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Thermalization and decoherence in open Majorana systems

Earl T. Campbell

Published Feb 19, 2015• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Coupling to a thermal bath leads to thermalisation and decoherence of stored quantum information. For a system of Gaussian fermions, the fermionic analog of linear or Gaussian optics, these dynamics can be elegantly and efficiently described by evolution of the system's covariance matrix. Taking both system and bath to be Gaussian fermionic, we observe that thermalization and decoherence occurs at a rate that is independent of the bath temperature. Furthermore, we also consider a weak coupling regime where the dynamics are Markovian. We present a microscopic derivation of Markovian master equations entirely in the language of covariance matrices, where temperature independence remains manifest. This is radically different from behaviour seen in other scenarios, such as when fermions interact with a bosonic bath. Our analysis applies to many Majorana fermion systems that have been heralded as very robust, topologically protected, qubits. In these systems, it has been claimed that thermal decoherence can be exponentially suppressed by reducing temperature, but we find Gaussian decoherence cannot be cooled away.

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•Jul 7, 2015•0 citations
Coupling to a thermal bath leads to thermalisation and decoherence of stored quantum information. For a system of Gaussian fermions, the fermionic analog of linear or Gaussian optics, these dynamics can be elegantly and efficiently described by evolution of the system's covariance matrix. Taking both system and bath to be Gaussian fermionic, we observe that thermalization and decoherence occurs at a rate that is independent of the bath temperature. Furthermore, we also consider a weak coupling regime where the dynamics are Markovian. We present a microscopic derivation of Markovian master equations entirely in the language of covariance matrices, where temperature independence remains manifest. This is radically different from behaviour seen in other scenarios, such as when fermions interact with a bosonic bath. Our analysis applies to many Majorana fermion systems that have been heralded as very robust, topologically protected, qubits. In these systems, it has been claimed that thermal decoherence can be exponentially suppressed by reducing temperature, but we find Gaussian decoherence cannot be cooled away.
Coupling to a thermal bath leads to decoherence of stored quantum information. For a system of Gaussian fermions, the fermionic analog of linear or Gaussian optics, these dynamics can be elegantly and efficiently described by evolution of the system's covariance matrix. Taking both system and bath to be Gaussian fermionic, we observe that decoherence occurs at a rate that is independent of the bath temperature. Furthermore, we also consider a weak coupling regime where the dynamics are Markovian. We present a microscopic derivation of Markovian master equations entirely in the language of covariance matrices, where temperature independence remains manifest. This is radically different from behaviour seen in other scenarios, such as when fermions interact with a bosonic bath. Our analysis applies to many Majorana fermion systems that have been heralded as very robust, topologically protected, qubits. In these systems, it has been claimed that thermal decoherence can be exponentially suppressed by reducing temperature, but we find Gaussian decoherence cannot be cooled away.
Coupling to a thermal bath leads to decoherence of stored quantum information. For a system of Gaussian fermions, the fermionic analog of linear or Gaussian optics, these dynamics can be elegantly and efficiently described by evolution of the system's covariance matrix. Taking both system and bath to be Gaussian fermionic, we observe that decoherence occurs at a rate that is independent of the bath temperature. Furthermore, we also consider a weak coupling regime where the dynamics are Markovian. We present a microscopic derivation of Markovian master equations entirely in the language of covariance matrices, where temperature independence remains manifest. This is radically different from behaviour seen in other scenarios, such as when fermions interact with a bosonic bath. Our analysis applies to many Majorana fermion systems that have been heralded as very robust, topologically protected, qubits. In these systems, it has been claimed that thermal decoherence can be exponentially suppressed by reducing temperature, but we find Gaussian decoherence cannot be cooled away.
