Quantum coherence is the most distinct feature of quantum mechanics. However, inevitable decoherence processes will finally destroy it and make the "Schrödinger's cat" invisible in our classical world. In this "quantum-to-classical transition", the so-called "largeness" plays a critical role. We experimentally study the largeness phenomena in the bipartite entanglement decay process through a depolarizing channel with two-photon entangled states generated from a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source. Our experiment demonstrates how the speed of entanglement decay and the time when "entanglement sudden death" happens depend on the size of the system exposed to the environment noise.
Quantum coherence is the most distinct feature of quantum mechanics. However, inevitable decoherence processes will finally destroy it and make the "Schrödinger's cat" invisible in our classical world. In this "quantum-to-classical transition", the so-called "largeness" plays a critical role. We experimentally study the largeness phenomena in the bipartite entanglement decay process through a depolarizing channel with two-photon entangled states generated from a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source. Our experiment demonstrates how the speed of entanglement decay and the time when "entanglement sudden death" happens depend on the size of the system exposed to the environment noise.
Decoherence due to the unwanted interaction between a quantum system and environment leads to the degradation of quantum coherence. In particular, for an entangled state, decoherence makes a loss of entanglement and Bell nonlocality known as entanglement sudden death (ESD), and Bell nonlocality sudden death (BNSD). Here, we theoretically investigate the entanglement and Bell nonlocality of a bipartite entangled state under three types of decoherence, amplitude damping, phase damping, and depolarizing. Our result provides the bound of decoherence strength that does not lose the entanglement and Bell nonlocality. In addition, we find two interesting features. One is that the entanglement can survive even though one of the entangled qubits is affected by a large strength of decoherence if the other qubit is affected by a small enough strength of decoherence except for the depolarizing. The second one is that when a specific form of entangled state is under amplitude damping, the Bell nonlocality shows an asymmetric behavior respect to the decoherence strengths on each qubit. Our work provides comprehensive information on ESD and BNSD for the bipartite entangled state which will be useful to implement quantum information processing in the presence of decoherence.
When an initially entangled pair of qubits undergoes local decoherence processes, there are a number of ways in which the original entanglement can spread throughout the multipartite system consisting of the two qubits and their environments. Here, we report theoretical and experimental results regarding the dynamics of the distribution of entanglement in this system. The experiment employs an all optical setup in which the qubits are encoded in the polarization degrees of freedom of two photons, and each local decoherence channel is implemented with an interferometer that couples the polarization to the path of each photon, which acts as an environment. We monitor the dynamics and distribution of entanglement and observe the transition from bipartite to multipartite entanglement and back, and show how these transitions are intimately related to the sudden death and sudden birth of entanglement. The multipartite entanglement is further analyzed in terms of three- and four-partite entanglement contributions, and genuine four-qubit entanglement is observed at some points of the evolution.
Any quantum system inevitably interacts with its natural environment, which can be modeled as a Markovian reservoir consisting of a continuum of electromagnetic field modes. The quantum coherence of qubits in a zero-temperature natural reservoir decays asymptotically, whereas the quantum entanglement of two qubits coupled to such reservoirs may disappear in a finite time. This phenomenon, referred to as entanglement sudden death (ESD), has been simulated with artificially engineered dissipative channels, but ESD induced by natural dissipative channels has not been confirmed. We here present the first demonstration of natural-dissipation-induced ESD for two photonic qubits, each stored in a leaky resonator of a superconducting circuit. The disentanglement dynamics of the two photonic qubits is monitored with two ancilla superconducting qubits, which can be controllably coupled to the corresponding leaky resonators. The techniques developed in our experiment pave the way for experimental exploration of entanglement dynamics in natural environments.
Quantum entanglement manifests as a distinctive correlation between particles that transcends classical boundaries when their quantum states cannot be described independently. On the other hand, as quantum systems interact with their surroundings, decoherence emerges, leading to the gradual decay of quantum coherence and entanglement. In the case of entanglement, this is known as entanglement sudden death (ESD). Decoherence mechanisms are examined, focusing on how various environmental factors, such as thermal, electromagnetic, and collisional decoherence, influence the integrity of entangled states. The role of quantum noise, such as amplitude damping, phase damping, and depolarizing, is also analyzed. By integrating theoretical insights with experimental findings, this study highlights the delicate balance between maintaining entanglement and mitigating decoherence. The findings have significant implications for the development of quantum technologies, including quantum computing and quantum communication, where preserving entanglement is crucial for achieving robust and reliable performance.
Entanglement sudden death (ESD), explored through a series of works by Yu and Eberly, supports the notion of entanglement vanishing abruptly and completely at a finite time, even when the underlying open-system dynamics remain smooth. In this article, we revisit the development of ESD from bipartite origins to genuine multipartite entanglement. We first illustrate the canonical mechanism of ESD with two independently damped qubits, for which the concurrence vanishes at a finite time while populations and coherences remain nonzero. We next present our results on multipartite entanglement for generalized GHZ states under depolarization. Global and independent local depolarizing dynamics can be chosen to produce identical reduced evolution for every individual qubit, yet they yield different genuine-multipartite-entanglement sudden death times, whose ordering can reverse with the initial state. For N-qubit GHZ states, this distinction becomes asymptotically stronger since the ESD time scales as 1/N under independent local depolarization, whereas under global depolarization it approaches a finite value in the thermodynamic limit. Echoing a central lesson of Prof. Eberly's work, we report the lifetime of multipartite entanglement is not fixed by the local dynamics, but rather depends on the evolution of the joint quantum state.
A new development in the dynamical behavior of elementary quantum systems is the surprising discovery that correlation between two quantum units of information called qubits can be degraded by environmental noise in a way not seen previously in studies of dissipation. This new route for dissipation attacks quantum entanglement, the essential resource for quantum information as well as the central feature in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen so-called paradox and in discussions of the fate of Schrödinger's cat. The effect has been labeled ESD, which stands for early-stage disentanglement or, more frequently, entanglement sudden death. We review recent progress in studies focused on this phenomenon.