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arXiv:1805.04665 · Physical Review A

Canonical Leggett-Garg inequality: Nonclassicality of temporal quantum correlations under energy constraint

Titas Chanda, Tamoghna Das, Shiladitya Mal, Aditi Sen, Ujjwal Sen

Published Aug 29, 2018• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Nonclassicality of temporal correlations pertaining to noncommutative sequential measurements is defined through the violation of macrorealistic inequalities, known as Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI). We investigate the energy cost of the process associated with the Leggett-Garg test in the context of noiseless and Markovian noise for arbitrary initial states. We prove that in noiseless and in certain noisy scenarios, the maximal violations of LGI under the energy constraint occurs when the average energy of the process is equal to the negative of the energy of the initial state. Such a dependence of LGI on the choice of the initial state is not seen in the unconstrained case. Moreover, we find that in the presence of a moderate amount of Markovian noise, the amount of violation of LGI remains almost unaltered with a suitable choice of the evolution and dephasing operators in the neighborhood of the maximal violation line, thereby showing the robustness of temporal correlations under environmental effects.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.98.022138

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Nonclassicality of temporal correlations pertaining to noncommutative sequential measurements is defined through the violation of macrorealistic inequalities, known as Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI). We investigate the energy cost of the process associated with the Leggett-Garg test in the context of noiseless and Markovian noise for arbitrary initial states. We prove that in noiseless and in certain noisy scenarios, the maximal violations of LGI under the energy constraint occurs when the average energy of the process is equal to the negative of the energy of the initial state. Such a dependence of LGI on the choice of the initial state is not seen in the unconstrained case. Moreover, we find that in the presence of a moderate amount of Markovian noise, the amount of violation of LGI remains almost unaltered with a suitable choice of the evolution and dephasing operators in the neighborhood of the maximal violation line, thereby showing the robustness of temporal correlations under environmental effects.
Macrorealistic description governing the classical realm is known to get uprooted in the quantum domain. The Leggett-Garg inequality [A. J. Leggett and A. Garg, Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 857 (1985)] proposes to probe the macrorealistic limit emerging from the quantum scenario. It places a bound on the linear combinations of temporal correlations of observables measured sequentially at different time intervals. Violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality, up to the so-called temporal Tsirelson bound (TTB), has been realized in the quantum domain. It is important to understand whether quantum theory permits larger violation beyond the TTB and up to the algebraic maximum value of the Leggett-Garg inequality. To this end, it has been shown [C. Budroni and C. Emary, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 050401 (2014)] that a three-term Leggett-Garg inequality can be violated beyond the TTB 3/23/23/2 in the time evolution of N>2N>2N>2 level quantum systems by choosing suitable measurement schemes and state-update rules. Furthermore, it is revealed that the algebraic maximum value 3 can be realized in the limit $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$. Their measurement scheme rules out violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality beyond the TTB by a qubit. Being genuinely quantum in nature, we ask whether such enhanced violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality could be witnessed in a qubit itself. Here, we show that a qubit undergoing time evolution generated by a non-Hermitian PT\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}PT-symmetric Hamiltonian indeed violates the three-term Leggett-Garg inequality beyond the TTB and up to its algebraic maximum value 3.
The Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) is a temporal analogue of Bell's inequality and provides a quantitative test of the nonclassicality of a system through its violation. We analytically investigate the violation of the LGI in the context of photon-graviton conversion in a magnetic field background, motivated by its potential applications to testing the nonclassicality of gravity. When gravitational perturbations are quantized as gravitons, the conversion of an initial single photon state gives rise to a superposition of photon and graviton states. We show that the temporal correlations obtained from successive projective measurements on the photon-graviton system violate the LGI. Observation of such a violation would provide a novel avenue for probing the quantum nature of gravity.
Abstract We investigate the nonclassicality of an open quantum system using Leggett–Garg inequalities (LGI) which test the correlations of a single system measured at different times. Violation of LGI implies nonclassical behavior of the open system. We investigate the violation of the Leggett–Garg inequality for a two level system (qubit) spontaneously decaying under a general non-Markovian dissipative environment. A robust nonclassical behavior is shown through the violation of LGI in the non-Markovian regime of the environment. Our results are exact as we have evaluated the two-time correlation functions exactly without using quantum regression theorem. We probe quantum signatures of the open system through the exact dynamics of Leggett–Garg inequalities for a wide range of system-environment parameters beyond Born–Markov regime.
The violation of Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) indicates general temporal correlations in quantum systems that cannot be explained classically. Under unitary dynamics and projective measurements, the violation of LGI is restricted up to the temporal Tsirelson's bound (TTB). Here, we consider superposition of unitary time evolutions and find them to produce an enhancement in the violation of LGI beyond the TTB, growing monotonically with increasing superposition. We experimentally realize superposition of unitaries in NMR systems and demonstrate this enhanced violation. In the presence of noise, such superposition of unitaries remarkably extend the time of LGI violation, showcasing improved robustness against decoherence. This opens up possibilities of employing such nontrivial dynamical maps for robust quantum control, along with provoking research on characterizing correlations in general sequential measurement scenarios.
We investigate the nonclassicality of an open quantum system using Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) which test the correlations of a single system measured at different times. Violation of LGI implies nonclassical behavior of the open system. We investigate the violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality for a two level system (qubit) spontaneously decaying under a general non-Markovian dissipative environment. Our results are exact as we have calculated the two-time correlation functions exactly for a wide range of system-environment parameters beyond Born-Markov regime.
Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI) test the correlations of a single system measured at different times. Violation of LGI implies either the absence of a realistic description of the system or the impossibility of measuring the system without disturbing it. We investigate the violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality for a two level system under decoherence in a non-Markovian dephasing environment. We discuss the non-Markovian dynamics of the violation of LGI at zero temperature and also at finite temperature for different structured environments. An enhanced quantum coherence is shown through the violation of Leggett-Garg inequality in the strong non-Markovian regime of the environment.