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arXiv:1505.03503 · Physical Review A

Measuring and using non-Markovianity

Carlos Pineda, T. Gorin, David Davalos, Diego A. Wisniacki, Ignacio García-Mata

Published Feb 24, 2016• 50 citations
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Abstract

We construct measures for the non-Markovianity of quantum evolution with a physically meaningful interpretation. We first provide a general setting in the framework of channel capacities and propose two families of meaningful quantitative measures, based on the largest revival of a channel capacity, avoiding some drawbacks of other non-Markovianity measures. We relate the proposed measures to the task of information screening. This shows that the non-Markovianity of a quantum process may be used as a resource. Under these considerations, we analyze two paradigmatic examples, a qubit in a quantum environment with classically mixed dynamics and the Jaynes-Cummings model.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.93.022117

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We construct measures for the non-Markovianity of quantum evolution with a physically meaningful interpretation. We first provide a general setting in the framework of channel capacities and propose two families of meaningful quantitative measures, based on the largest revival of a channel capacity, avoiding some drawbacks of other non-Markovianity measures. We relate the proposed measures to the task of information screening. This shows that the non-Markovianity of a quantum process may be used as a resource. Under these considerations, we analyze two paradigmatic examples, a qubit in a quantum environment with classically mixed dynamics and the Jaynes-Cummings model.
Quantum technologies rely on the ability to coherently manipulate, process and transfer information, encoded in quantum states, along quantum channels. Decoherence induced by the environment introduces errors, thus setting limits on the efficiency of any quantum-enhanced protocol or device. A fundamental bound on the ability of a noisy quantum channel to transmit quantum (classical) information is given by its quantum (classical) capacity. Generally, the longer is a quantum channel the more are the introduced errors, and hence the worse is its capacity. In this Letter we show that for non-Markovian quantum channels this is not always true: surprisingly the capacity of a longer channel can be greater than the one of a shorter channel. We introduce a general theoretical framework linking non-Markovianity to the capacities of quantum channels, and demonstrate in full generality how harnessing non-Markovianity may improve the efficiency of quantum information processing and communication.
Different measures have been presented to depict the deviation of quantum time evolution in open systems from Markovian processes. We demonstrate that the measure proposed by Breuer, Laine, and Piilo [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 210401 (2009)] and the two measures proposed by Rivas, Huelga, and Plenio [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 050403 (2010)] have exactly the same non-Markovian time-evolution intervals and thus are really equivalent to each other when they are applied to open two-level systems coupled to environments via the Jaynes-Cummings or dephasing models. This equivalence implies that the three measures, in different ways, capture the intrinsic character of the non-Markovianity of quantum evolutional processes. We also show that the maximization in the definition of the first measure can be actually removed for the considered models without influencing the sensibility of the measure to detect non-Markovianity.
The quantification and characterization of non-Markovian dynamics in quantum systems is an essential endeavor both for the theory of open quantum systems and for a deeper understanding of the effects of non-Markovian noise on quantum technologies. Here, we introduce the robustness of non-Markovianity, an operationally-motivated, optimization-free measure that quantifies the minimum amount of Markovian noise that can be mixed with a non-Markovian evolution before it becomes Markovian. We show that this quantity is a bonafide non-Markovianity measure, since it is faithful, convex, and monotonic under composition with Markovian channels. A two-fold operational interpretation of this measure is provided, with the robustness measure quantifying an advantage in both a state discrimination and a channel discrimination task. Furthermore, we provide a closed-form analytical expression for this measure and show that, quite remarkably, the robustness measure is exactly equal to half the Rivas-Huelga-Plenio (RHP) measure [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{105}, 050403 (2010)]. As a result, we provide a direct operational meaning to the RHP measure while endowing the robustness measure with the physical characterizations of the RHP measure.
Quantum technologies rely on the ability to coherently transfer information encoded in quantum states along quantum channels. Decoherence induced by the environment sets limits on the efficiency of any quantum-enhanced protocol. Generally, the longer a quantum channel is the worse its capacity is. We show that for non-Markovian quantum channels this is not always true: surprisingly the capacity of a longer channel can be greater than of a shorter one. We introduce a general theoretical framework linking non-Markovianity to the capacities of quantum channels and demonstrate how harnessing non-Markovianity may improve the efficiency of quantum information processing and communication.
Understanding whether the features of open quantum dynamics are genuinely quantum remains a central challenge in quantum dynamics. Even though the non-Markovian behavior of quantum dynamics has been widely investigated across different settings, there is still no consensus on which properties of a dynamics reflect genuine quantum features and which arise from classical or non-genuine quantum sources. In this review, we provide detailed information on recent developments in characterizing quantum non-Markovianity based on information backflow and the nature of its origin. We also present a survey on how various approaches separate classical and quantum contributions, as well as how they define operational tasks that reveal genuine quantum non-Markovianity. We analyze several frameworks, including state-distinguishability -based, channel-based (``CP-divisibility''), and process-tensor methods. For each framework, we outline the underlying physical motivation, the criteria proposed to distinguish genuine quantum non-Markovianity from practical or apparent memory effects. We further compare different approaches and their strengths and limitations. The review aims to clarify the conceptual and operational aspects of quantum non-Markovian processes based on their nature and to provide a foundation for future research on quantum non-Markovianity and its role in advancing quantum information science and technology.
We address the non-Markovian character of quantum maps describing the interaction of a qubit with a random classical field. In particular, we evaluate trace- and capacity-based non-Markovianity measures for two relevant classes of environments showing non-Gaussian fluctuations, described respectively by random telegraph noise and colored noise with spectra of the the form $1/{f}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$. We analyze the dynamics of both the trace distance and the quantum capacity, and show that the behavior of non-Markovianity based on both measures is qualitatively similar. Our results show that environments with a spectrum that contains a relevant low-frequency contribution are generally non-Markovian. We also find that the non-Markovianity of colored environments decreases when the number of fluctuators realizing the environment increases.