We have studied the entanglement dynamics for a two-qubit system coupled to a spin environment of different configurations by a z–x-type interaction. Quantum dynamics of the models considered in this paper is solved analytically. Moreover, we show that simple and concise results may be obtained when certain approximations are properly made. Our purpose is to find out how the entanglement of a central spin system is affected by the pre-designed factors of the system and its environment, such as their initial states and the coupling constants between the system and its environment. Clearly, how the system is coupled to its environment will inevitably change the feature of entanglement evolution of the central spin system. Our major findings include the following: (i) the entanglement of the system of interest is sensitive to the number of spins in the environment, (ii) the initial states of the environment can profoundly affect the dynamics of the entanglement of the central spin system and (iii) the entangled environment can speed up the decay and revival of the entanglement of the central spin system. Our results exhibit some interesting features that have not been found for a bosonic environment.
We have studied the entanglement dynamics for a two-qubit system coupled to a spin environment of different configurations by a z–x-type interaction. Quantum dynamics of the models considered in this paper is solved analytically. Moreover, we show that simple and concise results may be obtained when certain approximations are properly made. Our purpose is to find out how the entanglement of a central spin system is affected by the pre-designed factors of the system and its environment, such as their initial states and the coupling constants between the system and its environment. Clearly, how the system is coupled to its environment will inevitably change the feature of entanglement evolution of the central spin system. Our major findings include the following: (i) the entanglement of the system of interest is sensitive to the number of spins in the environment, (ii) the initial states of the environment can profoundly affect the dynamics of the entanglement of the central spin system and (iii) the entangled environment can speed up the decay and revival of the entanglement of the central spin system. Our results exhibit some interesting features that have not been found for a bosonic environment.
One of the main obstacles toward building efficient quantum computing systems is decoherence, where the inevitable interaction between the qubits and the surrounding environment leads to a vanishing entanglement. We consider a system of two interacting asymmetric two-level atoms (qubits) in the presence of pure and correlated dephasing environments. We study the dynamics of entanglement while varying the interaction strength between the two qubits, their relative frequencies, and their coupling strength to the environment starting from different initial states of practical interest. The impact of the asymmetry of the two qubits, reflected in their different frequencies and coupling strengths to the environment, varies significantly depending on the initial state of the system and its degree of anisotropy. For an initial disentangled, or a Werner, state, as the difference between the frequencies increases, the entanglement decay rate increases, with more persistence at the higher degrees of anisotropy in the former state. However, for an initial anti-correlated Bell state, the entanglement decays more rapidly in the symmetric case compared with the asymmetric one. The difference in the coupling strengths of the two qubits to the pure (uncorrelated) dephasing environment leads to higher entanglement decay in the different initial state cases, though the rate varies depending on the degree of anisotropy and the initial state. Interestingly, the correlated dephasing environment, within a certain range, was found to enhance the entanglement dynamics starting from certain initial states, such as the disentangled, anti-correlated Bell, and Werner, whereas it exhibits a decaying effect in other cases such as the initial correlated Bell state.
We obtain exact dynamics of a two-qubit central spin model (CSM) consisting of two interacting qubits homogeneously coupled to a spin bath via the XXZ-type coupling, with the bath initially prepared in linear superpositions of the symmetric Dicke states. Using the interaction picture Hamiltonian with respect to the non-spin-flipping part of the model, we derive a sequence of equations of motion within each magnetization sector satisfied by the probability amplitudes of the time-evolved state. These equations of motion admit analytical solutions for the single-qubit CSM in which one of the two central qubits decouples from the rest of the system. Based on this, we provide a quantitative interpretation to the observed collapse-revival phenomena in the single-qubit Rabi oscillations when the bath is prepared in the spin coherent state. We then study the disentanglement and coherence dynamics of two initially entangled noninteracting qubits when the two qubits interact with individual baths or with a common bath. For individual baths, the coherent dynamics is found to be positively correlated to the single-qubit purity dynamics, and entanglement sudden disappearance and revivals are observed in both cases. The entanglement creation of two initially separable qubits coupled to a common bath is also studied and collapse and revival behaviors in the entanglement dynamics are observed. Choosing the equally weighted state and the W-class states as the bath initial states, we finally study the dynamics of entanglement between two individual bath spins and demonstrate the entanglement sharing mechanism in such a system.
