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arXiv:2305.02746 · Physical Review Letters

Reservoir-Free Decoherence in Flying Qubits

Nicolò Piccione, Léa Bresque, Andrew N. Jordan, Robert S. Whitney, Alexia Auffèves

Published May 30, 2024• 4 citations
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Abstract

An effective time-dependent Hamiltonian can be implemented by making a quantum system fly through an inhomogeneous potential, realizing, for example, a quantum gate on its internal degrees of freedom. However, flying systems have a spatial spread that will generically entangle the internal and spatial degrees of freedom, leading to decoherence in the internal state dynamics, even in the absence of any external reservoir. We provide formulas valid at all times for the dynamics, fidelity, and change of entropy for ballistic particles with small spatial spreads, quantified by Δx. This non-Markovian decoherence can be significant for ballistic flying qubits (scaling as Δx^{2}) but usually not for flying qubits carried by a moving potential well (scaling as Δx^{6}). We also discuss a method to completely counteract this decoherence for a ballistic qubit later measured.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.132.220403

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An effective time-dependent Hamiltonian can be implemented by making a quantum system fly through an inhomogeneous potential, realizing, for example, a quantum gate on its internal degrees of freedom. However, flying systems have a spatial spread that will generically entangle the internal and spatial degrees of freedom, leading to decoherence in the internal state dynamics, even in the absence of any external reservoir. We provide formulas valid at all times for the dynamics, fidelity, and change of entropy for ballistic particles with small spatial spreads, quantified by Δx. This non-Markovian decoherence can be significant for ballistic flying qubits (scaling as Δx^{2}) but usually not for flying qubits carried by a moving potential well (scaling as Δx^{6}). We also discuss a method to completely counteract this decoherence for a ballistic qubit later measured.
We propose an effective Hamiltonian approach to investigate decoherence of a quantum system in a non-Markovian reservoir, naturally imposing the complete positivity on the reduced dynamics of the system. The formalism is based on the notion of an effective reservoir, i.e., certain collective degrees of freedom in the reservoir that are responsible for the decoherence. As examples for completely positive decoherence, we present three typical decoherence processes for a qubit such as dephasing, depolarizing, and amplitude damping. The effects of the non-Markovian decoherence are compared to the Markovian decoherence.
We provide a thorough analysis of the entanglement dynamics of an interacting two-qubit system in the non-Markovian regime. In such a regime, the time scale on which the reservoir degrees of freedom evolve is either of the same order of magnitude or less than that on which the system evolves. We used an exact numerical method; the Quasi-Adiabatic Path Integral (QUAPI) technique, to describe the corresponding qubit dissipative dynamics in such a non-Markovian regime. We computed the time evolution of the density operator for the quibits, from which we quantified the coherences and population dynamics, as well as the qubit-bath coupling effects. Using negativity as a metric, we calculated the dynamics of non-local quantum correlations (entanglement), and indentified a non-Markovian quantum phenomena in terms of early stage disentanglement, and the collapse and revival of entanglement.
We study the dynamics of a many-body quantum system strongly interacting with a bosonic reservoir. The coupling is given by a potential operator for the system and it is linear in the field. We show that in the limit of infinite coupling strength the system undergoes instantaneous spatial decoherence. To resolve the decoherence process in time we consider large coupling strengths λλλ and short times scaling as t∝λ−αt\propto λ^{-α}t∝λ−α, with α≥0α\ge0α≥0, in the limit λ→∞λ\rightarrow\inftyλ→∞. On short time scales α>1α>1α>1 the dynamics is trivial while on longer ones 0≤α<10\leα<10≤α<1 the decoherence is instantaneous. We show that the decoherence process is resolved exactly for α=1α=1α=1, defining the fine-grained time scale τ=λtτ=λtτ=λt. We construct an approximate effective evolution map of the many-body system with controlled error estimates. Generically, the effective dynamics is markovian, but not given by a dynamical semigroup. As a physical application we give a rigorous description of the phenomenon of localization of macroscopic quantum objects in position space.
We study the decoherence properties of an entangled bipartite qubit system, represented by two two-level atoms that are individually coupled to non-Markovian reservoirs. This coupling ensures that the dynamical equations of the atoms can be treated independently. The non-Markovian reservoirs are described by a model which leads to an exact non-Markovian master equation of the Nakajima-Zwanzig form [J. Salo, S. M. Barnett, and S. Stenholm, Optics Commun. 259, 772 (2006)]. We consider the evolution of the entanglement of a two-atom state that is initially completely entangled, quantified by its concurrence. Collapses and revivals in the concurrence, induced by the memory effects of the reservoir, govern the dynamics of the entangled quantum system. These collapses and revivals in the concurrence are a strong manifestation of the non-Markovian reservoir.
Markovian regime decoherence effects in quantum computers are studied in terms of the fidelity for the situation where the number of qubits N becomes large. A general expression giving the decoherence time scale in terms of Markovian relaxation elements and expectation values of products of system fluctuation operators is obtained, which could also be applied to study decoherence in other macroscopic systems such as Bose condensates and superconductors. A standard circuit model quantum computer involving three-state lambda system ionic qubits is considered, with qubits localized around well-separated positions via trapping potentials. The centre of mass vibrations of the qubits act as a reservoir. Coherent one and two qubit gating processes are controlled by time-dependent localized classical electromagnetic fields that address specific qubits, the two qubit gating processes being facilitated by a cavity mode ancilla, which permits state interchange between qubits. With a suitable choice of parameters, it is found that the decoherence time can be made essentially independent of N.
We investigate the impact of decoherence and static disorder on the dynamics of quantum particles moving in a periodic lattice. Our experiment relies on the photonic implementation of a one-dimensional quantum walk. The pure quantum evolution is characterized by a ballistic spread of a photon's wave packet along 28 steps. By applying controlled time-dependent operations we simulate three different environmental influences on the system, resulting in a fast ballistic spread, a diffusive classical walk, and the first Anderson localization in a discrete quantum walk architecture.