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arXiv:1110.2199

False loss of coherence

William George Unruh

Published Oct 10, 2011• 0 citations
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Abstract

The loss of coherence of a quantum system coupled to a heat bath as expressed by the reduced density matrix is shown to lead to the miss-characterization of some systems as being incoherent when they are not. The spin boson problem and the harmonic oscillator with massive scalar field heat baths are given as examples of reduced incoherent density matrices which nevertheless still represent perfectly coherent systems.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1110.2199

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The loss of coherence of a quantum system coupled to a heat bath as expressed by the reduced density matrix is shown to lead to the miss-characterization of some systems as being incoherent when they are not. The spin boson problem and the harmonic oscillator with massive scalar field heat baths are given as examples of reduced incoherent density matrices which nevertheless still represent perfectly coherent systems.
We calculate the reduced density matrix for a system of coupled harmonic oscillators in a bosonic heat bath using the Born-Markov approximation and show that the expectation values of position and momentum evolve like classical quantities. We consider the cases where every oscillator is coupled to its own reservoir and where all oscillators are coupled to the same heat bath, pointing out the differences between these two models. In particular, for systems coupled to a common reservoir, we present an uncommon dissipation mechanism, which disappears, when the dynamics of the system are gouverned by the low frequency modes of the environment (Caldeira-Leggett limit). We also address the interesting phenomenon of reservoir-induced interactions.
Interaction between a quantum system and its environment can induce stationary coherences---off-diagonal elements in the reduced system density matrix in the energy eigenstate basis---even at equilibrium. This work investigates the ``quantumness'' of such phenomena by examining the ability of classical and semiclassical models to describe equilibrium stationary coherence in the multilevel spin boson model, a common model for light-harvesting systems. A well justified classical harmonic-oscillator model is found to fail to capture equilibrium coherence. This failure is attributed to the effective weakness of classical system-bath interactions due to the absence of a discrete system energy spectrum and, consequently, of quantized shifts in oscillator coordinates. Semiclassical coherences also vanish for a dimeric model with parameters typical of biological light harvesting, i.e., where both system sites couple to the bath with the same reorganization energy. In contrast, equilibrium coherence persists in a fully quantum description of the same system, suggesting a uniquely quantum-mechanical origin for equilibrium stationary coherence in, e.g., photosynthetic systems. Finally, as a computational tool, a perturbative expansion is introduced that, at third order in $\ensuremath{\hbar}$, gives qualitatively correct behavior at ambient temperatures for all configurations examined.
The loss of coherence in a general open quantum system interacting with a bosonic environment is analyzed. The reservoir is initially in a thermal state. The reduced dynamics is described by a non-Markovian time-local master equation. We consider spectral densities that are sub- or super-Ohmic at low frequencies and arbitrarily shaped at high frequencies. In the super-Ohmic regime, for noninteger frequency powers larger than 2, long time survival of coherence appears. In the latter regime, at vanishing temperature, the asymptotic amount of surviving coherence is stabilized to its initial value, up to a phase factor, by properly increasing the bandwidth and decreasing the low-frequency profile of the spectral density. For noninteger positive frequency powers less than 2, stretched exponential-like decoherence is found over long times. The relaxations to the asymptotic configurations become arbitrarily slow by approaching the frequency power 2 of the super-Ohmic regime. The same dependence on temperature, spectral density, and scale frequency appears for purity and concurrence of two qubits and coherence of a qubit.
We generalize the conventional spin-boson Hamiltonian by considering additional nonlinear coupling terms between system and heat bath. The equation of motion for the reduced density matrix of the system is calculated in second-order perturbation theory in the tunnelling matrix element and the nonlinear coupling constant. We obtain an explicit expression for the Laplace transform of the function which describes the time evolution of the position of the system. Due to the influence of the nonlinear coupling for temperatures much lower than the Debye temperature a transition from coherent to incoherent dynamics may take place. We fully describe this crossover by our expression.
The temperature of an oscillator coupled to the vacuum state of a heat bath via Ohmic coupling is non-zero, as measured by the reduced density matrix of the oscillator. This study shows that the actual temperature, as measured by a thermometer, is still zero (or, in the thermal state of the bath, the temperature of the bath). The decoherence temperature is due to 'false-decoherence', with a correlation between the oscillator and the heat bath causing the decoherence, but the heat baths state dragged along with the state of the oscillator.
The interaction of a quantum system with its environment causes decoherence, setting a fundamental limit on its suitability for quantum information processing. However, we show that if the system consists of coupled parts with different internal energy scales then the interaction of one part with a thermal bath need not lead to loss of coherence from the other. Remarkably, we find that the protected part can remain coherent for longer when the coupling to the bath becomes stronger or the temperature is raised. Our theory will enable the design of decoherence-resistant hybrid quantum computers.