We study the dissipative dynamics of a biased two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator (HO), the latter interacting with an Ohmic environment. Using the Van Vleck perturbation theory and going to second order in the coupling between the TLS and the HO, we show how the Hamiltonian of the TLS–HO system can be diagonalized analytically. Our model represents an improvement on the usually used Jaynes–Cummings Hamiltonian as an initial rotating wave approximation is avoided. By assuming a weak coupling to the thermal bath, analytical expressions for the time evolution of the populations of the TLS are found: the population is characterized by a multiplicity of damped oscillations together with a complex relaxation dynamics towards thermal equilibrium. The long time evolution is characterized by a single relaxation rate, which is largest at resonance and whose expression can be given in a closed analytic form.
We study the dissipative dynamics of a biased two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator (HO), the latter interacting with an Ohmic environment. Using the Van Vleck perturbation theory and going to second order in the coupling between the TLS and the HO, we show how the Hamiltonian of the TLS–HO system can be diagonalized analytically. Our model represents an improvement on the usually used Jaynes–Cummings Hamiltonian as an initial rotating wave approximation is avoided. By assuming a weak coupling to the thermal bath, analytical expressions for the time evolution of the populations of the TLS are found: the population is characterized by a multiplicity of damped oscillations together with a complex relaxation dynamics towards thermal equilibrium. The long time evolution is characterized by a single relaxation rate, which is largest at resonance and whose expression can be given in a closed analytic form.
We study the dissipative dynamics of a biased two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator (HO), the latter interacting with an Ohmic environment. Using Van-Vleck perturbation theory and going to second order in the coupling between TLS and HO, we show how the Hamiltonian of the TLS-HO system can be diagonalized analytically. Our model represents an improvement to the usually used Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian as an initial rotating wave approximation is avoided. By assuming a weak coupling to the thermal bath, analytical expressions for the time evolution of the populations of the TLS are\nfound: the population is characterized by a multiplicity of damped oscillations together with a complex relaxation dynamics towards thermal equilibrium. The long time evolution is characterized by a single relaxation rate, which is largest at resonance and whose expression can be given in closed analytic form.
We consider the dissipative dynamics of a qubit coupled to a nonlinear oscillator (NO) embedded in an Ohmic environment. By treating the nonlinearity up to first order and applying Van Vleck perturbation theory up to second order in the qubit-NO coupling, we derive an analytical expression for the eigenstates and eigenfunctions of the coupled qubit-NO system beyond the rotating wave approximation. In the regime of weak coupling to the thermal bath, analytical expressions for the time evolution of the qubit's populations are derived: they describe a multiplicity of damped oscillations superposed to a complex relaxation part toward thermal equilibrium. The long-time dynamics is characterized by a single relaxation rate, which is maximal when the qubit is tuned to one of the resonances with the nonlinear oscillator.
The model of a two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator has found a widespread application in physics and chemistry. In this thesis we focus on the field of circuit quantum electrodynamics where the TLS stands for a quantum bit (qubit), which is the basic building unit of a potential quantum computer, and the oscillator represents a transmission-line resonator, which can be used, e.g., to store information contained on the qubit or for communication between several qubits. Furthermore, the oscillator can model a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) determining the state of the qubit. In first experimental realizations the coupling between the qubit and the oscillator was small compared to characteristic frequencies of the two devices. In such a situation the Jaynes-Cummings model provides a realistic and completely analytical description of the energy spectrum and the dynamics of the setup. However, it relies on a rotating-wave approximation (RWA) which neglects counter-rotating terms in the full qubit-oscillator Hamiltonian. These counter-rotating terms become important under increase of the coupling strength, as it has been achieved in recent experiments. We present two analytical approaches to take these additional contributions into account: The first one treats the qubit-oscillator Hamiltonian perturbatively in the coupling strength and predicts a frequency shift in its energy spectrum, the Bloch-Siegert shift. The second one considers the qubit's tunneling splitting as small parameter and thus treats the problem to all orders in the coupling allowing to enter the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the coupling strength becomes comparable to the qubit's and/or oscillator's frequency. For both cases we give a thorough analysis of the qubit's dynamics. In order to perform operations the qubit is usually probed by an external driving force. We model this situation by coupling the TLS to a classical oscillator and examine the resulting time dependent Hamiltonian using a combination of Floquet theory and Van Vleck perturbation theory. Thus, we provide an analysis of the qubit's energy spectrum and dynamics which is nonperturbative in the driving amplitude. We investigate effects like coherent destruction of tunneling and driving-inducing tunneling oscillations. By coupling the driven TLS to a quantized oscillator we give for the first time an analytical treatment of the qubit-oscillator system being simultaneously exposed to both ultrastrong coupling and extreme driving. We observe interesting phenomena in the dynamics like the suppression of specific frequencies under a variation of the coupling strength. To mimic environmental influences on the qubit we apply the Caldeira-Leggett master equation approach to the driven TLS and to the qubit-oscillator system and provide for both cases analytical expressions for the relaxation and dephasing rates.
