Decoherence problem in quantum state transfer via an engineered spin chain

Lan Zhou,1 Jing Lu,2 Tao Shi,3 and C. P. Sun1, ∗

1
Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100080,China
2
Department of Physics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China
3
Department of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
A perfect quantum state transfer(QST) has been shown in an engineered spin chain with “always-
on interaction”. Here, we consider a more realistic problem for such a protocol, the quantum
decoherence induced by a spatially distributed environment, which is universally modeled as a bath
of harmonic oscillators. By making use of the irreducible tensor method in angular momentum
theory, we investigate the effect of decoherence on the efficiency of QST for both cases at zero
and finite temperatures. We not only show the generic exponential decay of QST efficiency as the
arXiv:quant-ph/0608135 v1 17 Aug 2006

number of sites increase, but also find some counterintuitive effect, the QST can be enhanced as
temperature increase.

PACS numbers: 03.67.Hk, 03.65.Yz, 75.10.Pq

I. INTRODUCTION neered nearest neighbor couplings and the bath is gen-

In quantum communications, one of the most impor-
tant tasks is transmitting a quantum state (known or
unknown) from one location to another location. The
ideal channel for accomplishing this task is to share en-
tanglement with a separated party for teleportation[1],
but measurement is required to obtain the original quan-
tum state. Most recently, people has explored the new
possibility to transmit a quantum state through a data
bus with “always-on” interaction, where minor opera-
tions are required. Among such quantum state transfer
(QST) schemes, the protocols based on the spin chain
with engineered couplings are particular attractive for
short distance communication[2, 3, 4, 5], as it does not
require any gating, modulating and measurements.
However a real quantum system can rarely be isolated
from its surrounding environment completely. It is usu-
ally coupled to the external environment (also called ”
bath”) with a large number of degrees of freedom[6].
There are two distinct effects of the bath on the quantum
system, quantum dissipation and decoherence. The dif-
ference between dissipation and decoherence is whether
coupling between system and bath allows for an exchange
of energy [6]. The dissipation effect of a spin bath on spin
transfer functions of permanently coupled spin system
have been investigated in Ref. [7], and the decoherence
effects of the efficiency of the spin chain have also been
studied in Ref.[8]. In Ref. [7] an assumption was made,
that is, each spin of the spin chain was assumed to couple
independently to separate baths. It is an ideal case. It
is more practical to study the components of the system
interacting with the same environment.
In this paper, we consider a system interacts with
a spatially distributed globe bath by exchange interac-
tions. Here, the system is an artificial chain with engi-
∗ Electronic address: suncp@itp.ac.cn;
URL: http://www.itp.ac.cn/~suncp
erally treated as a collection of two-level state systems.
Through irreducible tensor method in angular momen-
tum theory, we use the Langevin approach[9] to study
the environmental effects on the efficiency of this QST
system. We find that the transport efficiency decays ex-
ponentially with time; when the norm of the amplitudes
of the transport state are equal, transport efficiency is
independent of temperature. But when the norm of the
amplitudes are not equal, the transport efficiency is a de-
creasing or a increasing function of temperature respec-
tively; it also decreases as the number of sites increased.
This paper is organized as follows: In section II, we
present our model for the coupling between the system
and the bath. In section III, we derive the time evolu-
tion of system with irreducible tensor method and the
Langevin approach. In section IV, we investigate the
the bath effect on the state transport in the first excita-
tion subspace. In section V, we investigate the effect on
state transferring at finite temperature. In Section VI,
we make our conclusion.
II. MODEL
The decoherence model we consider here is a N-sites
lattice interacts with a heat bath by exchange interac-
tions. The system for QST is an open chain with en-
gineered nearest neighbor couplings proposed in Ref.[4].
The Hamiltonian for the spinless fermion in a tight bind-
ing lattice is
N −1
θ X
Hs = Jl (â†l âl+1 + â†l+1 âl ). (1)
2
l=1
It describes the free hopping in a network of N lattice
sites, which is equivalent to the XY-spin model. Here,
â†l (âl ) is the fermion creation(annihilation)
p operator of
electrons at lth site; Jl = l(N − l) is the hopping in-
tegral over the lth site and the l + 1th site. In the sin-
gle fermion subspace of the lattice, Hs = θJˆx , where
 2

