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arXiv:0906.2843 · International Journal of Modern Physics B

QUASI-HAMILTONIAN METHOD FOR COMPUTATION OF DECOHERENCE RATES

Robert Joynt, DONG ZHOU, QIANG-HUA WANG

Published Jun 5, 2011• 14 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a general formalism for the dissipative dynamics of an arbitrary quantum system in the presence of a classical stochastic process. It is applicable to a wide range of physical situations, and in particular it can be used for qubit arrays in the presence of classical two-level systems (TLS). In this formalism, all decoherence rates appear as eigenvalues of an evolution matrix. Thus the method is linear, and the close analogy to Hamiltonian systems opens up a toolbox of well-developed methods such as perturbation theory and mean-field theory. We apply the method to the problem of a single qubit in the presence of TLS that give rise to pure dephasing 1/f noise and solve this problem exactly.

DOI
10.1142/s0217979211100990

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We present a general formalism for the dissipative dynamics of an arbitrary quantum system in the presence of a classical stochastic process. It is applicable to a wide range of physical situations, and in particular it can be used for qubit arrays in the presence of classical two-level systems (TLS). In this formalism, all decoherence rates appear as eigenvalues of an evolution matrix. Thus the method is linear, and the close analogy to Hamiltonian systems opens up a toolbox of well-developed methods such as perturbation theory and mean-field theory. We apply the method to the problem of a single qubit in the presence of TLS that give rise to pure dephasing 1/f noise and solve this problem exactly.
We present a general and exact formalism for finding the evolution of a quantum system subject to external telegraph noise. The various qubit decoherence rates are determined by the eigenvalues of a transfer matrix. The formalism can be applied to a qubit subject to an arbitrary combination of dephasing and relaxational telegraph noise, in contrast to existing nonperturbative methods that treat only one or the other of these limits. Hence we are able to investigate the crossover from pure dephasing noise to pure relaxational noise in detail. New results at strong coupling include the full qubit dynamics on time scales short compared with the environmental correlation times, which reveals unexpected oscillations and induced magnetization components and strong violations of the widely used relation $1∕{T}_{2}=1∕2{T}_{1}+1∕{T}_{\ensuremath{\phi}},$ which is a result of perturbation theory. We also discuss the effects of bang-bang and spin-echo controls of the qubit dynamics in general settings of the telegraph noises. Finally, we discuss the extension of the method to the cases of many telegraph noise sources and multiple qubits. The method still works when white noise is also present.
Two-level systems (TLS) are the major source of dephasing of spin qubits in numerous quantum computing platforms. In spite of much effort, it has been difficult to substantially mitigate the effects of this noise or, in many cases, to fully understand its physical origin. We propose a method to make progress on both of these issues. When an oscillating field is applied to a TLS, stochastic resonance can occur and the noise spectrum is moved to higher frequencies. This shift in the TLS noise spectrum will increase the dephasing times of the qubits that they influence. Furthermore, the details of this effect depend on the physical properties of the noise sources. Thus one can use qubit spectroscopy to investigate their physical properties, specifically the extent to which the TLS themselves possess quantum coherence. We find that it should be possible to determine the dephasing rate and the energy level separation of the TLS themselves in this way.
We develop a formally exact master equation to describe the evolution of the average density matrix of a closed quantum system driven by a stochastic Hamiltonian. The average over stochastic processes generally results in decoherence effects in closed system dynamics, in addition to the unitary evolution. We then show that, for an important class of problems in which the Hamiltonian is proportional to a Gaussian random process, the 2nd-order master equation yields exact dynamics. The general formalism is applied to study the examples of a two-level system, two atoms in a stochastic magnetic field and the heating of a trapped ion, where we find phenomena such as decoherence-induced disentanglement.
Two-level systems (TLSs) are the major source of dephasing of spin qubits in numerous quantum computing platforms. In spite of much effort, it has been difficult to substantially mitigate the effects of this noise or, in many cases, to fully understand its physical origin. We propose a method to make progress on both of these issues. When an oscillating field is applied to a TLS, stochastic resonance can occur and the noise spectrum is moved to higher frequencies. This shift in the TLS noise spectrum will increase the dephasing times of the qubits that they influence. Furthermore, the details of this effect depend on the physical properties of the noise sources. Thus one can use qubit spectroscopy to investigate their physical properties, specifically the extent to which the TLSs themselves possess quantum coherence. We find that it should be possible to determine the dephasing rate and the energy-level separation of the TLS themselves in this way.
The exact response theory based on the Dissipation Function applies to general dynamical systems and has yielded excellent results in various applications. In this article, we propose a method to apply it to quantum mechanics. In many quantum systems, it has not yet been possible to overcome the perturbative approach, and the most developed theory is the linear one. Extensions of the exact response theory developed in the field of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics could prove useful in quantum mechanics, as perturbations of small systems or far-from-equilibrium states cannot always be taken as small perturbations. Here, we introduce a quantum analogue of the classical Dissipation Function. We then derive a quantum expression for the exact calculation of time-dependent expectation values of observables, in a form analogous to that of the classical theory. We restrict our analysis to finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, for the sake of simplicity, and we apply our method to specific examples, like qubit systems, for which exact results can be obtained by standard techniques. This way, we prove the consistency of our approach with the existing methods, where they apply. Although not required for open systems, we propose a self-adjoint version of our Dissipation Operator, obtaining a second equivalent expression of response, where the contribution of an anti-self-adjoint operator appears. We conclude by using new formalism to solve the Lindblad equations, obtaining exact results for a specific case of qubit decoherence, and suggesting possible future developments of this work.
This paper considers a class of open quantum systems with an algebraic structure of dynamic variables, including the Pauli matrices for finite-level systems as a particular case. The Hamiltonian and the operators of coupling of the system to the external bosonic fields depend linearly on the system variables. The fields are represented by quantum Wiener processes which drive the system dynamics in the form of a quasilinear Hudson-Parthasarathy quantum stochastic differential equation whose drift vector and dispersion matrix are affine and linear functions of the system variables. This quasilinearity leads to a tractable evolution of the two-point commutator matrix of the system variables (and their multi-point mixed moments in the case of vacuum input fields) involving time-ordered operator exponentials. The resulting exponential decay in the two-point commutation relations is a manifestation of quantum decoherence, caused by the dissipative system-field interaction and making the system lose specific unitary dynamics features which it would have in isolation from the environment. We quantify the decoherence in terms of the rate of the commutation relations decay and apply system theoretic and matrix analytic techniques, such as algebraic Lyapunov inequalities and spectrum perturbation results, to the study of the asymptotic behaviour of the related Lyapunov exponents in the presence of a small scaling parameter in the system-field coupling. These findings are illustrated for finite-level quantum systems (and their interconnections through a direct energy coupling) with multichannel external fields and the Pauli matrices as internal variables.