Abstract. We propose an approximation scheme to describe the dynamics of the spin-boson model when the spectral density of the environment shows a peak at a characteristic frequency Ω which can be very close (or even equal) to the spin Zeeman frequency ∆. Mapping the problem onto a two-state system (TSS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator (HO) with frequency ω0 we show that the representation of displaced HO states provides an appropriate basis to truncate the Hilbert space of the TSS-HO system and therefore a better picture of the system dynamics. We derive an effective Hamiltonian for the TSS-HO system, and show it furnishes a very good approximation for the system dynamics even when its two subsystems are moderately coupled. Finally, assuming the regime of weak HO-bath coupling and low temperatures, we are able to analytically evaluate the dissipative TSS dynamics.
In this PhD thesis we have been concerned with dissipative and decoherence processes which take place specifically for quantum systems in a dissipative bistable potential. This potential describes a Hamiltonian system whose spectrum is composed by a ladder of levels, grouped as doublets under the potential barrier and being almost equally spaced above it. The system interacts with a thermal environment, fully characterized by the so-called bath spectral density. The dynamical quantity we looked at is the so-called reduced density matrix (RDM), obtained by tracing out the full density matrix the environmental degrees of freedom. The matrix elements for the RDM are exactly evaluated by means of the Feynman-Vernon real-time path-integral technique. Depending on which regime of parameters we are interested in, i.e. temperature and coupling strength with the reservoir, a few or several energy levels contribute to the dynamics. In particular, a two-level system (TLS) is first analyzed, corresponding to the regime where only the lowest doublet is energetically accessible. We discussed in the beginning the case of a TLS interacting with Ohmic and super-Ohmic baths and then the situation in which a symmetric TLS is assumed to be coupled with an external detector, like a dc-SQUID, the latter being coupled to an Ohmic environment. This model provides a better description of a real qubit, as frequently discussed in various experiments. In the former case, we developed a theory called Weakly-Interacting Blip Approximation (WIBA), which is nonperturbative in the coupling strength as well as in the tunneling frequency and gives reliable results over a wide range of temperatures and coupling strength to the thermal environment. In the latter case, the dynamics was evaluated upon starting from the Non-Interacting Blip Approximation (NIBA) and approximating the NIBA kernels up to first order in the detector-bath coupling strength. Analytical results, valid also at finite detuning, were obtained and we showed that our theory correctly reproduces the onset of multiple oscillation frequencies in the dynamics due to the entanglement between TLS and detector. Finally, we discussed the more general case of an M-level system coupled with an Ohmic environment. This situation describes the case of a bistable potential where the temperature is high enough that higher-lying energy levels are being populated and the system cannot be reduced to a simple TLS. Many are the experimental situations which can be described by our theory. We developed a novel approximation called Weakly-Interacting VR-Blip Approximation (VR-WIBA) for the dynamics in a driven dissipative bistable potential. In the regimes of low to moderate temperatures and coupling strengths, we exploited a separation of time scales between tunneling and vibrational relaxation events and we could derive analytical kernels for the intra- and inter-well dynamics.
We discuss the long-time relaxation of a qubit linearly coupled to a finite bath of [Formula: see text] spins (two-level systems, TLSs), with the interaction Hamiltonian in rotating wave approximation. We focus on the regime [Formula: see text], assuming that the qubit–bath coupling is weak, that the range of spin frequencies is sufficiently broad, and that all the spins are initialized in the ground state. Despite the model being perfectly integrable, we make two interesting observations about the effective system relaxation. First, as one would expect, the qubit relaxes exponentially towards its zero-temperature state at a well characterized rate. Second, the bath spins, even when mutually coupled, do not relax towards a thermal distribution, but rather form a Lorentzian distribution peaked at the frequency of the initially excited qubit. This behaviour is captured by an analytical approximation that makes use of the property [Formula: see text] to treat the TLS frequencies as a continuum and is confirmed by our numerical simulations.