Quantum State Diffusion Equation Research Articles

Nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics in non-Markovian adiabatic speedup

Understanding heat transfer between a quantum system and its environment is of undisputed importance if reliable quantum devices are to be constructed. Here, we investigate the heat transfer between system and bath in non-Markovian open systems in the process of adiabatic speedup. Using the quantum state diffusion equation method, the heat current, energy current, and power are calculated during free evolution and under external control of the system. While the heat current increases with increasing system–bath coupling strength and bath temperature, it can be restricted by the non-Markovian nature of the bath. Without pulse control, the heat current is nearly equal to the energy current. On the other hand, with pulse control, the energy current turns out to be nearly equal to the power. In this scenario, we show that non-Markovianity is a useful tool to drive the system through an approximate adiabatic dynamics, with pulse control acting in the conversion between heat current and power throughout the evolution.

Quantum state transmission through a spin chain in finite-temperature heat baths

Transmission of a quantum state is essential for performing quantum information processing tasks. The communication channel will be inevitably immersed in its surrounding environment under realistic conditions. In this paper, we investigate the influence of environment noise on the transmission fidelity when transferring a quantum state through a spin chain. The non-Markovian open system dynamics is systematically analyzed by using the quantum state diffusion equation method. With each spin immersed in its own finite temperature and non-Markovian heat bath, we consider three types of system–bath interaction: dephasing, dissipation and spin-boson. The transmission fidelity is found to decrease with the increasing bath temperature and system–bath coupling strength. Interestingly, we find that the bath non-Markovianity can help enhancing the transmission fidelity.

Accelerated adiabatic quantum search algorithm via pulse control in a non-Markovian environment

Adiabatic quantum computation requires that the system remains in its ground state. However, an adiabatic process often loses partly or entirely its quantumness, such as entanglement in its long runtime, due to the system-environment interactions. Here we put forward an effective quantum control technique to realize the adiabatic quantum search algorithm in a nonadiabatic regime and in the presence of environment. Using the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion equation approach, we numerically study the system dynamics characterized by the success probability. The results show that the probability increases with decreasing coupling strength and temperature. In particular, non-Markovianity from the environment can help to enhance the success probability. By choosing a suitable pulse intensity and period, a high success probability can be obtained in a short runtime for weak system-bath coupling, low temperature, and strong non-Markovian heat baths.

Almost-exact state transfer by leakage-elimination-operator control in a non-Markovian environment

We investigate the feasibility of using an effective pulse control method to realize an almost exact state transmission through a uniform chain where the communication channel is immersed in a quantum environment. This pulse control is treated in a nonperturbative fashion, allowing for a more precise view. Using the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion equation, we calculate the dynamics of the transmission fidelity. The results show that the memory effects of the environment can support an effective transmission control that can be boosted under a non-Markovian environment. Our scheme provides another way to realize almost exact state transmission in a spin chain system.

Quantum state transfer through a spin chain in two non-Markovian baths

Transfer of quantum states through spin chain system has been discussed a lot. However, the interaction of the system with a noisy environment needs to be considered for practical quantum information processing tasks. Here, we study a model where the two ends of the spin chain are independently immersed in two bosonic baths. Using the quantum state diffusion (QSD) equation approach, we obtain the master equation of the system. Assuming a noise-independent O operator associated with the QSD equation, we numerically calculate the fidelity evolution for two models of system–bath interactions: dephasing model and dissipation model. For these two models, our calculation shows that the existence of the baths always lowers the fidelity, but the non-Markovianity from the baths can be useful for enhancing the state transfer fidelity. Our investigation takes one step toward practical quantum communication through a spin system.

The Gisin-Percival stochastic Schrödinger equation from standard quantum filtering theory

We show that the quantum state diffusion equation of Gisin and Percival, driven by complex Wiener noise, is equivalent up to a global stochastic phase to quantum trajectory models. With an appropriate feedback scheme, we set up an analog continuous measurement model which exactly simulates the Gisin-Percival quantum state diffusion.

Closures of the functional expansion hierarchy in the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion approach.

To find a practical scheme to numerically solve the non-Markovian Quantum State Diffusion equation (NMQSD), one often uses a functional expansion of the functional derivative that appears in the general NMQSD equation. This expansion leads to a hierarchy of coupled operators. It turned out that if one takes only the zeroth order term into account, one has a very efficient method that agrees remarkably well with the exact results for many cases of interest. We denote this approach as zeroth order functional expansion (ZOFE). In the present work, we investigate two extensions of ZOFE. Firstly, we investigate how the hierarchy converges when taking higher orders into account (which, however, leads to a fast increase in numerical size). Secondly, we demonstrate that by using a terminator that approximates the higher order contributions, one can obtain significant improvement, at hardly any additional computational cost. We carry out our investigations for the case of absorption spectra of molecular aggregates.