Jˆx is the angular momentum operator for a particle where

of spin S = (N − 1)/2, scaled by a strength param- π  1−N p
djl = 2 2 (l − 1)! (N − l)! (j − 1)! (N − j)!
eter θ. The single-fermion states {|li = a†l |vaci} are 2
equivalent to the z-angular momentum eigenstates, with (−1)j−l+ν [(N − j − ν)! (l − 1 − ν)!]−1
X
{|1i = |J, −Ji, · · · , |N i = |J, Ji}. Then through the ν
time evolution driven by Hs , a perfect QST is achieved −1
at time t = π/θ. [(ν + j − l)!ν!] . (6)
The bath around the open chain distributes as a large The total Hamiltonian H̃ can be written as
ensemble of two-level systems at different position with- N M
out interaction. Each position is represented by a site. X X
H = θlĉ†l ĉl + ωx b̂†x b̂x
The state of site is expressed as being empty or occupied
l=1 x=1
by a spinless fermionic particle. This modeling of the
M X
N 
bath can be realized as the background charge fluctua- X 
+ g̃lx ĉ†l b̂x + h.c. , (7)
tion for the practical electron system. The Hamiltonian
x=1 l=1
of the distributed thermal bath has the following form
M−1
where
X
HB = ωx b̂†x b̂x , (2) N
X  π
x=1 g̃lx = gjx djl − . (8)
j=1
2
where ωx is the on-site potential (or called the chemical
potential) of the xth site. b̂†x (b̂x ) stands the fermion cre- The system Hamiltonian (7) described is analogous to a
ation(annihilation) operator of electrons at xth site. And multilevel atom coupling to a reservoir, with the atomic
M is the number of sites. By the rotating-wave approx- energy level spaced uniformly. It is a typical damped sys-
imation, the Hamiltonian for the exchange interaction tem, and the interaction results in an atomic linewidth.
between the system and the bath is written as The Heisenberg equation driven by the Hamiltonian
(7) results in the following system of equations.
N,M
X
HI = (glx â†l b̂x + h.c.), (3) dĉ†m X M

l,x=1
= imθĉ†m + i ∗
g̃mx b̂†x , (9a)
dt x
where glx is the coupling strength between the lth site of N
system and the xth site of bath. Obviously, HI describes db̂†x X
= iωx b̂†x + i g̃lx ĉ†l . (9b)
the system interacting with a globe environment, which dt
l=1
is more practical.
The total Hamiltonian of this entire system is de- In general, Eq.(9) cannot be solved exactly. We assume
scribed by the interaction between chain and bath is weak, and then
can resort to perturbation theory. First we define two
H̃ = Hs + HB + HI , (4) new fermion operators Ĉm†
and B̂x†
which preserves the total number of excitations. It is † iθmt
ĉ†m = Ĉm e (10a)
important to note that [Hs , HI ] 6= 0, which means the
system and the bath exchange energy with each other. b̂†x = B̂x† eiωx t (10b)
This is typical quantum dissipation problem. to remove the high frequency effect, and then the Heisen-
†
berg equation for operator Ĉm and B̂x† becomes
III. QUANTUM LANGEVIN APPROACH FOR † M
dĈm X
∗ x )(t−t0 )
SYSTEM EVOLUTION = i g̃mx e−i(θm−ω
x B̂x† , (11a)
dt x
N
Not to be limited by the concrete initial states of the dB̂x† X
system, the Langevin approach is used to derive the time = i g̃lx ei(θl−ωx )(t−t0 ) Ĉl† . (11b)
dt
evolution of the system operator. First, we employ the ir- l=1

reducible tensor method in angular momentum theory to Integrating both sides of Eq.(11), and iterating it up
diagonalize Hamiltonian Hs . By defining a new fermion to second order of g, we obtain the integral-differential
operators ĉ†l , ĉl equation
N † M
 π dĈm X
∗
e−i(θm−ωx )t B̂x†
X
ĉl = dll′ − âl′ , (5a) = i g̃mx (12)
2 dt x
l′ =1
N π M,N Z t
X ′
∗
g̃lx e−i(θm−ωx )t Ĉl† dt′ ei(θl−ωx )t .
X
ĉ†l = dl′ l â†l′ , (5b) − g̃mx
2 x,l=1 0
l′ =1
 3

