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Physical Review A

Quantum systems subject to the action of classical stochastic fields

Adrián A. Budini

Published Oct 17, 2001• 61 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the averaged dynamics of quantum systems under the influence of classical stochastic fields. This influence is modeled using a stochastic Hamiltonian evolution for the system-density matrix. From the averaged dynamics, a general characterization of the short-time decoherence behavior is obtained. General applicable short-time perturbation expansions for the input-output fidelity and its generalizations for mixed states are developed. The master equations of the systems that can be worked out without a perturbative expansion, i.e., any system subject to dispersive noise and the quantum harmonic oscillator subject to amplitude noise, are extensively analyzed. In both cases all non-Markovian features are worked out in an exact way. We apply these cases to the study of heating of trapped ions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.64.052110

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In this paper we investigate the averaged dynamics of quantum systems under the influence of classical stochastic fields. This influence is modeled using a stochastic Hamiltonian evolution for the system-density matrix. From the averaged dynamics, a general characterization of the short-time decoherence behavior is obtained. General applicable short-time perturbation expansions for the input-output fidelity and its generalizations for mixed states are developed. The master equations of the systems that can be worked out without a perturbative expansion, i.e., any system subject to dispersive noise and the quantum harmonic oscillator subject to amplitude noise, are extensively analyzed. In both cases all non-Markovian features are worked out in an exact way. We apply these cases to the study of heating of trapped ions.
We develop a formally exact master equation to describe the evolution of the average density matrix of a closed quantum system driven by a stochastic Hamiltonian. The average over stochastic processes generally results in decoherence effects in closed system dynamics, in addition to the unitary evolution. We then show that, for an important class of problems in which the Hamiltonian is proportional to a Gaussian random process, the 2nd-order master equation yields exact dynamics. The general formalism is applied to study the examples of a two-level system, two atoms in a stochastic magnetic field and the heating of a trapped ion, where we find phenomena such as decoherence-induced disentanglement.
We study the dynamics of quantum systems under classical and quantum noise, focusing on decoherence in qubit systems. Classical noise is described by a random process leading to a stochastic temporal evolution of a closed quantum system, whereas quantum noise originates from the coupling of the microscopic quantum system to its macroscopic environment. We derive deterministic master equations describing the average evolution of the quantum system under classical continuous-time Markovian noise and two sets of master equations under quantum noise. Strikingly, these three equations of motion are shown to be equivalent in the case of classical random telegraph noise and proper quantum environments. Hence fully quantum-mechanical models within the Born approximation can be mapped to a quantum system under classical noise. Furthermore, we apply the derived equations together with pulse optimization techniques to achieve high-fidelity one-qubit operations under random telegraph noise, and hence fight decoherence in these systems of great practical interest.
Abstract All quantum systems are subject to noise and imperfections due to stray fields, inhomogeneities or drifting experimental controls. An understanding of the effects of noise and decoherence is critical to the progress towards fully functional quantum devices. In this perspective, we focus on noise in quantum systems which are modelled by a dynamic stochastic parameter in the Hamiltonian. We will outline exact evolution equations describing the ensemble average dynamics for a variety of common noise types and their connections. We will also highlight an approximate evolution equation valid in the weak noise limit for an arbitrary classical stochastic field. This framework should serve as a starting point for identifying signatures of differing noise types and optimisation of robust control protocols.
We introduce a scheme for the quantum simulation of many-body decoherence based on the unitary evolution of a stochastic Hamiltonian. Modulating the strength of the interactions with stochastic processes, we show that the noise-averaged density matrix simulates an effectively open dynamics governed by k-body Lindblad operators. Markovian dynamics can be accessed with white-noise fluctuations; non-Markovian dynamics requires colored noise. The time scale governing the fidelity decay under many-body decoherence is shown to scale as N^{-2k} with the system size N. Our proposal can be readily implemented in a variety of quantum platforms including optical lattices, superconducting circuits, and trapped ions.
We study the quantum dynamics generated by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian subject to stochastic perturbations in its anti-Hermitian part, describing fluctuating gains and losses. The dynamics averaged over the noise is described by an "antidephasing" master equation. We characterize the resulting state evolution and analyze its purity. The properties of such dynamics are illustrated in a stochastic dissipative qubit. Our analytical results show that adding noise allows for a rich control of the dynamics, stabilizing the lossy state and making state purification possible to a greater variety of steady states.
Classical Brownian motion has well been investigated since the pioneering work of Einstein, which inspired mathematicians to lay the theoretical foundation of stochastic processes. A stochastic formulation for quantum dynamics of dissipative systems described by the system-plus-bath model has been developed and found many applications in chemical dynamics, spectroscopy, quantum transport, and other fields. This article provides a tutorial review of the stochastic formulation for quantum dissipative dynamics. The key idea is to decouple the interaction between the system and the bath by virtue of the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation or Itô calculus so that the system and the bath are not directly entangled during evolution, rather they are correlated due to the complex white noises introduced. The influence of the bath on the system is thereby defined by an induced stochastic field, which leads to the stochastic Liouville equation for the system. The exact reduced density matrix can be calculated as the stochastic average in the presence of bath-induced fields. In general, the plain implementation of the stochastic formulation is only useful for short-time dynamics, but not efficient for long-time dynamics as the statistical errors go very fast. For linear and other specific systems, the stochastic Liouville equation is a good starting point to derive the master equation. For general systems with decomposable bath-induced processes, the hierarchical approach in the form of a set of deterministic equations of motion is derived based on the stochastic formulation and provides an effective means for simulating the dissipative dynamics. A combination of the stochastic simulation and the hierarchical approach is suggested to solve the zero-temperature dynamics of the spin-boson model. This scheme correctly describes the coherent-incoherent transition (Toulouse limit) at moderate dissipation and predicts a rate dynamics in the overdamped regime. Challenging problems such as the dynamical description of quantum phase transition (local- ization) and the numerical stability of the trace-conserving, nonlinear stochastic Liouville equation are outlined.