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arXiv:quant-ph/0406160

When is the two-level approximation untenable in issues of Decoherence?

Kerim Savran, Tugrul Hakioglu, Emine Meşe

Published Jun 22, 2004• 1 citation
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Abstract

We examine the conditions in favor and necessity of a realistic multileveled description of a decohering quantum system. Under these conditions approximate techniques to simplify a multileveled system by its first two levels is unreliable and a realistic multilevel description in the formulation of decoherence is unavoidable. In this regard, our first crucial observation is that, the validity of the two level approximation of a multileveled system is not controlled purely by {\it sufficiently low temperatures}. We demonstrate using three different environmental spectral models that the type of system-environment coupling and the environmental spectrum have a dominant role over the temperature. Particularly, zero temperature quantum fluctuations induced by the Caldeira-Leggett type linear coordinate coupling can be influential in a wide energy range in the systems allowed transitions. The second crucial observation against the validity of the two level approximation is that the decoherence times being among the system's short time scales are found to be dominated not by the resonant but {\it non-resonant} processes. We demonstrate this in three stages. Firstly, our zero temperature numerical calculations reveal that, the calculated decoherence rates including relaxation, dephasing and leakage phenomena show, a linear dependence on the spectral area for all spectral models used, independent from the spectral shape within a large environmental spectral range compared to the quantum system's energies. Secondly, within the same range, the decoherence times only have a marginal dependence on the translations of the entire frequency spectrum. Finally, the same decoherence rates show strong dependence on the number of coupled levels by the system-environment coupling.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0406160

