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arXiv:1804.11057

Generation, estimation, and protection of novel quantum states of spin systems

Harpreet Singh

Published Apr 30, 2018• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

This thesis deals with the generation, estimation and preservation of novel quantum states of two and three qubits, on an NMR quantum information processor. Using the maximum likelihood ansatz, we have developed a method for state estimation such that the reconstructed density matrix does not have negative eigenvalues and the errors are within the space of valid density operators. Due to interactions with the environment, unwanted changes occur in the system, leading to decoherence. Controlling decoherence is one of the biggest challenges to be overcome to build quantum computers. We have used several experimental strategies to decouple the quantum system from its environment. These strategies are based on how much we know about system-environment interaction and what states we want to preserve. We first consider a case where we are aware of the system state but have no knowledge about its interaction with the environment. We demonstrate the efficacy of the super-Zeno scheme to tackle decoherence in this case. Then we consider a situation where only the subspace is known to which the system state belongs. To address such a situation we used a nested Uhrig dynamical decoupling scheme. Next, we consider situations where we have knowledge of the state of the system as well as its interaction with the environment. In such situations, since the noise model is known, decoupling strategies can be explicitly designed to cancel this noise. Using these decoupling strategies, we can experimentally extend the lifetime of time-invariant discord of two-qubit Bell-diagonal states and are also able to preserve the entanglement of three NMR qubits, to a remarkable extent.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1804.11057

