Based on the superposition principle, any two states of a quantum system may be coherently superposed to yield a novel state. Such a simple construction is at the heart of genuinely quantum phenomena such as interference of massive particles or quantum entanglement. Yet, these superpositions are susceptible to environmental influences, eventually leading to a complete disappearance of the system's quantum character. In principle, two distinct mechanisms responsible for this process of decoherence may be identified. In a classical decoherence setting, on the one hand, stochastic fluctuations of classical, ambient fields are the relevant source. This approach leads to a formulation in terms of stochastic Hamiltonians; the dynamics is unitary, yet stochastic. In a quantum decoherence scenario, on the other hand, the system is described in the language of open quantum systems. Here, the environmental degrees of freedom are to be treated quantum mechanically, too. The loss of coherence is then a direct consequence of growing correlations between system and environment. The purpose of the present thesis is to clarify the distinction between classical and quantum decoherence. It is known that there exist decoherence processes that are not reconcilable with the classical approach. We deem it desirable to have a simple, feasible model at hand of which it is known that it cannot be understood in terms of fluctuating fields. Indeed, we find such an example of true quantum decoherence. The calculation of the norm distance to the convex set of classical dynamics allows for a quantitative assessment of the results. In order to incorporate genuine irreversibility, we extend the original toy model by an additional bath. Here, the fragility of the true quantum nature of the dynamics under increasing coupling strength is evident. The geometric character of our findings offers remarkable insights into the geometry of the set of non-classical decoherence maps. We give a very intuitive geometrical measure---a volume---for the quantumness of dynamics. This enables us to identify the decoherence process of maximum quantumness, that is, having maximal distance to the convex set of dynamics consistent with the stochastic, classical approach. In addition, we observe a distinct correlation between the decoherence potential of a given dynamics and its achievable quantumness. In a last step, we study the notion of quantum decoherence in the context of a bipartite system which couples locally to the subsystems' respective environments. A simple argument shows that in the case of a separable environment the resulting dynamics is of classical nature. Based on a realistic experiment, we analyze the impact of entanglement between the local environments on the nature of the dynamics. Interestingly, despite the variety of entangled environmental states scrutinized, no single instance of true quantum decoherence is encountered. In part, the identification of the classical nature relies on numerical schemes. However, for a large class of dynamics, we are able to exclude analytically the true quantum nature.
Based on the superposition principle, any two states of a quantum system may be coherently superposed to yield a novel state. Such a simple construction is at the heart of genuinely quantum phenomena such as interference of massive particles or quantum entanglement. Yet, these superpositions are susceptible to environmental influences, eventually leading to a complete disappearance of the system's quantum character. In principle, two distinct mechanisms responsible for this process of decoherence may be identified. In a classical decoherence setting, on the one hand, stochastic fluctuations of classical, ambient fields are the relevant source. This approach leads to a formulation in terms of stochastic Hamiltonians; the dynamics is unitary, yet stochastic. In a quantum decoherence scenario, on the other hand, the system is described in the language of open quantum systems. Here, the environmental degrees of freedom are to be treated quantum mechanically, too. The loss of coherence is then a direct consequence of growing correlations between system and environment. The purpose of the present thesis is to clarify the distinction between classical and quantum decoherence. It is known that there exist decoherence processes that are not reconcilable with the classical approach. We deem it desirable to have a simple, feasible model at hand of which it is known that it cannot be understood in terms of fluctuating fields. Indeed, we find such an example of true quantum decoherence. The calculation of the norm distance to the convex set of classical dynamics allows for a quantitative assessment of the results. In order to incorporate genuine irreversibility, we extend the original toy model by an additional bath. Here, the fragility of the true quantum nature of the dynamics under increasing coupling strength is evident. The geometric character of our findings offers remarkable insights into the geometry of the set of non-classical decoherence maps. We give a very intuitive geometrical measure---a volume---for the quantumness of dynamics. This enables us to identify the decoherence process of maximum quantumness, that is, having maximal distance to the convex set of dynamics consistent with the stochastic, classical approach. In addition, we observe a distinct correlation between the decoherence potential of a given dynamics and its achievable quantumness. In a last step, we study the notion of quantum decoherence in the context of a bipartite system which couples locally to the subsystems' respective environments. A simple argument shows that in the case of a separable environment the resulting dynamics is of classical nature. Based on a realistic experiment, we analyze the impact of entanglement between the local environments on the nature of the dynamics. Interestingly, despite the variety of entangled environmental states scrutinized, no single instance of true quantum decoherence is encountered. In part, the identification of the classical nature relies on numerical schemes. However, for a large class of dynamics, we are able to exclude analytically the true quantum nature.