Here, we assume the coupling between system and bath According to the discussions in the above section, and
∗
is started at t0 = 0. By Laplace transformation, we have neglecting the cross term g̃nx g̃lx when n 6= l, we have
" M
#  π π  π  π
∗
X
X g̃mx g̃mx † F = dmN − dN n d1m dn1 −
s+ Ĉm (s) 2 2 2 2
x=1
i (θm − ω x ) + s mn

M exp [iθ (m − n) t − (Γm + Γn ) t] . (18)

∗
†
X g̃mx
= Ĉm +i B̂ † If coupling constant g̃lx satisfying Γl = Γ, the MTF be-
x
i (θm − ωx ) + s x
come
M X
N
X ∗
g̃mx g̃lx Ĉl† θt 2(N −1) −2Γt
− . (13) F = (sin ) e , (19)
x=1 l6=m
i (θm − ωx ) + s i (θm − θl) + s 2
Through Wigner-Weisskopf approximation[9], we obtain which shows that MTF decays exponentially with decay
rate 2Γ.
M
X ∗
g̃mx e−Γm t Next we assume the coupling strength is of the form
†
Ĉm (t) = e−Γm t Ĉm
†
+i B̂ † (14) √
x
i (θm − ωx ) − Γm x α

α2

2
gxl = 1/4 exp − (l − x) , (20)
M X
X N ∗
g̃mx g̃lx Ĉl† e−Γm t π 2
− ,
x=1 l6=m
i (θm − ωx ) − Γm iθ (m − l) − Γm and the bath energy is a random Gaussian function of the
site. To show the bath effect on the QST in this case,
where the decay rate in Fig.1, we numerically plot the MTF as the function of
M
X time for N = 4 and N = 10 respectively. In each figure,
Γm = π ∗
g̃mx g̃mx δ (ωx − θm) (15) the number of environment site is assumed ten times than
x=1 that of chain; the parameter α = 0.1θ. Fig1(a) is plotted
when the bath energy satisfy a normal distribution (with
reflects the bath effect on the time evolution of the sys-
respect to x) with mean 2.5θ and variance θ; Fig1(b)
tem.
is plotted when the normal distribution of bath energy
has the mean 5θ and variance 2.5θ. It shows that the
IV. EFFECTS ON THE STATE TRANSPORT AT transport efficiency decays rapidly as time increase, and
ZERO TEMPERATURE it also become worse as the the number of sites increased.

Now we consider the dissipation effect at zero tempera- V. EFFECTS ON THE QST AT FINITE
ture. Since the system and the bath are independent be- TEMPERATURE
fore coupling, the initial state of the chain and the bath
is chosen to be factorized. As a state can be perfectly
In this section, we consider how the spatially dis-
transferred to the end of the chain after time t = π/θ in
tributed bath affects the QST at finite temperature.
the first excitation subspace, we assume the total system
Since the bath is initially in a thermal state before cou-
only has single fermionic particle. The quantum state to
pling to the system, which is not a pure state. The MTF
be transferred is located at the 1st site of the chain, so
can not completely reflect the transport efficiency, as it
the bath is initially in a vacuum state. We denote the
lacks the information of state amplitude. Here, we em-
state of the chain as |1i = â†1 |0i, where |0i is the vacuum
ploy the fidelity as the criterion for transport efficiency.
state and it means there are no particles in the chain.
We consider the following situation: the arbitrary state
We then investigate how the bath affects the state trans-
to be transferred is prepared in the 1th site, and it is a
ferring from the 1st site to the end of the chain. The
superposition of the single particle and the vacuum state.
transport efficiency of the chain is described by the norm
of transfer function(MTF)[2, 4]
F = tr U (t)|1ih1|ρB U † (t)|N ihN | ,
 
