Berry's phases for arbitrary spins nonlinearly coupled to external fields: application to the entanglement of N > 2 non-correlated 1/2-spins

Abstract

We derive the general formula giving Berry's phase for an arbitrary spin, having both magnetic-dipole and electric-quadrupole couplings with external time-dependent fields. We assume that the ‘effective’ electric and magnetic fields remain orthogonal during the quantum cycles. This mild restriction has many advantages. It provides simple symmetries leading to useful selection rules. Furthermore, the Hamiltonian parameter space coincides with the density matrix space for a spin S = 1. This implies a mathematical identity between Berry's phase and the Aharonov–Anandan phase, which is lost for S > 1. We have found that new physical features of Berry's phases emerge for integer spins ⩾2. We provide explicit numerical results of Berry's phases for S = 2, 3, 4. For any spin, one easily finds well-defined regions of the parameter space where instantaneous eigenstates remain widely separated. We have decided to stay within them and not deal with non-Abelian Berry's phases. We present a thorough and precise analysis of the non-adiabatic corrections with separate treatment for periodic and non-periodic Hamiltonian parameters. In both cases, the accuracy for satisfying the adiabatic approximation within a definite time interval is considerably improved if one chooses for the time derivatives of the parameters a time-dependence having a Blackman pulse shape. This has the effect of taming the non-adiabatic oscillation corrections which could be generated by a linear ramping. For realistic experimental conditions, the non-adibatic corrections can be kept below the 0.1% level. For a class of quantum cycles, involving as a sole periodic parameter the precession angle of the electric field around the magnetic field, the corrections odd upon the reversal of the associated rotation velocity can be canceled exactly if the quadrupole to dipole coupling is chosen appropriately (‘magic values’). The even ones are eliminated by taking the difference of the Berry phases generated by two ‘mirror’ cycles. We end by indicating a possible application of the theoretical tools developed in this paper. We propose a way to perform a holonomic entanglement of N non-correlated 1/2-spins by performing adiabatic cycles governed by a Hamiltonian given as a nonlinear function of the total spin operator S, defined as the sum of the N individual spin operators. The basic idea behind this proposal is the mathematical fact that any non-correlated states can be expanded into eigenstates of S2 and Sz. The same eigenvalues appear several times in the decomposition when N > 2 but all these states differ by their symmetry properties under the N-spin permutations. The case N = 4 and Sz = 1 is treated explicitly and a maximum entanglement is achieved.