Non-Markovian quantum trajectroy unravellings of entanglement

The fully quantized model of double qubits coupled to a common bath is solved using the quantum state diffusion (QSD) approach in the non-Markovian regime. We have established the explicit time-local non-Markovian QSD equations for the two-qubit dissipative and dephasing models. Diffusive quantum trajectories are applied to the entanglement estimation of two-qubit systems in a non-Markovian regime. In both cases, non-Markovian features of entanglement evolution are revealed through quantum diffusive unravellings in the system state space.

Dynamical invariants in a non-Markovian quantum-state-diffusion equation

We find dynamical invariants for open quantum systems described by the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion (QSD) equation. In stark contrast to closed systems where the dynamical invariant can be identical to the system density operator, these dynamical invariants no longer share the equation of motion for the density operator. Moreover, the invariants obtained with from bi-orthonormal basis can be used to render an exact solution to the QSD equation and the corresponding non-Markovian dynamics without using master equations or numerical simulations. Significantly we show that we can apply these dynamic invariants to reverse-engineering a Hamiltonian that is capable of driving the system to the target state, providing a novel way to design control strategy for open quantum systems.

Exact non-Markovian master equations for multiple qubit systems: Quantum-trajectory approach

A wide class of exact master equations for a multiple qubit system can be explicitly constructed by using the corresponding exact non-Markovian quantum state diffusion equations. These exact master equations arise naturally from the quantum decoherence dynamics of qubit system as a quantum memory coupled to a collective colored noisy source. The exact master equations are also important in optimal quantum control, quantum dissipation and quantum thermodynamics. In this paper, we show that the exact non-Markovian master equation for a dissipative N-qubit system can be derived explicitly from the statistical average of the corresponding non-Markovian quantum trajectories. We illustrated our general formulation by an explicit construction of a three-qubit system coupled to a non-Markovian bosonic environment. This multiple qubit master equation offers an accurate time evolution of quantum systems in various domains, and paves a way to investigate the memory effect of an open system in a non-Markovian regime without any approximation.

Approach to solving spin-boson dynamics via non-Markovian quantum trajectories

We develop a systematic and efficient approach for numerically solving the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion equations for open quantum systems coupled to an environment up to arbitrary orders of noises or coupling strengths. As an important application, we consider a real-time simulation of a spin-boson model in a strong coupling regime that is difficult to deal with using conventional methods. We show that the non-Markovian stochastic Schr\"{o}dinger equation can be efficiently implemented as a real--time simulation for this model, so as to give an accurate description of spin-boson dynamics beyond the rotating-wave approximation.

Dynamics of coupled cavity arrays embedded in a non-Markovian bath

In this paper, the non-Markovian quantum dynamics of a coupled $N$-cavity model is studied based on the quantum state diffusion (QSD) approach. The time-local Di\'{o}si-Gisin-Strunz equation and the corresponding exact master equation are derived for the model consisting of a coupled cavity array. The resulting QSD equation serves as a stochastic solution to a genuine $N$-partite continuous-variable (CV) system. Several non-Markovian effects are studied in two interesting examples -- two-cavity and three-cavity, under different boundary conditions. We have shown that the environment-memory can facilitate the cat-like state transfer from one cavity to another in the case of a strongly non-Markovian environment.

Dynamics of coupled cavity arrays embedded in a non-Markovian bath

In this paper, the non-Markovian quantum dynamics of a coupled N-cavity model is studied based on the quantum state diffusion (QSD) approach. The time-local Diosi-Gisin-Strunz equation and the corresponding exact master equation are derived for the model consisting of a coupled cavity array. The resulting QSD equation serves as a stochastic solution to a genuine N-partite continuous-variable (CV) system. Several non-Markovian effects are studied in two interesting examples - two-cavity and three-cavity, under different boundary conditions. We have shown that the environment-memory can facilitate the cat-like state transfer from one cavity to another in the case of a strongly non-Markovian environment.

Many-body quantum trajectories of non-Markovian open systems

A long-standing open problem in the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion (QSD) approach to open quantum systems is to establish the non-Markovian QSD equations for multiple-qubit systems. In this paper, we settle this important question by explicitly constructing a set of exact time-local QSD equations for $N$-qubit systems. Our exact time-local (convolutionless) QSD equations have paved the way towards simulating quantum dynamics of many-body open systems interacting with a common bosonic environment. The applicability of this multiple-qubit stochastic equation is exemplified by numerically solving several quantum open many-body systems concerning quantum coherence dynamics and dynamical control.

