Entanglement evolution in a non-Markovian environment

Matteo G. A. Paris

Zi-Long Fan, Jing Tian, Hao‐Sheng Zeng

We study the entanglement (measured by negativity) evolution and the non-Markovianity for the dynamical process of a spin-S system embedded in dephasing environments. The exact analytical solution is presented, which shows that the decoherence function governs the evolutions of coherence, entanglement, and the non-Markovianity of the corresponding dynamical processes. For Ohmic and sub-Ohmic reservoirs, the negativity decreases monotonically in time and the corresponding dynamics is Markovian. While for super-Ohmic reservoirs with non-monotonic decoherence function, the negativity appears as the phenomenon of revival and the corresponding dynamics is non-Markovian. The relation between non-Markovianity and the system dimension is studied.

Adrián A. Budini

The degree of non-Markovianity allows one to characterize quantum evolutions that depart from a Markovian regime in a similar way as the Schmidt number measures the degree of entanglement of pure states. Maximally non-Markovian dynamics are analogous to maximally entangled states [D. Chru\ifmmode \acute{s}\else \'{s}\fi{}ci\ifmmode \acute{n}\else \'{n}\fi{}ski and S. Maniscalco, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 120404 (2014)]. Here we demonstrate that there exists a class of maximally non-Markovian quantum evolutions where the associated environment (degrees of freedom not belonging to the system) obeys a Markovian (memoryless) dynamics, which in turn is unperturbed by the system state or dynamics. These properties imply the absence of any ``physical environment-to-system backflow of information.'' Non-Markovian features (as usual in quantum systems coupled to dissipative classical degrees of freedom) arise from a unidirectional dependence of the system dynamics on the reservoir states.

Chun Miao, Ming Yang, Zhuo‐Liang Cao

Feng Han

Chandrashekhar Gaikwad, Daria Kowsari, Carson Brame +8 more

We utilize a superconducting qubit processor to experimentally probe non-Markovian dynamics of an entangled qubit pair. We prepare an entangled state between two qubits and monitor the evolution of entanglement over time as one of the qubits interacts with a small quantum environment consisting of an auxiliary transmon qubit coupled to its readout cavity. We observe the collapse and revival of the entanglement as a signature of quantum memory effects in the environment. We then engineer the non-Markovianity of the environment by populating its readout cavity with thermal photons to show a transition from non-Markovian to Markovian dynamics, ultimately reaching a regime where the quantum Zeno effect creates a decoherence-free subspace that effectively stabilizes the entanglement between the qubits.