Decay of the Loschmidt echo in a time-dependent environment

Abstract

We study the decay rate of the Loschmidt echo or fidelity in a chaotic system under a time-dependent perturbation V(q,t) with typical strength Planck's/tau(v) . The perturbation represents the action of an uncontrolled environment interacting with the system, and is characterized by a correlation length xi(0) and a correlation time tau(0). For small perturbation strengths or rapid fluctuating perturbations, the Loschmidt echo decays exponentially with a rate predicted by the Fermi "golden rule," 1/approximately tau =tau(c)/tau(v)(2), where tau(c) approximately min[tau(0), xi(0)/upsilon] and upsilon is the typical particle velocity. Whenever the rate 1/approximately tau is larger than the Lyapunov exponent of the system, a perturbation independent Lyapunov decay regime arises. We also find that by speeding up the fluctuations (while keeping the perturbation strength fixed) the fidelity decay becomes slower, and hence one can protect the system against decoherence.