Qubit dephasing affected by preparation-induced initial correlation with stochastic environment

Abstract

The reduced time evolution of a single qubit under the influence of a classical environment is studied by means of the stochastic Liouville equation. The qubit initially correlates with the environment, which is created by a preparation process of an initial state. The phase fluctuation caused by the environment is characterized by means of the Gauss-Markov process and the two-state-jump Markov process. It is shown that depending on values of the parameters, the initial correlation enhances or reduces the decoherence of the qubit. In the case of the slow modulation, the effect of the initial preparation of the qubit becomes significant and it cannot be ignored in the reduced time evolution of the qubit.