(16) |ψ1 i = α |01 i + β |11 i , (21)

where U (t) = exp (−iH̃t) and ρB = |0ih0| is the initial where the footnote indicates the position of the site. The
QST is completed when arbitrary state is found in the
state of the bath. The value of MTF is between 0 (no
transfer) and 1 (a perfect transfer). In terms of operators end of chain. We assume that at t = 0, the chain is in a
state
Ĉ † and Ĉ, the probability for finding the particle in the
N th site is reexpressed as |φi i = |ψi1 |{0}i , (22)
X  π π π   π
F = dmN − dN n d1l dl′ 1 − with |ψi being encoded in site one and no other particle
2 2 2 2 in chain. The fidelity is defined as
mnll′
h i
†
h0| Ĉl Ĉm (t) Ĉn (t) Ĉl†′ |0i eiθ(m−n)t . (17) F = T r U |φi i hφi | ρB U † |ψN i hψN | ,


(23)
 4
X π   π π   π
0.8
F1100 = dN n dmN − d1j dj ′ 1 −
T=0 nmjj ′
2 2 2 2
N=4 D E
Ĉj†′ 0 |{0}i eiθ(m−n)t , (26c)
0.6 †
h{0}| Ĉj0 Ĉn Ĉm
B
Fidelity
X  π D E
0.4 F0010 = dmN − h{0}| Ĉm †
|{0}i eiθmt , (26d)
m
2 B
X  π π
0.2 F0110 = dmN − d1j
mj
2 2

t
D E
0.0 h{0}| Ĉj0 Ĉm †
|{0}i eiθmt , (26e)
0 50 100 150 200 B
X  π  π
(a) F1010 = dmN − dj1 −
0.6
mj
2 2
T=0 D E
†
0.5
N=10 h{0}| Ĉm †
Ĉj0 |{0}i eiθmt , (26f)
B
X  π π  π
0.4
F1110 = dmN − d1j dj ′ 1 −
Fidelity

2 2 2
0.3 mjj ′
D E
0.2
h{0}| Ĉj0 Ĉm †
Ĉj†′ 0 |{0}i eiθmt , (26g)
B
X  π π
0.1 F0011 = dmN − dN n
mn
2 2
0.0 t D E
0 50 100 150 200 h{0}| Ĉm †
Ĉn |{0}i eiθ(m−n)t , (26h)
B
(b) π π π
X      
F0111 = dmN − dN n d1j
mnj
2 2 2
D E
h{0}| Ĉj0 Ĉm †
Ĉn |{0}i eiθ(m−n)t , (26i)
B
FIG. 1: The MTF as the function of time with the coupling X  π   π   π   π
strength in Eq.20. The number of site in environment is as- F1111 = dmN − dN n d1j dj ′ 1 −
2 2 2 2
sumed ten times than that of chain, and parameter α = 0.1θ mnjj ′
(a) The total number N of sites placed on the chain is N = 4.
D E
h{0}| Ĉj0 Ĉm †
Ĉn Ĉj†′ 0 |{0}i eiθ(m−n)t , (26j)
(b) The total number N of sites placed on the chain is N = 10. B
The time is in unit of 1/θ.
where Ĉi0 (i = j, j ′ ) are the initial operator in the Heisen-
berg representation. Using Eq.(14), and neglecting the
where U (t) = exp (−iH̃t) and ρB = e−βH /z, and z is the ∗
g̃mx g̃lx term when m 6= l, we can obtain the expression of
partition function. Eq. (23) can be rewritten as fidelity for arbitrary state, and some of the off diagonal
fidelity vanish, i.e.
F = T r hφi | ρB U † |ψN i hψN | U |φi i . (24)
F0100 = 0, F0010 = 0,
By defining sixteen components of fidelity
F1001 = 0, F1110 = 0, (27)
Fijlm = tr U (t) |i1 i hj1 | ρB U † (t) |lN i hmN | ,
 