Theory and experiment have not fully resolved the apparent dichotomy , which has agonized physics for the past eighty years: on the one hand, the description of microsystems by quantum mechanics and, on the other, the description of macrosystems by classical dynamics or statistical mechanics. Derivations of the time-irreversible Liouville equation for an open quantum system, based on projecting out its environment, have narrowed the gap between the quantum and classical descriptions. Yet our `classical' intuition continues to be confronted by quantum-mechanical results like the Einstein--Podolsky--Rosen paradox that challenges the classical notion of locality, or the quantum Zeno effect which suggests that the isolation of a system is not the only way to preserve its quantum state. There are two key concepts in any discussion of such issues. The first, which is responsible for the most salient nonclassical properties, is entanglement , that is partial or complete correlation or, more generally, inseparability of the elements comprising a quantum ensemble . Even after their interaction has ceased, this inseparability, originating from their past interaction, can affect the state of one element when another element is subject to a nonunitary action, such as its measurement, tracing- out, or thermalization. The second key concept is decoherence of open quantum systems, which is the consequence of their entanglement with their environment, a `meter' or a thermal `reservoir', followed by the tracing-out of the latter. Despite new insights into entanglement and decoherence, there are still no complete, unequivocal answers to the fundamental questions of the transition from quantal to classical behaviour: how do irreversibility and classicality emerge from unitarity as systems and their environments become increasingly complex ? At what stage does system--meter entanglement give rise to a classical readout of the meter? Is there an upper limit on the size or complexity of systems displaying entanglement? Major developments have opened new vistas into controlled entanglement , which is the resource of quantum information processing. However, these developments have mainly focused on ensembles of simple two- and three-level systems that are thoroughly isolated from their environments. Treatments of coherence in quantum computing have mostly assumed that only a single or a few the elements of the quantum ensemble may simultaneously undergo an uncontrolled intervention---a quantum error. Decoherence-control protocols for more general types of errors are still incomplete. In order to resolve the outstanding issues of the quantum--classical transition, and study the control of entanglement and decoherence without the foregoing restrictions, we must venture into the domain of Quantum Complex Systems (QUACS), either consisting of a large number of inseparable elements or having many coupled degrees of freedom. Our conviction is that fundamental understanding and manipulation of entanglement within QUACS or their entanglement with the environment or a meter, call for the creation of a new conceptual framework or paradigm, that would encompass phenomena common to cold atoms in laser fields, large molecules, Josephson junctions, quantum gases and solids, with the view of employing these systems for quantum information processing and computing. Progress within this paradigm should allow us to answer the questions: does entanglement play an essential role in the evolution of large collections of complex systems? What are the size and complexity limits of systems and ensembles still controllable by an external intervention? What are the most appropriate decoherence protection schemes and control algorithms? This special issue addresses the challenge of understanding in depth and manipulating the basic quantum properties of optical, atomic, molecular and condensed-matter QUACS, and large ensembles thereof. In view of the interdisciplinary character of this issue, we find it expedient to look at the presented articles not only according to the physical objects they describe, but also from a unifying standpoint. Several unifying themes may be discerned: memory effects in dephasing and relaxation; protection of quantum information by its distribution throughout the ensemble; control of decoherence and entanglement by time-dependent interventions or measurements; manifestations of entanglement in scattering off statistical ensembles; measurment-induced dynamics. The concerted discussion of the topics outlined above should help us advance the new paradigm that addresses our abilities to diagnose and manipulate the entangled states of complex quantum objects and their robustness against decoherence. These abilities are required for quantum information (QI) applications in matter--wave interferometry in molecular, semiconducting or superconducting systems. On the fundamental level, this book may help establish the notion of dynamical information exchange between quantum systems and chart in detail the route from unitarity to classicality. Further developments within the outlined paradigm should yield novel, advantageous QI processing schemes and high-sensitivity interferometers, owing to decoherence suppression and effective control of many degrees of freedom. In the long run, these strategies may prove to be the first step towards the (hitherto unattempted) use of entanglement in nanotechnology, metrology and chemistry, with potentially remarkable novel applications.
