Dissipative death of quantum coherences in a spin system

R. Grobe, Fritz Haake

Qiying Pan, Fuhua Li, Hong-Mei Zou +1 more

In this work, an interactive system composed of a V-type atom and a dissipative single-mode cavity is considered and the atomic quantum coherences are investigated under parameters including spontaneously generated interference (SGI), cavity-environment coupling, weak measurement and its reversal, and detuning between the atom and the cavity. The results indicate that strong coupling can induce coherence sudden death (CSD) and coherence sudden birth (CSB), while the non-zero SGI parameter only induces CSB. Detuning, however, may avoid both CSD and CSB. Moreover, detuning and weak measurement reversal can very effectively protect quantum coherence, while the SGI parameter, weak measurement, and strong coupling can accelerate its attenuation. The SGI parameter, detuning, weak measurement reversal, and strong coupling all promote the generation of coherence, whereas weak measurement alone can suppress it. In particular, the maximal coherent state can be very effectively protected and the coherent state can be prepared if all parameters are selected appropriately. Physical interpretations are also provided for these results.

Andrei D. Zaikin, Sergey Panyukov

Yan Wang, Hao-Long Zhang, Jia-Hao Lü +5 more

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.

Sudip Chakravarty

Hans A. De Raedt, V. V. Dobrovitski