considered analytically. It is shown that the mean-field approach works well for arbitrary N if the interaction J is weak.
Two aspects of the classic two-level Landau-Zener (LZ) problem are considered. First, we address the LZ problem when one or both levels decay, i.e., ${\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{j}(t)\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{j}(t)\ensuremath{-}i{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{j}/2$. We find that if the system evolves from an initial time $\ensuremath{-}T$ to a final time +T+T+T such that $|{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{1}(\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}T)\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{2}(\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}T)|$ is not too large, the LZ survival probability of a state $|j\ensuremath{\rangle}$ can increase with increasing decay rate of the other state $|i\ensuremath{\ne}j\ensuremath{\rangle}$. This surprising result occurs because the decay results in crossing of the two eigenvalues of the instantaneous non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. On the other hand, if $|{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{1}(\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}T)\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{2}(\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}T)|\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ as $T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$, the probability is independent of the decay rate. These results are based on analytic solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equations for two cases: (a) the energy levels depend linearly on time, and (b) the energy levels are bounded and of the form ${\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{1,2}(t)=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\varepsilon}tanh(t/\mathcal{T})$. Second, we study LZ transitions affected by dephasing by formulating the Landau-Zener problem with noise in terms of a Schr\"odinger-Langevin stochastic coupled set of differential equations. The LZ survival probability then becomes a random variable whose probability distribution is shown to behave very differently for long and short dephasing times. We also discuss the combined effects of decay and dephasing on the LZ probability.
We study the effect of an environment consisting of noninteracting two level systems on Landau-Zener transitions with an interest on the performance of an adiabatic quantum computer. We show that if the environment is initially at zero temperature, it does not affect the transition probability. An excited environment, however, will always increase the probability of making a transition out of the ground state. For the case of equal intermediate gaps, we find an analytical upper bound for the transition probability in the limit of large number of environmental spins. We show that such an environment will only suppress the probability of success for adiabatic quantum computation by at most a factor close to 1/2.
The asymptotic staying probability PPP in the Landau-Zener effect with interaction is analytically investigated at fast sweep $\ensuremath{\epsilon}=\ensuremath{\pi}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}^{2}∕(2\ensuremath{\hbar}v)⪡1$. We have rigorously calculated the value of I0{I}_{0}I0​ in the expansion $P\ensuremath{\cong}1\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\epsilon}+{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}^{2}∕2+{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}^{2}{I}_{0}$ for arbitrary couplings and relative resonance shifts of individual tunneling particles. The results essentially differ from those of the mean-field approximation. It is shown that strong long-range interactions such as dipole-dipole interaction generate huge values of I0{I}_{0}I0​ because a flip of one particle strongly influences many others. However, in the presence of strong static disorder, making the resonances for individual particles shifted with respect to each other, the influence of interactions is strongly reduced. In molecular magnets the main source of static disorder is the coupling to nuclear spins. Our calculations using the actual shape of the Fe8{\mathrm{Fe}}_{8}Fe8​ crystal studied in the Landau-Zener experiments [Wernsdorfer et al., Europhys. Lett. 50, 552 (2000)] yield a value of I0{I}_{0}I0​ that is in good agreement with the value extracted from the experimental data.
We study the effect of an environment consisting of noninteracting two level systems on Landau-Zener transitions with an interest on the performance of an adiabatic quantum computer. We show that if the environment is initially at zero temperature, it does not affect the transition probability. An excited environment, however, will always increase the probability of making a transition out of the ground state. For the case of equal intermediate gaps, we find an analytical upper bound for the transition probability in the limit of large number of environmental spins. We show that such an environment will only suppress the probability of success for adiabatic quantum computation by at most a factor close to 1/2.