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We examine the conditions in favor and necessity of a realistic multileveled description of a decohering quantum system. Under these conditions approximate techniques to simplify a multileveled system by its first two levels is unreliable and a realistic multilevel description in the formulation of decoherence is unavoidable. In this regard, our first crucial observation is that, the validity of the two level approximation of a multileveled system is not controlled purely by {\it sufficiently low temperatures}. We demonstrate using three different environmental spectral models that the type of system-environment coupling and the environmental spectrum have a dominant role over the temperature. Particularly, zero temperature quantum fluctuations induced by the Caldeira-Leggett type linear coordinate coupling can be influential in a wide energy range in the systems allowed transitions. The second crucial observation against the validity of the two level approximation is that the decoherence times being among the system's short time scales are found to be dominated not by the resonant but {\it non-resonant} processes. We demonstrate this in three stages. Firstly, our zero temperature numerical calculations reveal that, the calculated decoherence rates including relaxation, dephasing and leakage phenomena show, a linear dependence on the spectral area for all spectral models used, independent from the spectral shape within a large environmental spectral range compared to the quantum system's energies. Secondly, within the same range, the decoherence times only have a marginal dependence on the translations of the entire frequency spectrum. Finally, the same decoherence rates show strong dependence on the number of coupled levels by the system-environment coupling.
Conditions in favour of a realistic multilevelled description of a decohering quantum system are examined. In this regard the first crucial observation is that the thermal effects, contrary to the conventional belief, play a minor role at low temperatures in the decoherence properties. The system-environment coupling and the environmental energy spectrum dominantly affect the decoherence. In particular, zero temperature quantum fluctuations or non-equilibrium sources can be present and influential on the decoherence rates in a wide energy range allowed by the spectrum of the environment. A crucial observation against the validity of the two-level approximation is that the decoherence rates are found to be dominated not by the long time resonant but the short time off-resonant processes. This observation is demonstrated in two stages. Firstly, our zero temperature numerical results reveal that the calculated short time decoherence rates are Gaussian-like (the time dependence of the density matrix is led by the second time derivative at t ≤ 0). Exact analytical results are also permitted in the short time limit, which, consistent with our numerical results, reveal that this specific Gaussian-like behaviour is a property of the non-Markovian correlations in the environment. These Gaussian-like rates have no dependence on any spectral parameter (position and the width of the spectrum) except, in totality, the spectral area itself. The dependence on the spectral area is a power law. Furthermore, the Gaussian-like character at short times is independent of the number of levels (N), but the numerical value of the decoherence rates is a monotonic function of N. In this context, we demonstrate that leakage, as a characteristic multilevel effect, is dominated by the non-resonant processes. The long time behaviour of decoherence is also examined. Since our spectral model allows Markovian environmental correlations at long times, the decoherence rates in this regime become exponential independently from the number of levels. The latter and the coupling strengths play the major role in the quantitative values of the rates and the rates are independent of the other spectral parameters. The validity of the presented results is restricted only by their reliance on the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. This approximation is strongly dependent on the external observational time and its reliability depends on an additional timescale. In the rest of the work, the crossover between the short and the long time behaviour of the density matrix of the multilevelled system is examined using an intuitive argument. It is shown that the Born approximation weakens as the resonant couplings become more effective at long times. This implies that, in calculations made with this approximation in the long time regime, a need for a justification arises for the reliability of the results. This justification is made for the present work.
We examine the effect of multilevels on decoherence and dephasing properties of a quantum system consisting of a nonideal two level subspace, identified as the qubit, and a finite set of higher energy levels above this qubit subspace. The whole system is under interaction with an environmental bath through a Caldeira-Leggett type coupling. The model that we use is an rf-SQUID under macroscopic quantum coherence and coupled inductively to a flux noise characterized by an environmental spectrum. The model interaction can generate dipole couplings which can be appreciable between the qubit and the high levels. The decoherence properties of the qubit subspace is examined numerically using the master equation formalism of the system's reduced density matrix. We calculate the relaxation and dephasing times as the spectral parameters of the environment are varied. We observe that, these calculated time scales receive contribution from all available frequencies in the noise spectrum (even well above the system's resonant frequency scales) stressing the dominant role played by the nonresonant transitions. The relaxation and dephasing and the leakage times thus calculated, strongly depend on the appreciably interacting levels determined by the strength of the dipole coupling. Under the influence of these nonresonant and multilevel effects, the validity of the two level approximation is dictated not by the low temperature as conveniently believed, but by these multilevel dipole couplings as well as the availability of the environmental modes.
We examine the effect of multilevels on decoherence and dephasing properties of a quantum system consisting of a non-ideal two level subspace, identified as the qubit and a finite set of higher energy levels above this qubit subspace. The whole system is under interaction with an environmental bath through a Caldeira-Leggett type coupling. The model that we use is an rf-SQUID under macroscopic quantum coherence and coupled inductively to a flux noise characterized by an environmental spectrum. The model interaction can generate dipole couplings which can be appreciable for a number of high levels. The decoherence properties of the qubit subspace is examined numerically using the master equation formalism of the system’s reduced density matrix. We numerically examine the relaxation and dephasing times as the environmental frequency spectrum, and the multilevel system parameters are varied at zero temperature. We observe that, these time scales receive contribution from all available energies in the noise spectrum (even well above the system’s energy scales) stressing the dominant role played by the non-resonant (virtual) transitions. The relaxation and dephasing times calculated, strongly depend on the number of levels within the range of levels for which appreciable couplings are produced. Under the influence of these effects, we remark that the validity of the two level approximation is restricted not by the temperature but by these dipole couplings as well as the availability of the environmental modes at low temperatures. © 2005 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
We examine the effect of multilevels on decoherence and dephasing properties of a quantum system consisting of a non-ideal two level subspace, identified as the qubit and a finite set of higher energy levels above this qubit subspace. The whole system is under interaction with an environmental bath through a Caldeira-Leggett type coupling. The model interaction we use can generate nonnegligible couplings between the qubit states and the higher levels upto N∼10N\sim 10N∼10. In contrast to the pure two-level system, in a multilevel system the quantum information may leak out of the qubit subspace through nonresonant as well as resonant excitations induced by the environment. The decoherence properties of the qubit subspace is examined numerically using the master equation formalism of the system's reduced density matrix. We numerically examine the relaxation and dephasing times as the environmental frequency spectrum, the environmental temperature, and the multilevel system parameters are varied. We observe the influence of all energy scales in the noise spectrum on the short time dynamics implying the dominance of nonresonant transitions at short times. The relaxation and dephasing times calculated, strongly depend on NNN for 4<N<104< N<104<N<10 and saturate for $10
In quantum computation, it is of paramount importance to locate the parameter space where maximal coherence can be preserved in the qubit system. In recent years environment-induced decoherence based the quantum Brownian motion (QBM) models have been applied to two level systems (2LS) interacting with an electromagnetic field, leading to the general belief that 2LS are easily decohered. In a recent paper C. Anastopoulos and B. L. Hu [Phys. Rev. A62, (2000) 033821] derived a new exact non-Markovian master equation at zero temperature, from which they showed that this belief is actually misplaced. For a two-level atom (2LA)- electromagnetic field (EMF) system the decoherence time is rather long, comparable to the relaxation time. Theoretically this is because the dominant interaction is the hatsigmapm\\hat \\sigma_{\\pm}hatsigmapm​ type of coupling between the two levels (what constitutes the qubit) and the field, not the hatsigmaz\\hat \\sigma_zhatsigmaz​ type, which shows the QBM behavior. Depending on the coupling the field can act as a resonator (in an atom cavity) or as a bath (in QBM) and produce very different decoherent behavior in the system. This is not new to Cavity QED experimentalists: the 2LA-EMF system maintaining its coherence in sufficiently long duration is the reason why they can manipulate them so well to show interesting quantum coherence effects.
In this lectures, we have described some essential features of loss of coherence by a qubit coupled to the environment. We have first presented well known semiclassical arguments that relate both decoherence and relaxation to the environmental noise. Then we have shown that models with pure decoherence (but no relaxation in qubit states) can be exactly solvable. As an example, we have treated in detail the model of fluctuating background charges which is believed to describe one of the most important channels for decoherence for the charge Josephson junction qubit. We have shown that the decoherence rate saturates at `high' temperatures while becoming linear in T at low temperatures and showing in all regimes a non-monotonic behaviour as a function of the coupling of the qubit to the fluctuating background charges. We have also considered, albeit only perturbatively, the qubit relaxation by the background charges and demonstrated that a quasi-linear behaviour of the spectral density of noise deduced from the measurements of the relaxation rate can be qualitatively explained.