Engineering quantum systems offers great opportunities both technologically and scientifically for communication, computation, and simulation. The construction and operation of large scale quantum information devices presents a grand challenge and a major issue is the effective control of coherent dynamics. This is often in the presence of decoherence which further complicates the task of determining the behaviour of the system. Here, we show how to determine open system Markovian dynamics of a quantum system with restricted initialisation and partial output state information.
Engineering quantum systems offers great opportunities both technologically and scientifically for communication, computation, and simulation. The construction and operation of large scale quantum information devices presents a grand challenge and a major issue is the effective control of coherent dynamics. This is often in the presence of decoherence which further complicates the task of determining the behaviour of the system. Here, we show how to determine open system Markovian dynamics of a quantum system with restricted initialisation and partial output state information.
College of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, National University ofDefense Technology, Changsha 410073, ChinaAbstract. Engineering quantum systems o ers great opportunities both tech-nologically and scienti cally for communication, computation, and simulation.The construction and operation of large scale quantum information devicespresents a grand challenge and a major issue is the e ective control of coherentdynamics. This is often in the presence of decoherence which further complicatesthe task of determining the behaviour of the system. Here, we show how to de-termine open system Markovian dynamics of a quantum system with restrictedinitialisation and partial output state information.PACS numbers: 03.67.Lx
Recent developments in practical quantum engineering and control techniques have allowed significant developments for experimental studies of open quantum systems and decoherence engineering. Indeed, it has become possible to test experimentally various theoretical, mathematical, and physical concepts related to non-Markovian quantum dynamics. This includes experimental characterization and quantification of non-Markovian memory effects and proof-of-principle demonstrations how to use them for certain quantum communication and information tasks. We describe here recent experimental advances for open system studies, focussing in particular to non-Markovian dynamics including the applications of memory effects, and discuss the possibilities for ultimate control of decoherence and open system dynamics.
An optimal quantum algorithm for "direct characterization of quantum dynamics" (DCQD) is introduced. The DCQD method can be utilized to completely determine the quantum dynamical superoperator acting on an open quantum system. In contrast to all other known quantum process tomography (QPT) schemes, this scheme relies on error-detection techniques and does not require any quantum state tomography. By analysis of the number of required experimental configurations and quantum operations in a given Hilbert space, it is demonstrated that this approach is more efficient than all other known QPT schemes. DCQD can be applied, by construction, to the task of partial characterization of quantum dynamics. Specifically, it is demonstrated that the DCQD algorithm can be efficiently used for Hamiltonian identification, and also for simultaneous determination of both the relaxation time T1 and dephasing time T2. Furthermore, it is argued that the DCQD scheme is experimentally implementable in a variety of prominent quantum information processing systems, and it is explicitly shown how it can be physically realized in photonic systems with present day technology. The ability of a quantum system to perform arbitrary or "universal" quantum operations is restricted to its naturally available/controllable interactions. It is shown that quantum systems with an effective exchange interaction can be made operationally universal by utilizing a subspace or a subsystem of the combined principal system and an auxiliary system. Moreover, it is demonstrated that universal fault-tolerant quantum computation can be performed on these systems without utilizing any form of single-qubit control. Characterization and control of open quantum systems are among the central and fundamental problems in quantum physics. A crucial primitive is the characterization of the dynamics of a quantum system that has an unknown interaction with its embedding environment. Another essential task is to control the decoherence of an open quantum system by using naturally available interactions. This thesis addresses the above fundamental problems in two separate parts. In the first part, a general theory for direct and complete characterization of quantum dynamics is introduced. In the second part, a scheme for performing arbitrary quantum operations on spin-based quantum systems is presented. This scheme can be implemented in the presence of environmental noise and faulty quantum operations without need to control the state of spins individually.
One of the greatest challenges in the fields of quantum information processing and quantum technologies is the detailed coherent control over each and every constituent of quantum systems with an ever increasing number of particles. Within this endeavor, harnessing of many-body entanglement against the detrimental effects of the environment is a major pressing issue. Besides being an important concept from a fundamental standpoint, entanglement has been recognized as a crucial resource for quantum speed-ups or performance enhancements over classical methods. Understanding and controlling many-body entanglement in open systems may have strong implications in quantum computing, quantum simulations of many-body systems, secure quantum communication or cryptography, quantum metrology, our understanding of the quantum-to-classical transition, and other important questions of quantum foundations. In this paper we present an overview of recent theoretical and experimental efforts to underpin the dynamics of entanglement under the influence of noise. Entanglement is thus taken as a dynamic quantity on its own, and we survey how it evolves due to the unavoidable interaction of the entangled system with its surroundings. We analyze several scenarios, corresponding to different families of states and environments, which render a very rich diversity of dynamical behaviors. In contrast to single-particle quantities, like populations and coherences, which typically vanish only asymptotically in time, entanglement may disappear at a finite time. In addition, important classes of entanglement display an exponential decay with the number of particles when subject to local noise, which poses yet another threat to the already-challenging scaling of quantum technologies. Other classes, however, turn out to be extremely robust against local noise. Theoretical results and recent experiments regarding the difference between local and global decoherence are summarized. Control and robustness- enhancement techniques, scaling laws, statistical and geometrical aspects of multipartite-entanglement decay are also reviewed; all in order to give a broad picture of entanglement dynamics in open quantum systems addressed to both theorists and experimentalists inside and outside the field of quantum information.
One of the greatest challenges in the fields of quantum information processing and quantum technologies is the detailed coherent control over each and every constituent of quantum systems with an ever increasing number of particles. Within this endeavor, harnessing of many-body entanglement against the detrimental effects of the environment is a major pressing issue. Besides being an important concept from a fundamental standpoint, entanglement has been recognized as a crucial resource for quantum speed-ups or performance enhancements over classical methods. Understanding and controlling many-body entanglement in open systems may have strong implications in quantum computing, quantum simulations of many-body systems, secure quantum communication or cryptography, quantum metrology, our understanding of the quantum-to-classical transition, and other important questions of quantum foundations.In this paper we present an overview of recent theoretical and experimental efforts to underpin the dynamics of entanglement under the influence of noise. Entanglement is thus taken as a dynamic quantity on its own, and we survey how it evolves due to the unavoidable interaction of the entangled system with its surroundings. We analyze several scenarios, corresponding to different families of states and environments, which render a very rich diversity of dynamical behaviors.In contrast to single-particle quantities, like populations and coherences, which typically vanish only asymptotically in time, entanglement may disappear at a finite time. In addition, important classes of entanglement display an exponential decay with the number of particles when subject to local noise, which poses yet another threat to the already-challenging scaling of quantum technologies. Other classes, however, turn out to be extremely robust against local noise. Theoretical results and recent experiments regarding the difference between local and global decoherence are summarized. Control and robustness-enhancement techniques, scaling laws, statistical and geometrical aspects of multipartite-entanglement decay are also reviewed; all in order to give a broad picture of entanglement dynamics in open quantum systems addressed to both theorists and experimentalists inside and outside the field of quantum information.
The advent of quantum devices, which exploit the two essential elements of quantum physics, coherence and entanglement, has sparked renewed interest in the control of open quantum systems. Successful implementations face the challenge of preserving relevant nonclassical features at the level of device operation. A major obstacle is decoherence, which is caused by interaction with the environment. Optimal control theory is a tool that can be used to identify control strategies in the presence of decoherence. Here we review recent advances in optimal control methodology that allow typical tasks in device operation for open quantum systems to be tackled and discuss examples of relaxation-optimized dynamics. Optimal control theory is also a useful tool to exploit the environment for control. We discuss examples and point out possible future extensions.