We discuss two central spin models coupled, respectively, to a quantum Heisenberg XY spin star environment [1] and to an antiferromagnetic environment [2]. In the first model [1], the exact quantum dynamics of the reduced density matrix of two coupled spin qubits in a quantum Heisenberg XY spin star environment in the thermodynamic limit at arbitrarily finite temperatures is obtained using a novel operator technique. In this approach, the transformed Hamiltonian becomes effectively Jaynes-Cumming like and thus the analysis is also relevant to cavity quantum electrodynamics. This special operator technique is mathematically simple and physically clear, and allows us to treat systems and environments that could all be strongly coupled mutually and internally. To study their entanglement evolution, the concurrence of the reduced density matrix of the two coupled central spins is also obtained exactly. It is shown that the dynamics of the entanglement depends on the initial state of the system and the coupling strength between the two coupled central spins, the thermal temperature of the spin environment and the interaction between the constituents of the spin environment. We also investigate the effect of detuning which in our model can be controlled by the strength of a locally applied external magnetic field. It is found that the detuning has a significant effect on the entanglement generation between the two spin qubits.
The study of coherence dynamics in open quantum systems, specifically addressing various physical realizations of quantum systems and environments, is a long-standing and central pillar of quantum science and technology. As such, a large body of work establishes a firm theoretical understanding of these processes. Nevertheless, a fundamental aspect of decoherence dynamics, namely the central limit theorem of qubit dephasing in the central spin model, which leads to a Gaussian approximation, lacks formal proof in realistically relevant scenarios. Here we prove this approximation for a bath depicted by an Ising spin system, in the presence of disorder and several (most relevant) functional forms of qubit-bath coupling. Importantly, we show that in certain cases, namely for short-range (exponentially decaying) coupling, this approximation breaks. These results provide a theoretical framework for studying decoherence dynamics in various systems and lead to insights into dephasing behavior with implications for applications in quantum information, quantum computing, and other quantum technologies.
We study decoherence induced on a two-level system coupled to a one-dimensional quantum spin chain. We consider the cases where the dynamics of the chain is determined by the Ising, XY, or Heisenberg exchange Hamiltonian. This model of quantum baths can be of fundamental importance for the understanding of decoherence in open quantum systems, since it can be experimentally engineered by using atoms in optical lattices. As an example, here we show how to implement a pure dephasing model for a qubit system coupled to an interacting spin bath. We provide results that go beyond the case of a central spin coupled uniformly to all the spins of the bath, in particular showing what happens when the bath enters different phases, or becomes critical; we also study the dependence of the coherence loss on the number of bath spins to which the system is coupled and we describe a coupling-independent regime in which decoherence exhibits universal features, irrespective of the system-environment coupling strength. Finally, we establish a relation between decoherence and entanglement inside the bath. For the Ising and the XY models we are able to give an exact expression for the decay of coherences, while for the Heisenberg bath we resort to the numerical time-dependent density matrix renormalization group.
Decoherence of qubits is one main limitation in quantum information processing, where the qubits themselves can be mixed because of decoherence and additional decoherence may generated through interactions with a bath. Here, we present a complete study of qubit-environment entanglement in the case of interactions that lead to pure dephasing of the qubit by allowing the initial state of the qubit to be mixed, exceeding previous restrictions. We find that the criteria for separability that hold for pure initial states of the qubit are reduced to witness status. Yet, the evolution of the witnesses reflects the array of features that entanglement can exhibit in the mixed case but are forbidden in the pure-qubit case. Most notably, this includes sudden birth of entanglement as the initial phase of the evolution is typically separable. Moreover, there is a stark numerical advantage to the study of entanglement for large environments when using the witness rather than the traditional measures available. We include the study of entanglement generated between a spin qubit and a sparse spin environment to illustrate the peculiarities of the evolution of entanglement in this case, as well as to emphasize the level of reliability of the entanglement witness.