Felipe Fernandes Fanchini

Robustness of quantum discord to sudden death

We calculate the dissipative dynamics of two-qubit quantum discord under Markovian environments. We analyze various dissipative channels such as dephasing, depolarizing, and generalized amplitude damping, assuming independent perturbation, in which each qubit is coupled to its own channel. Choosing initial conditions that manifest the so-called sudden death of entanglement, we compare the dynamics of entanglement with that of quantum discord. We show that in all cases where entanglement suddenly disappears, quantum discord vanishes only in the asymptotic limit, behaving similarly to individual decoherence of the qubits, even at finite temperatures. Hence, quantum discord is more robust than the entanglement against decoherence so that quantum algorithms based only on quantum discord correlations may be more robust than those based on entanglement.

Non-Markovian dynamics of quantum discord

We evaluate the quantum discord dynamics of two qubits in independent and common non-Markovian environments. We compare the dynamics of entanglement with that of quantum discord. For independent reservoirs the quantum discord vanishes only at discrete instants whereas the entanglement can disappear during a finite time interval. For a common reservoir, quantum discord and entanglement can behave very differently with sudden birth of the former but not of the latter. Furthermore, in this case the quantum discord dynamics presents sudden changes in the derivative of its time evolution which is evidenced by the presence of kinks in its behavior at discrete instants of time.

System-reservoir dynamics of quantum and classical correlations

We examine the system-reservoir dynamics of classical and quantum correlations in the decoherence phenomenon within a two-qubit composite system interacting with two independent environments. The most common noise channels (amplitude damping, phase damping, bit flip, bit-phase flip, and phase flip) are analyzed. By analytical and numerical analyses we find that, contrary to what is usually stated in the literature, decoherence may occur without entanglement between the system and the environment. We also show that, in some cases, the bipartite quantum correlation initially present in the system is completely evaporated and not transferred to the environments.

Entanglement irreversibility from quantum discord and quantum deficit.

We relate the problem of irreversibility of entanglement with the recently defined measures of quantum correlation--quantum discord and one-way quantum deficit. We show that the entanglement of formation is always strictly larger than the coherent information and the entanglement cost is also larger in most cases. We prove irreversibility of entanglement under local operations and classical communication for a family of entangled states. This family is a generalization of the maximally correlated states for which we also give an analytic expression for the distillable entanglement, the relative entropy of entanglement, the distillable secret key, and the quantum discord.

Nonclassical correlation in NMR quadrupolar systems

The existence of quantum correlation (as revealed by quantum discord), other than entanglement and its role in quantum-information processing (QIP), is a current subject for discussion. In particular, it has been suggested that this nonclassical correlation may provide computational speedup for some quantum algorithms. In this regard, bulk nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has been successfully used as a test bench for many QIP implementations, although it has also been continuously criticized for not presenting entanglement in most of the systems used so far. In this paper, we report a theoretical and experimental study on the dynamics of quantum and classical correlations in an NMR quadrupolar system. We present a method for computing the correlations from experimental NMR deviation-density matrices and show that, given the action of the nuclear-spin environment, the relaxation produces a monotonic time decay in the correlations. Although the experimental realizations were performed in a specific quadrupolar system, the main results presented here can be applied to whichever system uses a deviation-density matrix formalism.

Entanglement versus quantum discord in two coupled double quantum dots

We study the dynamics of quantum correlations of two coupled double quantum dots containing two excess electrons. The dissipation is included through the contact with an oscillator bath. We solve the Redfield master equation in order to determine the dynamics of the quantum discord (QD) and the entanglement of formation (EoF). Based on our results, we find that the QD is more resistant to dissipation than the EoF for such a system. We observe that this characteristic is related to whether the oscillator bath is common to both qubits or not and to the form of the interaction Hamiltonian. Moreover, our results show that the QD might be finite, even for higher temperatures in the asymptotic limit.

Quantum correlations between each qubit in a two-atom system and the environment in terms of interatomic distance

The quantum correlations between a qubit and its environment are described quantitatively in terms of interatomicdistance.Specifically,consideringarealisticsystemoftwotwo-levelatomsandtakingintoaccountthe dipole-dipoleinteractionandcollectivedamping,thequantumentanglementandquantumdiscordareinvestigated during the dissipative process as functions of the interatomic distance. For atoms that are initially maximally entangled, it turns out that there is a critical distance at which each atom is maximally quantum correlated with its environment. Counterintuitively, the approach of the two atoms can maximize the entanglement between each one and the environment and, even at the same distance, minimize the loss of entanglement between the pair.

Sudden change of quantum discord for a system of two qubits

Departamento de Fisica Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, 35400-000

Monogamy of entanglement of formation

Instituto de Fisica Universidade Federal Fluminense, Avenida Gal. Milton Tavares de Souza s/n, Gragoata, 24210-346, Niteroi, RJ

Emergence of the Pointer Basis through the Dynamics of Correlations

We use the classical correlation between a quantum system being measured and its measurement apparatus to analyze the amount of information being retrieved in a quantum measurement process. Accounting for decoherence of the apparatus, we show that these correlations may have a sudden transition from a decay regime to a constant level. This transition characterizes a nonasymptotic emergence of the pointer basis, while the system apparatus can still be quantum correlated. We provide a formalization of the concept of emergence of a pointer basis in an apparatus subject to decoherence. This contrast of the pointer basis emergence to the quantum to classical transition is demonstrated in an experiment with polarization entangled photon pairs.