Uhrig dynamical control of a three-level system via non-Markovian quantum state diffusion

In this paper, we use the quantum state diffusion (QSD) equation to implement the Uhrig dynamical decoupling to a three-level quantum system coupled to a non-Markovian reservoir comprising of infinite numbers of degrees of freedom. For this purpose, we first reformulate the non-Markovian QSD to incorporate the effect of the external control fields. With this stochastic QSD approach, we demonstrate that an unknown state of the three-level quantum system can be universally protected against both coloured phase and amplitude noises when the control-pulse sequences and control operators are properly designed. The advantage of using non-Markovian QSD equations is that the control dynamics of open quantum systems can be treated exactly without using Trotter product formula and be efficiently simulated even when the environment is comprised of infinite numbers of degrees of freedom. We also show how the control efficacy depends on the environment memory time and the designed time points of applied control pulses.

Fermionic stochastic Schrödinger equation and master equation: An open-system model

This paper considers the extension of the non-Markovian stochastic approach for quantum open systems strongly coupled to a fermionic bath, to the models in which the system operators commute with the fermion bath. This technique can also be a useful tool for studying open quantum systems coupled to a spin-chain environment, which can be further transformed into an effective fermionic bath. We derive an exact stochastic Schr\"{o}dinger equation (SSE), called fermionic quantum state diffusion (QSD) equation, from the first principle by using the fermionic coherent state representation. The reduced density operator for the open system can be recovered from the average of the solutions to the QSD equation over the Grassmann-type noise. By employing the exact fermionic QSD equation, we can derive the corresponding exact master equation. The power of our approach is illustrated by the applications of our stochastic approach to several models of interest including the one-qubit dissipative model, the coupled two-qubit dissipative model, the quantum Brownian motion model and the N-fermion model coupled to a fermionic bath. Different effects caused by the fermionic and bosonic baths on the dynamics of open systems are also discussed.

Solving non-Markovian open quantum systems with multi-channel reservoir coupling

We extend the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion (QSD) equation to open quantum systems which exhibit multi-channel coupling to a harmonic oscillator reservoir. Open quantum systems which have multi-channel reservoir coupling are those in which canonical transformation of reservoir modes cannot reduce the number of reservoir operators appearing in the interaction Hamiltonian to one. We show that the non-Markovian QSD equation for multi-channel reservoir coupling can, in some cases, lead to an exact master equation which we derive. We then derive the exact master equation for the three-level system in a vee-type configuration which has multi-channel reservoir coupling and give the analytical solution. Finally, we examine the evolution of the three-level vee-type system with generalized Ornstein–Uhlenbeck reservoir correlations numerically.

Time-local quantum-state-diffusion equation for multilevel quantum systems

An open quantum system with multiple levels coupled to a bosonic environment at zero temperature is investigated systematically using the non-Markovian quantum-state-diffusion (QSD) method [W. T. Strunz, L. Di\'osi, and N. Gisin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1801 (1999)]. We have established exact time-local QSD equations for a set of interesting multilevel open systems, including high-spin systems, multiple-transition atomic models, and multilevel atomic models driven by time-dependent external fields. These exact QSD equations have paved the way to evaluate the dynamics of open multilevel atomic systems in the general non-Markovian regimes without any approximation.

Feshbach projection-operator partitioning for quantum open systems: Stochastic approach

The dynamics of a state of interest coupled to a non-Markovian environment is studied by concatenating the non-Markovian quantum state diffusion equation and the Feshbach projection-operator partitioning technique. An exact one-dimensional stochastic master equation is derived as a general tool for controlling an arbitrary component of the system. We show that the exact one-dimensional stochastic master equation can be efficiently solved beyond the widely adapted second-order master equations. The generality and applicability of this hybrid approach is justified and exemplified by several coherence control problems concerning quantum state protection against leakage and decoherence.

Dynamics of interacting qubits coupled to a common bath: Non-Markovian quantum-state-diffusion approach

Non-Markovian dynamics is studied for two interacting qubits strongly coupled to a dissipative bosonic environment. We derive a non-Markovian quantum-state-diffusion (QSD) equation for the coupled two-qubit system without any approximations, and in particular, without the Markov approximation. As an application and illustration of our derived time-local QSD equation, we investigate the temporal behavior of quantum coherence dynamics. In particular, we find a strongly non-Markovian regime where entanglement generation is significantly modulated by the environmental memory. Additionally, we study residual entanglement in the steady state by analyzing the steady-state solution of the QSD equation. Finally, we discuss an approximate QSD equation.