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This thesis deals with the generation, estimation and preservation of novel quantum states of two and three qubits, on an NMR quantum information processor. Using the maximum likelihood ansatz, we have developed a method for state estimation such that the reconstructed density matrix does not have negative eigenvalues and the errors are within the space of valid density operators. Due to interactions with the environment, unwanted changes occur in the system, leading to decoherence. Controlling decoherence is one of the biggest challenges to be overcome to build quantum computers. We have used several experimental strategies to decouple the quantum system from its environment. These strategies are based on how much we know about system-environment interaction and what states we want to preserve. We first consider a case where we are aware of the system state but have no knowledge about its interaction with the environment. We demonstrate the efficacy of the super-Zeno scheme to tackle decoherence in this case. Then we consider a situation where only the subspace is known to which the system state belongs. To address such a situation we used a nested Uhrig dynamical decoupling scheme. Next, we consider situations where we have knowledge of the state of the system as well as its interaction with the environment. In such situations, since the noise model is known, decoupling strategies can be explicitly designed to cancel this noise. Using these decoupling strategies, we can experimentally extend the lifetime of time-invariant discord of two-qubit Bell-diagonal states and are also able to preserve the entanglement of three NMR qubits, to a remarkable extent.
In the field of quantum information, a major challenge is to protect and shield quantum systems from environmental influences, which cause dissipation and decoherence. One approach to address this problem is called dynamical decoupling, where we act on a quantum system with a series of fast and strong local control operations. If done correctly, the system's state gets rotated in discrete steps in its state space in such a way that the effects of the environment cancel up to a certain order. In the first part of this thesis, we will introduce the basics of dynamical decoupling and present a new approach for constructing dynamical decoupling schemes based on sequences of Weyl operators on networks of qudits. This approach goes beyond merely protecting a quantum system, as it is also capable of altering existing Hamiltonian interactions in ways suitable for quantum simulation purposes. We will also investigate how imperfect controls influence the effectiveness of dynamical decoupling and focus particularly on stochastic noise. In the second part of the thesis, we study concrete scenarios for the application of dynamical decoupling. First, we consider the task of quantum state transfer on a linear chain of qubits and use decoupling to protect the transfer from detrimental influences caused by a bend in the chain. We also look at how to design the specific interaction strengths required on the chain to make the state transfer work and extend this result to chains of qudits. Another chapter deals with decoupling the atomic centre-of-mass motion of a trapped atom or ion in a cavity interacting with a radiation field. Finally, we use decoupling to execute sequences of one- and two-qubit quantum gates on a chain of coupled qubits. Particular care is taken to ensure high fidelity operations in the presence of imperfect decoupling pulses.
Known as decoherence, the unavoidable interaction of a quantum system with its surrounding environment is usually considered to be detrimental for quantum information processing. In this thesis the coherent, open loop control of such open systems is studied. Concepts from quantum control theory and the theory of open quantum system are adopted in order to fight decoherence and implement quantum gates in a noiseless manner. In particular, Lie algebraic methods and numerical optimization tools are used to investigate the control properties of a single spin interacting with a spin environment. We show that, independent of the size of the environment, every unitary transformation can be implemented on the system spin through a single control field. We proceed by investigating dynamical decoupling, a method to suppress the interactions with the environment, for finite- and for in- finite dimensional systems. We prove that every finite dimensional system can be protected from decoherence, even if the environment is infinite dimensional, whereas for noise described by a Lindblad master equation dynamical decoupling will never succeed. This will lead to a new method to distinguish decoherence from intrinsic noise terms. We further prove that not every infinite dimensional system can be protected from decoherence through dynamical decoupling. Afterwards we investigate dynamical decoupling of systems that are described by quadratic Hamiltonians, showing that such interactions can always be suppressed with two simple operations. In the last part we investigate the coherent control of a Lindblad master equation. We show that a strong noise process exhibiting a decoherence free subspace can substantially increase the number of unitary operations that can be implemented, allowing us to fully control parts of the system. Afterwards we develop a scheme to make Hamiltonians and Lindbladians commutative by adding an auxiliary system. The old, possibly non-commutative dynamics, is recovered through a non-selective measurement.
We generate different orders of quantum coherence in a three-qubit NMR system and study their dynamics in the presence of inherent noise. Robust dynamical decoupling (DD) sequences are applied to preserve the different coherence orders. Initially, DD sequences are implemented simultaneously on all three spins, which effectively protects third-order coherence; however, other coherence orders decay rapidly instead of being preserved. The robust DD sequences were suitably modified in order to preserve other coherence orders. These sequences are applied to the two participating qubits that generate each zero- and second-order coherence, ensuring their effective preservation. In contrast, first-order coherence is preserved more efficiently when DD sequences are applied exclusively on the qubit responsible for generating it. Instead of performing full quantum state tomography, coherence orders are measured directly using single pulses. The robust DD protection schemes are applied to successfully protect two-qubit entanglement in three-qubit star states.
We experimentally demonstrate the freezing of evolution of quantum states in one- and two-dimensional subspaces of two qubits, on an NMR quantum information processor. State evolution was frozen and leakage of the state from its subspace to an orthogonal subspace was successfully prevented using super-Zeno sequences [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 100405 (2006)], comprising a set of radio frequency (rf) pulses punctuated by pre-selected time intervals. We demonstrate the efficacy of the scheme by preserving different types of states, including separable and maximally entangled states in one- and two-dimensional subspaces of two qubits. The change in the experimental density matrices was tracked by carrying out full state tomography at several time points. We use the fidelity measure for the one-dimensional case and the leakage (fraction) into the orthogonal subspace for the two-dimensional case, as qualitative indicators to estimate the resemblance of the density matrix at a later time to the initially prepared density matrix. For the case of entangled states, we additionally compute an entanglement parameter to indicate the presence of entanglement in the state at different times. We experimentally demonstrate that the super-Zeno scheme is able to successfully confine state evolution to the one- or two-dimensional subspace being protected.
We experimentally demonstrate the efficacy of a three-layer nested Uhrig dynamical decoupling (NUDD) sequence to preserve arbitrary quantum states in a two-dimensional subspace of the four-dimensional two-qubit Hilbert space on a nuclear magnetic resonance quantum information processor. The effect of the state preservation is studied first on four known states, including two product states and two maximally entangled Bell states. Next, to evaluate the preservation capacity of the NUDD scheme, we apply it to eight randomly generated states in the subspace. Although, the preservation of different states varies, the scheme, on the average, performs very well. The complete tomographs of the states at different time points are used to compute fidelity. State fidelities using NUDD protection are compared with those obtained without using any protection. The nested pulse schemes are complex in nature and require careful experimental implementation.
Future quantum technologies rely heavily on good protection of quantum entanglement against environment-induced decoherence. A recent study showed that an extension of Uhrig's dynamical decoupling (UDD) sequence can (in theory) lock an arbitrary but known two-qubit entangled state to the NNNth order using a sequence of NNN control pulses [Mukhtar et al., Phys. Rev. A 81, 012331 (2010)]. By nesting three layers of explicitly constructed UDD sequences, here we first consider the protection of unknown two-qubit states as superposition of two known basis states, without making assumptions of the system-environment coupling. It is found that the obtained decoherence suppression can be highly sensitive to the ordering of the three UDD layers and can be remarkably effective with the correct ordering. The detailed theoretical results are useful for general understanding of the nature of controlled quantum dynamics under nested UDD. As an extension of our three-layer UDD, it is finally pointed out that a completely unknown two-qubit state can be protected by nesting four layers of UDD sequences. This work indicates that when UDD is applicable (e.g., when the environment has a sharp frequency cutoff and when control pulses can be taken as instantaneous pulses), dynamical decoupling using nested UDD sequences is a powerful approach for entanglement protection.