Recently, the possibility of investigating single molecule, or single spin observables, as well as the necessity of a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying quantum dynamics in order to obtain nanoscale devices and nanostructered materials suitable for quantum computing tasks, have revived the interest in foundational aspects of quantum statistical mechanics. This thesis aims to give a contribution to this field by re-considering the statistical characterization of a quantum system at the light of some paradigmatic changes in our understanding of quantum theory which have taken place in the last two decades. In particular the impressive development of quantum information theory has changed the perceptions of quantum entanglement: for a long time it has been considered a somewhat paradoxical property of the matter at the atomic scale, but now it is regarded as an essential and ubiquitous phenomenon whose consequences are affecting the very macroscopic world that we experience. Still the decoherence program has brought out the importance of considering a quantum system together with its environment in order to clarify some key aspects of quantum dynamics. Thus, we start from the idea that quantum correlations are ubiquitous and somewhat uncontrollable in systems with many degrees of freedom which are typically considered in statistical mechanics. As a consequence we assume the standpoint that quantum statistical mechanics has not to be based on the underlying idea of a collection of many, independent quantum systems but rather it has to emerge at the level of a global wavefunction (pure state) which describes the system as well as its environment as a whole. In order to investigate the consequences of these assumptions we study the equilibrium distribution of an isolated quantum system. This is defined, in analogy with the ergodic foundations of classical statistical mechanics, on the basis of the time evolution of the quantum state. Then, we study the emergence of thermodynamic properties in a quantum system by studying the probability distribution of some function of interests, as the entropy and the equilibrium state of a subsystem, on Ensembles of Pure States. Such a probability distribution is derived from the geometry of the Hilbert space, and the theoretical tools suitable for its characterization are developed. On the one hand we perform a numerical sampling of the ensemble distributions by employing Monte Carlo techniques, on the other hand simpler analytical approximation of the geometrical distributions are derived by means of a maximum entropy principle. Model systems composed of an ensemble of spins are chosen to illustrate the salient features which emerge from the developed theoretical framework: the main point is that the Ensemble Distributions of “thermodynamic observables” (entropy or equilibrium state of a subsystem) are sharply peaked around a typical value. From the analysis it emerges that each of the overwhelming majority of the wavefunctions which has appreciable weight in the considered ensemble, is characterized by the same value of the “macroscopic” functions. This is a striking evidence of the “typicality” of these properties. In the essence, our impossibility to know the state of the system in detail does not matter, just for the remarkable fact that almost all quantum states behave essentially in the same way. By virtue of this typicality the study of the behaviour of the typical values of the thermodynamic function become meaningful. Notably, under certain conditions, one recovers the results of standard statistical mechanics, that is, the equilibrium average of the state of a subsystem can be cast in the Boltzmann canonical form at the temperature given by the usual thermodynamical relation . In the second part of the thesis we consider the dynamical aspects of the equilibrium state of a subsystem interacting with its environment. The fluctuations around the equilibrium average critically depends on the entanglement between the system and the environment and on the form of the interaction Hamiltonian. The connection between the dynamics of the fluctuations of an observable at the equilibrium and the relaxation toward the equilibrium from a “non typical” initial value is also investigated with the aid of simple model systems. The study presented in this thesis was partly motivated by a critical analysis of the statistical methods available for the theoretical modelling of magnetic resonance experiments. One of these, the Stochastic Liouville Equation, has been employed in a work completed during the first year of my Ph.D. program in order to interpret some feature of a two dimensional electron spin resonance experiment, [Fresch B., Frezzato D., Moro G. J., Kothe G., Freed J. H.; J. Phys. Chem. B., 110, 24238, (2006)].
