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arXiv:1612.08963 · Physical Review Letters

Relaxation to Negative Temperatures in Double Domain Systems

Yusuke Hama, William J. Munro, Kae Nemoto

Published Feb 8, 2018• 30 citations
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Abstract

The engineering of quantum systems and their environments has led to our ability now to design composite or complex systems with the properties one desires. In fact, this allows us to couple two or more distinct systems to the same environment where potentially unusual behavior and dynamics can be exhibited. In this Letter we investigate the relaxation of two giant spins or collective spin ensembles individually coupled to the same reservoir. We find that, depending on the configuration of the two individual spin ensembles, the steady state of the composite system does not necessarily reach the ground state of the individual systems, unlike what one would expect for independent environments. Further, when the size of one individual spin ensemble is much larger than the second, collective relaxation can drive the second system to an excited steady state even when it starts in the ground state; that is, the second spin ensemble relaxes towards a negative-temperature steady state.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.120.060403

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The engineering of quantum systems and their environments has led to our ability now to design composite or complex systems with the properties one desires. In fact, this allows us to couple two or more distinct systems to the same environment where potentially unusual behavior and dynamics can be exhibited. In this Letter we investigate the relaxation of two giant spins or collective spin ensembles individually coupled to the same reservoir. We find that, depending on the configuration of the two individual spin ensembles, the steady state of the composite system does not necessarily reach the ground state of the individual systems, unlike what one would expect for independent environments. Further, when the size of one individual spin ensemble is much larger than the second, collective relaxation can drive the second system to an excited steady state even when it starts in the ground state; that is, the second spin ensemble relaxes towards a negative-temperature steady state.
Spin collective phenomena including superradiance are even today being intensively investigated with experimental tests performed based on state-of-the-art quantum technologies. Such attempts are not only for the simple experimental verification of predictions from the last century, but also as a motivation to explore new applications of spin collective phenomena and the coherent control of the coupling between spin ensembles and reservoirs. In this paper, we investigate the open quantum dynamics of two spin ensembles (double-spin domains) coupled to a common bosonic reservoir. We analyze in detail the dynamics of our collective state and its structure by focusing on both the symmetry and asymmetry of this coupled spin system. We find that when the spin size of one of the double domains is larger than that of the other domain, at the steady state this system exhibits two unusual collective behaviors: the negative-temperature-state relaxation in the smaller spin domain and the reservoir-assisted quantum entanglement between the two domains. These results are the consequence of the asymmetry of this system and the decoherence driven by the common reservoir.
Abstract Negative absolute temperature has a wide range of applications, such as high-efficiency quantum heat engines, quantum refrigerators, and quantum simulation. In a recent paper (2018 Phys. Rev. Lett. 120 060403), the authors proposed two spin ensembles coupled to the same reservoir collectively; one ensemble relaxes to negative temperature since the two ensembles have unbalanced spin sizes. However, the coherent coupling mediated by the common environment is not considered. Here, we discuss negative temperature in a system where two qubit-ensembles are coupled to the same 1D waveguide. In the limit of Markovian approximation, by investigating the coherent coupling and non-cross (cross) collective decay between two qubit-ensembles, we find that the duration of the negative temperature state depends on the distance between the two ensembles. The decrease in negative temperature duration is due to the coherent coupling between the two ensembles that will hybridize the unitary evolution of the system. Some optimal points produce the longest duration of negative temperature, but this could not occur since the distance is out of the range of the appropriate regions. The negative temperature subensemble plays the role of a reservoir in the quantum Otto heat engine, which takes place beyond the Otto limit.
Understanding the effect of vibrations on the relaxation process of individual spins is crucial for implementing nanosystems for quantum information and quantum metrology applications. In this work, we present a theoretical microscopic model to describe the spin-lattice relaxation of individual electronic spins associated to negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, although our results can be extended to other spin-boson systems. Starting from a general spin-lattice interaction Hamiltonian, we provide a detailed description and solution of the quantum master equation of an electronic spin-one system coupled to a phononic bath in thermal equilibrium. Special attention is given to the dynamics of one-phonon processes below 1 K where our results agree with recent experimental findings and analytically describe the temperature and magnetic-field scaling. At higher temperatures, linear and second-order terms in the interaction Hamiltonian are considered and the temperature scaling is discussed for acoustic and quasilocalized phonons when appropriate. Our results, in addition to confirming a T5{T}^{5}T5 temperature dependence of the longitudinal relaxation rate at higher temperatures, in agreement with experimental observations, provide a theoretical background for modeling the spin-lattice relaxation at a wide range of temperatures where different temperature scalings might be expected.
We study the classic problem concerning the dissipative dynamics of a system of two interacting spin-1/21/21/2 particles, coupled to a thermal bath. In particular, we consider the case of a resonant excitation of the initial single-spin coherences and examine the consequences of the interplay between this excitation and the spin-spin dipolar coupling. Using a fluctuation-regulated Quantum Master Equation (frQME) [Phys. Rev. A 97, 063837 (2018)] we show that the relevant dissipator consists of cross-terms between the drive and the dipolar Hamiltonian, apart from regular self-terms responsible for ordinary relaxation effects. The drive-dipole cross-correlations provide for a novel second-order coupling of single and two-spin observables in the Zeeman basis, which cannot be classified as a dissipative effect. We show that the presence of these unique second-order non-dissipative terms lead to the well-known spin-locked steady-states in dipolar spin-ensembles. Importantly, the mathematical form of the steady-state magnetization in the spin-locked phase, obtained from our theory, matches with the prediction of the traditional spin-temperature based methods used to describe such phenomena.
We investigate the decoherence of a spin- 1/2 subsystem weakly coupled to an environment of many spins- 1/2 with and without mutual coupling. The total system is closed, its state is pure, and evolves under Schrödinger dynamics. Nevertheless, the considered spin typically reaches a quasistationary equilibrium state. Here we show that this state depends strongly on the coupling to the environment on the one hand and on the coupling within the environmental spins on the other. In particular we focus on spin star and spin ring-star geometries to investigate the effect of intra-environmental coupling on the central spin. By changing the spectrum of the environment, its effect as a bath on the central spin is also changed and may even be adjustable to some degree. We find that the relaxation behavior is related to the distribution of the energy eigenstates of the total system. For each of these relaxation modes, there is a dual mode for which the resulting subsystem approaches an inverted state occupation probability (negative temperature).
Long-range interacting models exhibit rich dynamical phenomena driven by deviations from collective descriptions. This work extends the study of these models to open quantum systems, focusing on the complex interplay between nonlocal interactions and local dissipation. The results demonstrate that the impact of long-range interactions on relaxation is twofold: they mitigate the impact of noises by stabilizing ferromagnetic domains and reducing local fluctuation, yet simultaneously accelerate memory loss by indirectly exposing each spin to a broader environment. While strong dissipation drives the system into glassy, range-insensitive relaxation, the results in weak dissipation regime reveal rich state-dependent dynamics. Specifically, long-range collective behaviors protect the early-stage coherence of systems quenched from polarized states, whereas they actively accelerate the relaxation of staggered configurations. Furthermore, nonlocal interactions continue to drive memory decorrelation even in the near-steady stages of a dissipative quench. These findings offer timely theoretical insights for the design, control, and calibration of analog quantum simulators operating with long-range interactions.