This thesis approaches questions concerning the thermalisation of subsystems of closed quantum systems, prepared in pure states of definite energy but far from equilibrium, under exact unitary evolution. Taking motivation from experiments in the field of ultracold atoms, an extensive study of relaxation to a thermal state in the Hubbard model is presented. The study of small local subsystems in Hubbard-model lattice clusters has led to some interesting findings. Explored are the effects of interactions between fermions, the initial-state energy and the energy uncertainty in the initial state and their effects on relaxation dynamics and thermalisation. The most significant finding is that while subsystem thermalisation is seen for a large range of subsystem-bath coupling strengths, the temporal form of the relaxation varies markedly from exponential decay for weak couplings with a crossover to Gaussian behaviour with increased coupling strength. This is found to hold more generally for random couplings between the subsystem and bath and for bosons as well as fermions, thus demonstrating generality. As well as being demonstrated numerically, this behaviour is derived for a generic class of bi-partite quantum systems which may be described with the use of random matrices. A Brownian motion model is employed to show the exponential to Gaussian crossover when the subsystem-bath coupling matrix takes a banded form. This result agrees well with numerical Hubbard-model results, and yields identical results at short times to those from straight-forward perturbative methods. It is demonstrated that the non-Markovian Gaussian behaviour should also be observable in the limit of macroscopic baths.
We consider a central fermion strongly interacting with a surrounding mesoscopic bath of fermions which is weakly coupled to a Markovian bath of fermions. The master equation of the system consisting of the central fermion and the mesoscopic bath is derived, and based on this master equation, the reduced dynamics and thermalization of the central fermion are investigated. As probes for studying the dynamics and thermalization, the mean number of the central fermion and the current density are calculated. The observed dynamics reveal that strong coupling strength induces non-Markovian behavior and that in the long time limit thermalization is attained leaving the central fermion in a thermal state that is described by the corresponding Gibbs distribution. Upon attaining the thermal state, the central fermion is found to be entangled with the collective mode of the surrounding mesoscopic bath in the high-temperature regime, whereas in the low-temperature regime, it is found to undergo sudden death of entanglement.
We investigate a system of two interacting qubits having one of them isolated and the other coupled to a thermal reservoir. We consider two different models of system-reservoir interaction: i) a model, in which the master equation is derived taking into account the interaction between the two subsystems (qubits), ii) a naive model, in which the master equation consists of a dissipative term added to the unitary evolution term. We study the dynamics of quantities such as bipartite entanglement, quantum discord and the linear entropy of the isolated qubit for both strong and weak coupling regimes (qubit-qubit interaction) as well as for different temperatures of the reservoir. We find significant disagreements between the results obtained from the two models even in the weak coupling regime. For instance, we show that according to the phenomenological model, the isolated qubit would approach a maximally mixed state more slowly for higher temperatures (unphysical result), while the microscopic model predicts the opposite behaviour (correct result).
We consider a model consisting of a finite number of quantum dots each of which confines a spinless electron. We zoom in on a single quantum dot containing an electron of interest treating it as being strongly coupled to the surrounding finite bath of electrons. The fermionic bath is embedded in a bosonic Markovian bath. The master equation for the fermion of interest interacting with the fermionic bath is derived. Based on the master equation for this system, the reduced dynamics and thermalization of the spinless electron is studied. We start with a description of the Hamiltonian of the entire system which we call total Hamiltonian. Because the electron of interest is strongly coupled to the surrounding fermionic bath, we treat the Hamiltonian consisting of the electron of interest, the fermionic bath and the interaction between them as the system Hamiltonian. Then using techniques of linear algebra, we diagolize the system Hamiltonian making it appear in what we are calling quasi-fermionic picture. After this, we take the diagonalized system Hamiltonian back to the total Hamiltonian. We then use this total Hamiltonian to switch to the interaction picture. Since the general expression of the Markovian quantum master equation is in terms of the interaction Hamiltonian, we now substitute our interaction Hamiltonian into it and begin from there to derive the quantum master equation of our system. In the next step, we solve the derived quantum master equation casting the solution in Kraus representation. Using the explicit form of the Kraus operators and initial conditions, the density matrix of the reduced system is obtained in the quasifermionic picture. We then transform to the original fermionic picture and trace out the fermionic bath coming out with the density matrix of the electron of interest. We then check the normalization of the density matrix of the electron of interest by calculating the trace and then use it to calculate the mean number of fermions. The mean number of fermions is then plotted against time for different coupling strengths and varying numbers of fermions in the fermionic bath to visually check the dynamics and thermalization of the fermion of interest.