The unavoidable interaction of a quantum system with its environment usually degrades its coherence and quantumness. The environment and the decoherence process may be described as the interaction with a classical or quantized bath. As a matter of fact, the classical description becomes progressively more reliable as far as the environment has many degrees of freedom, i.e. it becomes complex, or when the interaction between a quantum system and a classical fluctuating field is taken into account. In this thesis, I consider a qubit system coupled to a stochastic classical field and address�the decoherence and non-Markovianity induced by the external noise as well as the spectral characterization of the classical field by quantum-limited measurement on the qubit. I thus analyze the dynamics of quantum correlations between two non-interacting, initially entangled qubits subject to a classical noise generated by a stochastic process. Two relevant classes of noise are taken into account: Gaussian noise, such as the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, and non-Gaussian noise, such as the random telgraph noise and the colored noise with 1/f spectrum. I also discuss the evaluation of non-Markovianity of the induced dynamical map and link the presence of revivals of quantum correlations with the information backflow to the system. The precise characterization of the stochastic process generating the classical noise, possibly using minimal resources, is a crucial ingredient for the design of high-precision measurements and reliable communication protocols. To this purpose, I also address the characterization of the spectral parameters of classical noise by quantum probes, e.g. a qubit coupled to the stochastic process generating the noise. By using the tools of quantum estimation theory, I explore the performances of quantum measurements on the qubit and show that it is possible to effectively extract information about the noise.
This thesis investigates two thematic lines of research, both underpinned by non-Markovian system-reservoir interactions in quantum optics. The overarching focus is on modelling the open system dynamics in a non-perturbative fashion, broadly on - though not restricted to - instances when the environment is structured. A theory is developed by means of enlarging the open system over environmental degrees of freedom to include memory effects in its dynamics. This is achieved using an established technique that involves mapping a bosonic environment onto a 1D chain of harmonic oscillators. Within this setting, we apply a Heisenberg equation-of-motion approach to derive an exact set coupled differential equations for the open system and a single auxiliary oscillator of the chain. The combined equations are shown to have their interpretation rooted in a quantum Markov stochastic process. Including the auxiliary chain oscillator as part of the original system then enables us to obtain an exact master equation for the enlarged system, avoiding any need for the Born-Markov approximations. Our method is valid for a dissipative two-state system, with cases of multiple excitations and added driving discussed. Separately, we apply the framework of quantum Darwinism to an atom-cavity system, and, subsequently, to a more general multiple-environment model. In both cases, the time-dependent spread of correlations between the open system and fractions of the environment is analysed during the course of the decoherence process. The degree to which information is redundant across different fractions is checked to infer the emergence of classicality. In the second case, we go further and present a decomposition of information in terms of its quantum and classical correlations. A quantitative measure of redundancy is also studied with regard to its ability to witness non-Markovian behaviour. Besides fundamental interest, our results have application to quantum information processing and quantum technologies, keeping in mind the potential beneficial use of non-Markovian effects in reservoir engineering.
This paper presents a comprehensive model for quantum decoherence, grounded in the principles of quantum field theory (QFT) and statistical mechanics. The core argument is that traditional decoherence models often oversimplify the process, failing to adequately capture the intricate interactions arising from the quantum effects of the surrounding environment. This work introduces a framework that explicitly incorporates the scattering of quantum states by the environment, treated as a QFT system, and then analyzes the resultant impact using statistical mechanics. The model aims to provide a more accurate and nuanced understanding of decoherence, particularly in scenarios involving strong environmental interactions. Specifically, the model utilizes the formalism of quantum scattering theory to describe the interaction between a quantum system and its environment. The resulting dynamics are then analyzed using the framework of statistical mechanics, allowing for the calculation of decoherence rates as a function of environmental parameters such as temperature and density. The key contributions of this work include a detailed mathematical description of the decoherence process, a clear separation of the quantum and classical aspects of the problem, and a framework for extending the model to more complex systems. The model predicts that decoherence is not simply a loss of quantum information, but rather a fundamental process of state transformation driven by the statistical properties of the environment. This work offers a significant step forward in our ability to understand and potentially mitigate the effects of decoherence in quantum technologies.
The interaction of a quantum system with a many degree of freedom environment entails damping and the loss of quantum coherence. In these two lectures we focus on two aspects of open quantum system dynamics. First, we present decoherence as a dynamical phenomenon and determine the corresponding time scales, discuss an experiment and the nature of robust states, and mention universal properties of short-time decoherence of macroscopic superpositions. Secondly, in analogy to the classical description of open systems in terms of Langevin equations, we present a stochastic approach to open quantum system dynamics in terms of a stochastic Schrödinger equation. We give a microscopic derivation that allows us to generalize the stochastic approach to non-Markovian situations. We discuss a convolutionless formulation of our theory and finally, we focus on the quantised version of Brownian motion as an often-employed example.