R. Lo Franco

Non-Markovian effects on the dynamics of entanglement

A procedure that allows us to obtain the dynamics of N independent bodies each locally interacting with its own reservoir is presented. It relies on the knowledge of single-body dynamics and it is valid for any form of environment noise. It is then applied to the study of non-Markovian dynamics of two independent qubits, each locally interacting with a zero-temperature reservoir. It is shown that, although no interaction is present or mediated between the qubits, there is a revival of their entanglement, after a finite period of time of its complete disappearance.

Entanglement dynamics of two independent qubits in environments with and without memory

Here is analyzed the dynamics of two-qubit entanglement, when the two qubits are initially in a mixed extended Werner-like state and each of them is in a zero temperature non-Markovian environment. The dependence of entanglement dynamics on the purity and degree of entanglement of the initial states and on the amount of non-Markovianity is also given. This extends the previous work about non-Markovian effects on the two-qubit entanglement dynamics for initial Bell-like states [Bellomo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 160502 (2007)]. The effect on the two-qubit entanglement dynamics of nonzero temperature in Markovian environments is finally studied.

Recovering entanglement by local operations

We investigate the phenomenon of bipartite entanglement revivals under purely local operations in systems subject to local and independent classical noise sources. We explain this apparent paradox in the physical ensemble description of the system state by introducing the concept of “hidden” entanglement, which indicates the amount of entanglement that cannot be exploited due to the lack of classical information on the system. For this reason this part of entanglement can be recovered without the action of non-local operations or back-transfer process. For two noninteracting qubits under a low-frequency stochastic noise, we show that entanglement can be recovered by local pulses only. We also discuss how hidden entanglement may provide new insights about entanglement revivals in non-Markovian dynamics.

Unified view of correlations using the square-norm distance

The distance between a quantum state and its closest state not having a certain property has been used to quantify the amount of correlations corresponding to that property. This approach allows a unified view of the various kinds of correlations present in a quantum system. In particular, using relative entropy as a distance measure, total correlations can be meaningfully separated into a quantum part and a classical part thanks to an additive relation involving only the distances between states. Here we investigate a unified view of correlations using as a distance measure the square norm, which has already been used to define the so-called geometric quantum discord. We thus also consider geometric quantifiers for total and classical correlations, finding, for a quite general class of bipartite states, their explicit expressions. We analyze the relationship among geometric total, quantum, and classical correlations, and we find that they no longer satisfy a closed additivity relation.

Entanglement dynamics in superconducting qubits affected by local bistable impurities

We study the entanglement dynamics for two independent superconducting qubits, each affected by a bistable impurity generating random telegraph noise (RTN) at pure dephasing. The relevant parameter is the ratio g between the qubit–RTN coupling strength and the RTN switching rate, which captures the physics of the crossover between Markovian and non-Markovian features of the dynamics. For identical qubit–RTN subsystems, a threshold value gth of the crossover parameter separates exponential decay and the onset of revivals; different qualitative behaviors also show up by changing the initial conditions of the RTN. We also show that, for different qubit–RTN subsystems, when both qubits are very strongly coupled to the RTN, an increase of entanglement revival amplitude may occur during the dynamics.

Dynamics and extraction of quantum discord in a multipartite open system

We consider a multipartite system consisting of two noninteracting qubits each embedded in a single-mode leaky cavity, in turn connected to an external bosonic reservoir. Initially, we take the two qubits in an entangled state while the cavities and the reservoirs have zero photons. We investigate, in this six-partite quantum system, the transfer of quantum discord from the qubits to the cavities and reservoirs. We show that this transfer also occurs when the cavities are not entangled. Moreover, we discuss how quantum discord can be extracted from the cavities and transferred to distant systems by traveling leaking photons, using the input–output theory.

Generation and Detection of a Two-Photon Binomial Schr\"odinger Cat in a Cavity

We introduce the N-photon quantum superposition of two orthogonal generalized binomial states of an electromagnetic field. We then propose, using resonant atom-cavity interactions, nonconditional schemes to generate and reveal such a quantum superposition for the two-photon case in a single-mode high-Q cavity. We finally discuss the implementation of the proposed schemes.

Entanglement degradation in the solid state: Interplay of adiabatic and quantum noise

We study entanglement degradation of two noninteracting qubits subject to independent baths with broadband spectra typical of solid-state nanodevices. We obtain the analytic form of the concurrence in the presence of adiabatic noise for classes of entangled initial states presently achievable in experiments. We find that adiabatic (low-frequency) noise affects entanglement reduction analogously to pure dephasing noise. Due to quantum (high-frequency) noise, entanglement is totally lost in a state-dependent finite time. The possibility of implementing on-chip local and entangling operations is briefly discussed.

Simple non-Markovian microscopic models for the depolarizing channel of a single qubit

The archetypal one-qubit noisy channels—depolarizing, phase-damping and amplitude-damping channels—describe both Markovian and non-Markovian evolution. Simple microscopic models for the depolarizing channel, both classical and quantum, are considered. Microscopic models that describe phase-damping and amplitude-damping channels are briefly reviewed.

Entanglement dynamics of two independent cavity-embedded quantum dots

We investigate the dynamical behavior of entanglement in a system made of two solid-state emitters, as two quantum dots, embedded in two separated microcavities. In these solid-state systems, in addition to the coupling with the cavity mode, the emitter is coupled to a continuum of leaky modes providing additional losses and is also subjected to a phonon-induced pure dephasing mechanism. We model this physical configuration as a multipartite system composed of two independent parts each containing a qubit embedded in a single-mode cavity, exposed to cavity losses, spontaneous emission and pure dephasing. We study the time evolution of entanglement of this multipartite open system, finally applying this theoretical framework to the case of currently available solid-state quantum dots in microcavities.