(25) F0111 = 0.
where i, j, l, m ∈ {0, 1}, the fidelity F can be written as A little reckoning shows that, like the MTF in zero tem-
the sum of the above sixteen fidelities. There are only perature, fidelity F decays exponential with time. It also
ten terms independent. In terms of operator Ĉ † and Ĉ can be known that, when the amplitudes of the trans-
defined in section III, all ten components of fidelity F port state satisfy |α| = |β|, the fidelity F is independent
becomes of temperature; when |α| > |β|, the fidelity F is a de-
X π  π creasing of temperature; when |α| < |β|, the fidelity F
F0000 = dN n dmN − increases with temperature. But as time increases, the
nm
2 2
D E influence of temperature becomes small and small.
h{0}| Ĉn Ĉm†
|{0}i eiθ(m−n)t , (26a) To show the amplitude of the transport state influ-
X π B
 π π ence, we depicted the fidelity F of different states as a
F0100 = dN n dmN − d1j function of time and temperature in Fig.2 and Fig.3 re-
nmj
2 2 2 spectively, in the case of coupling strength in Eq.(20)
D E and a random Gaussian distribution of the bath energy.
h{0}| Ĉj0 Ĉn Ĉm†
|{0}i eiθ(m−n)t , (26b) Fig. 2 is plotted when the transport state has the form
B
 5
√

0.8
0.115668

3 |01 i + |11 i /2. Fig. 3 is plotted when the transport

0.115666

0.115664
t=400
√

state is in |01 i + 3 |11 i /2. Although the fidelity is a
0.115662

0.115660

0.6 0.115658

decreasing function of time, it can be seen that, from the

0.115656
fidelity
0.07909
t=200

fidelity
0.07908
0.4
0.07907

0.07906
cross section (b) and (c) in Fig.2 and Fig.3, the ampli-
0.2

100
0.07905
0.71

0.70
t=4
tude value of transport state determines the temperature
75
0.69

effect on fidelity, that is, when the amplitude of state |01 i

e
0.68

tur
0.00
50 0.67

100

e ra
time
200 25
0.66

is larger than that of state |11 i, the transport efficiency

mp
0 20 40 60 80 100
300

is a descending function of temperature, and when the

0 Temperature

Te
400

(a) (b) amplitude of state |01 i is smaller than that of state |11 i,
0.6
0.04144
t=400
the transport efficiency is a increasing function of tem-
perature. From the cross section (c) and (d) in Fig.2 and
0.04140

0.04136

0.5
0.04132

0.04128

Fig.3, It can be observed that as time increase, the influ-

fidelity

0.4
0.0895
fidelity

t=200

0.3
0.0894

0.0893
ence of temperature becomes small and small. To show
0.2
0.0892

the influence of the site number N , in each figure, two

3D diagrams and its cross sections are plotted for differ-
0.56
t=4
0.1 100
0.54
e

75
tur

0.00
50
0.52

ent site number N of chain. It can be obtained that the

e ra

100

time
0.50
200 25
mp

0 20 40 60 80 100

300
Temperature fidelity decreases as the number of sites increased. Hence
Te

400 0

(c) (d) due to exchange of energy between chain and bath, we

cannot obtain the original state any longer as time in-
FIG. 2: Representation of fidelity F√ as a function
of time and creasing.
temperature with transport state 3 |01 i + |11 i /2. (a) 3-D
diagram for N=4. (b) the cross section for N=4. (c) 3-D
diagram for N=10. (d) the cross section for N=10. Other
VI. SUMMARY
parameter are the same as Fig.1

In summary, we have investigated the decoherence

problem in quantum state transfer (QST). We show when
0.115656

0.115654 t=400
an open spin chain of arbitrary length N interacts with
0.6
0.115652

