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arXiv:0907.1315 · Physical Review A

Soft-pulse dynamical decoupling with Markovian decoherence

Leonid P. Pryadko, Gregory Quiroz

Published Oct 20, 2009• 23 citations
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Abstract

We consider the effect of broadband decoherence on the performance of refocusing sequences, having in mind applications of dynamical decoupling in concatenation with quantum error correcting codes as the first stage of coherence protection. Specifically, we construct cumulant expansions of effective decoherence operators for a qubit driven by a pulse of a generic symmetric shape and for several sequences of $\ensuremath{\pi}$ and $\ensuremath{\pi}/2$ pulses. While, in general, the performance of soft pulses in decoupling sequences in the presence of Markovian decoherence is worse than that of the ideal $\ensuremath{\delta}$ pulses, it can be substantially improved by shaping.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.80.042317

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We consider the effect of broadband decoherence on the performance of refocusing sequences, having in mind applications of dynamical decoupling in concatenation with quantum error correcting codes as the first stage of coherence protection. Specifically, we construct cumulant expansions of effective decoherence operators for a qubit driven by a pulse of a generic symmetric shape and for several sequences of \ensuremathπ\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremathπ and \ensuremathπ/2\ensuremath{\pi}/2\ensuremathπ/2 pulses. While, in general, the performance of soft pulses in decoupling sequences in the presence of Markovian decoherence is worse than that of the ideal \ensuremathδ\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremathδ pulses, it can be substantially improved by shaping.
Dynamical decoupling is a coherent control technique where the intrinsic and extrinsic couplings of a quantum system are effectively averaged out by application of specially designed driving fields (refocusing pulse sequences). This entails pumping energy into the system, which can be especially dangerous when it has sharp spectral features like a cavity mode close to resonance. In this work we show that such an effect can be avoided with properly constructed refocusing sequences. To this end we construct the average Hamiltonian expansion for the system evolution operator associated with a single ``soft'' $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulse. To second order in the pulse duration, we characterize a symmetric pulse shape by three parameters, two of which can be made zero by shaping. We express the effective Hamiltonians for several pulse sequences in terms of these parameters and use the results to analyze the structure of error operators for a controlled Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian. When errors are cancelled to second order, numerical simulations show excellent qubit fidelity with strongly suppressed oscillator heating.
Refocusing, or dynamical decoupling, is a coherent control technique where the internal dynamics of a quantum system is effectively averaged out by an application of specially designed driving fields. The method has originated in nuclear magnetic resonance, but it was independently discovered in atomic physics as a ``coherent destruction of tunneling''. Present work deals with the analysis of the performance of ``soft'' refocusing pulses and pulse sequences in protecting the coherence of a qubit system coupled to a quantum oscillator.
Dynamical decoupling pulse sequences have been used to extend coherence times in quantum systems ever since the discovery of the spin-echo effect. Here we introduce a method of recursively concatenated dynamical decoupling pulses, designed to overcome both decoherence and operational errors. This is important for coherent control of quantum systems such as quantum computers. For bounded-strength, non-Markovian environments, such as for the spin-bath that arises in electron- and nuclear-spin based solid-state quantum computer proposals, we show that it is strictly advantageous to use concatenated pulses, as opposed to standard periodic dynamical decoupling pulse sequences. Namely, the concatenated scheme is both fault tolerant and superpolynomially more efficient, at equal cost. We derive a condition on the pulse noise level below which concatenation is guaranteed to reduce decoherence.
We model repetitive quantum error correction (QEC) with the single-error-correcting five-qubit code on a network of individually controlled qubits with always-on Ising couplings. We use our previously designed universal set of quantum gates based on sequences of shaped decoupling pulses. In addition to being accurate quantum gates, the sequences also provide dynamical decoupling (DD) of low-frequency phase noise. The simulation involves integrating the unitary dynamics of six qubits over the duration of tens of thousands of control pulses, using classical stochastic phase noise as a source of decoherence. The combined DD and QEC protocol dramatically improves the coherence, with the QEC alone being responsible for more than an order of magnitude infidelity reduction.
Dynamical decoupling is a technique for preserving the coherence of quantum-mechanical states in the presence of a noisy environment. It uses sequences of inversion pulses to suppress the environmental perturbations by periodically refocusing them. It has been shown that different sequences of inversion pulses show vastly different performance, in particular also concerning the correction of experimental pulse imperfections. Here, we investigate specifically the role of time-reversal symmetry in the building blocks of the pulse sequence. We show that using time-symmetric building blocks often improves the performance of the sequence compared to sequences formed by time-asymmetric building blocks. Using quantum state tomography of the echoes generated by the sequences, we analyze the mechanisms that lead to loss of fidelity and show how they can be compensated by suitable concatenation of symmetry-related blocks of decoupling pulses.
Dynamical decoupling can be used to preserve arbitrary quantum states despite undesired interactions with the environment, using control Hamiltonians affecting the system only. We present a system-independent analysis of dynamical decoupling based on leading order decoupling error estimates, valid for bounded-strength environments. Using as a key tool a renormalization transformation of the effective system-bath coupling Hamiltonian, we delineate the reliability domain of dynamical decoupling used for quantum state preservation, in a general setting for a single qubit. We specifically analyze and compare two deterministic dynamical decoupling schemes---periodic and concatenated---and distinguish between two limiting cases of fast versus slow environments. We prove that concatenated decoupling outperforms periodic decoupling over a wide range of parameters. These results are obtained for both ``ideal'' (zero-width) and realistic (finite-width) pulses This work extends and generalizes our earlier work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 180501 (2005)].