We analyze the effect of stochastic dephasing on geometric phases. The result implies that the correction of geometric phases relies on not only the fluctuation of the random variable in the stochastic process, but also the frequency of the system.
We find the geometric phase of a two-level system undergoing pure dephasing via interaction with an arbitrary environment, taking into account the effect of the initial system-environment correlations. We use our formalism to calculate the geometric phase for the two-level system in the presence of both harmonic-oscillator and spin environments, and we consider the initial state of the two-level system to be prepared by a projective measurement or a unitary operation. The geometric phase is evaluated for a variety of parameters such as the system-environment coupling strength to show that the initial correlations can affect the geometric phase very significantly even for weak and moderate system-environment coupling strengths. Moreover, the correction to the geometric phase due to the system-environment coupling generally becomes smaller (and can even be zero) if initial system-environment correlations are taken into account, thus implying that the system-environment correlations can increase the robustness of the geometric phase.
We experimentally investigate the effects of noise on the adiabatic and cyclic geometric phase, also termed the Berry phase. By introducing artificial fluctuations in the path of the control field, we measure the geometric contribution to dephasing of an effective two-level system for a variety of noise powers and different paths. Our results, measured using a microwave-driven superconducting qubit, clearly show that only fluctuations which distort the path lead to geometric dephasing. In a direct comparison with the dynamic phase, which is path independent, we observe that the Berry phase is less affected by noise-induced dephasing. This observation directly points towards the potential of geometric phases for quantum gates or metrological applications.
Decoherence of qubits under the influence of random phase fluctuations is studied by means of the stochastic Liouville equation, where the phase fluctuations are characterized by means of the Gauss-Markov process and the two-state-jump Markov process. We investigate how an observation of a stochastic variable during the time evolution influences the decoherence of the qubit system. We examine the decays of distinguishability and entanglement of qubit states. It is shown that the decoherence of qubits can be suppressed by the observation of the stochastic variable. It is also found that the suppression of the decoherence does not depend on the observed value.
Based on a generic quantum open system model, we study the geometric nature of decoherence by defining a complex-valued geometric phase through stochastic pure states describing nonunitary, noncyclic, and nonadiabatic evolutions. The ensemble average of the complex geometric phases for the pure stochastic states yields a conventional geometric phase together with an amplitude factor. We show that the decoherence process described by the decaying amplitude can be a geometric quantity independent of the system's dynamics. It is a remarkable fact that the geometric phase of a quantum system can serve as an ideal realization of quantum gates due to its robustness against dynamical errors; however, in this paper we show that, for some open quantum systems, a desirable geometric phase may be accompanied by an unwanted robust geometric decoherence factor. Two exactly solvable models are studied to demonstrate that, while the decoherence is a purely dynamical effect for a dephasing two-level model, the decoherence in a dissipative two-level model can be a geometric process. Finally, we show that such a geometric decoherence effect may be eliminated by a nonperturbative control scheme.