0.115650

0.115648
a globe distributed bath, the efficiency of the QST de-
0.115646

0.07906 creases due to the exchange of energy between chain and

fidelity
fidelity

0.07905
0.4
0.07904

0.07903
t=200

bath, but the temperature effect on the QST is deter-

0.2
0.07902

0.66
mined by the form of transport state.
t=4

Although our discussion are based on the in the engi-

0.65
100
0.64
80
e

0.63
tur

0.00 60
100 40
0.62

neered tight binding model with spinless Bloch electrons,

e ra

0.61

time
200 0 20 40 60 80 100
20
mp

it also can be applied to an arbitrary many-particle state

300
Temperature
0
Te

400

(a) (b) in such system. This is because the irreducible tensor

0.04128 method in angular momentum theory could be expected
t=400
0.04124

0.5 0.04120

0.04116
to work well for the QST in an engineered quantum mod-
els with more electrons[4]. In the above studies, a qubit
fidelity

0.04112
0.4
0.04108

t=200
is encoded in the superposition of the vacuum and the
0.0891
fidelity

0.3
0.0890

0.0889

0.2
0.0888
one-particle state, which is spinless tight binding fermion.
Actually, all the conclusions we obtained can be extended
0.50
0.1
100 t=4
0.48
75
e

to the spin electrons. The electronic wave packet with

tur

0.00 0.46
50
100
e ra

time
0.44
200 25
mp

300
0
0 20 40

Temperature
60 80 100

spin polarization is an analogue of photon “flying qubit”.

Te

400

(c) (d) The spatial fidelity determines the fidelity of freedom of

spin.
FIG. 3: Representation of fidelity F as a function
√
of time and This work is supported by the NSFC with grant Nos.
temperature with transport state |01 i + 3 |11 i /2.(a) 3-D 90203018, 10474104 and 60433050, and NFRPC with
diagram for N=4. (b) the cross section for N=4. (c) 3-D Nos. 2001CB309310 and 2005CB724508. The author
diagram for N=10. (d) the cross section for N=10. Other Lan Zhou gratefully acknowledges the support of K. C.
parameter are the same as Fig.1 Wong Education Foundation, Hong Kong.

[1] C. H. Bennett and S. J.Wiesner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 2881 [2] S. Bose, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 207901 (2003); D. Burgarth
(1992); C. H. Bennett, G. Brassard, C. Cre’peau, R. Jozsa, and S. Bose, Phys. Rev. A 71, 052315 (2005); M.-H. Yung
A. Peres, and W. K. Wootters, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 1895 and S. Bose, Phys. Rev. A 71, 032310 (2005);
(1993). [3] Michael J. Hartmann, Moritz E. Reuter, Martin B. Plenio,

New J. Phys. 8, 94 (2006); M. B. Plenio, J. Hartley and
J. Eisert, New J. Phys. 6, 36 (2004); M. B. Plenio, and
Semião F. New J. Phys. 7, 73 (2005). [6]
[4] M. Christandl et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 187902 (2004);
M. Christandl et al., Phys. Rev. A 71, 032312 (2005). [7]
[5] T. Shi, Ying Li, Z. Song, and C. P. Sun, Phys. Rev. A 71, [8]
032309(2005); Z. Song and C. P. Sun, Low Temp. Phys.
31, 686 (2005); S. Yang, Z. Song, and C. P. Sun, Phys. [9]
Rev. A 73, 022317 (2006); S. Yang, Z. Song, and C. P.
Sun, Phys. Rev. B 73, 195122 (2006); X.-F. Qian, Y. Li,
Y. Li, Z. Song, and C. P. Sun, Phys. Rev. A 72, 062329
6
(2005); Y. Li, T. Shi, B. Chen, Z. Song, and C.-P. Sun,
Phys. Rev. A 71, 022301 (2005).
Yu-xi Liu, C. P. Sun, and S. X. Yu, Phys. Rev. A 63,
033816 (2001).
D. Burgarth and S. Bose, Phys. Rev. A 73, 062321 (2006).
Jian-Ming Cai, Zheng-Wei Zhou, and Guang-Can Guo,
quant-ph/0603228.
W.H. Louisell, Quantum Statistical Properties of Radia-
tion, (Wiley, New York, 1973)