Ying-Jie Zhang

Quantum speed limit for arbitrary initial states

The minimal time a system needs to evolve from an initial state to its one orthogonal state is defined as the quantum speed limit time, which can be used to characterize the maximal speed of evolution of a quantum system. This is a fundamental question of quantum physics. We investigate the generic bound on the minimal evolution time of the open dynamical quantum system. This quantum speed limit time is applicable to both mixed and pure initial states. We then apply this result to the damped Jaynes-Cummings model and the Ohimc-like dephasing model starting from a general time-evolution state. The bound of this time-dependent state at any point in time can be found. For the damped Jaynes-Cummings model, when the system starts from the excited state, the corresponding bound first decreases and then increases in the Markovian dynamics. While in the non-Markovian regime, the speed limit time shows an interesting periodic oscillatory behavior. For the case of Ohimc-like dephasing model, this bound would be gradually trapped to a fixed value. In addition, the roles of the relativistic effects on the speed limit time for the observer in non-inertial frames are discussed.

Classical-driving-assisted quantum speed-up

We propose a method of accelerating the speed of evolution of an open system by an external classical driving field for a qubit in a zero-temperature structured reservoir. It is shown that, with a judicious choice of the driving strength of the applied classical field, a speed-up evolution of an open system can be achieved in both the weak system-environment couplings and the strong system-environment couplings. By considering the relationship between non-Makovianity of environment and the classical field, we can drive the open system from the Markovian to the non-Markovian regime by manipulating the driving strength of classical field. That is the intrinsic physical reason that the classical field may induce the speed-up process. In addition, the roles of this classical field on the variation of quantum evolution speed in the whole decoherence process is discussed.

Role of initial system-bath correlation on coherence trapping

We study the coherence trapping of a qubit correlated initially with a non-Markovian bath in a pure dephasing channel. By considering the initial qubit-bath correlation and the bath spectral density, we find that the initial qubit-bath correlation can lead to a more efficient coherence trapping than that of the initially separable qubit-bath state. The stationary coherence in the long time limit can be maximized by optimizing the parameters of the initially correlated qubit-bath state and the bath spectral density. In addition, the effects of this initial correlation on the maximal evolution speed for the qubit trapped to its stationary coherence state are also explored.

Control of quantum dynamics: Non-Markovianity and the speedup of the open system evolution

We illustrate a scheme for implementing a non-Markovian speedup evolution of an open system weakly interacting with a controllable environment: the coupled qubit-array. By controlling the environment, for instance by choosing a judicious nearest-neighbor excitation quanta hopping strength among the qubit-array or by changing the number of qubits coupled to the quantum system, two dynamical crossovers from Markovian to non-Markovian and from no-speedup to speedup are achieved in the weak system-environment coupling regime. For the weaker system-environment coupling, the larger hopping strength (or the larger qubits number) should be tuned to drive the non-Markovian speedup evolution. Particularly, the controllable non-Markovian dynamics is the intrinsic physical reason for the speedup evolution of a quantum system.

Decay of quantum correlation under different non-Markovian environmental models

We investigate the roles of different environmental models on quantum correlation decay behavior of a two-qubit composite system interacting with two independent environments. The most common environmental models (the single-Lorentzian model, the squared-Lorentzian model, the two-Lorentzian model and bandgap model) are analyzed. First, we note that, for the weak coupling regime, the monotonic decay speed of the quantum correlation is mainly determined by the spectral density functions of these different environments. Then, by considering the strong coupling regime we find that, contrary to what is stated in the weak coupling regime, the dynamics of quantum correlation primarily depends on the non-Markovianity of the environmental models.

Speedup of quantum evolution of multiqubit entanglement states

As is well known, quantum speed limit time (QSLT) can be used to characterize the maximal speed of evolution of quantum systems. We mainly investigate the QSLT of generalized N-qubit GHZ-type states and W-type states in the amplitude-damping channels. It is shown that, in the case N qubits coupled with independent noise channels, the QSLT of the entangled GHZ-type state is closely related to the number of qubits in the small-scale system. And the larger entanglement of GHZ-type states can lead to the shorter QSLT of the evolution process. However, the QSLT of the W-type states are independent of the number of qubits and the initial entanglement. Furthermore, by considering only M qubits among the N-qubit system respectively interacting with their own noise channels, QSLTs for these two types states are shorter than in the case N qubits coupled with independent noise channels. We therefore reach the interesting result that the potential speedup of quantum evolution of a given N-qubit GHZ-type state or W-type state can be realized in the case the number of the applied noise channels satisfying M < N.

Non-Markovian speedup dynamics control of the damped Jaynes–Cummings model with detuning

For a two-level atom in a lossy cavity, a scheme to manipulate the non-Markovian speedup dynamics has been proposed in the controllable environment (the lossy cavity field). We mainly focus on the effects of the qubit–cavity detuning Δ and the qubit–cavity coupling strength κ on the non-Markovian speedup evolution of an open system. By controlling the environment, i.e., tuning Δ and κ, two dynamical crossovers from Markovian to non-Markovian and from no-speedup to speedup are achieved. Furthermore, it is clearly found that increasing the coupling strength κ or detuning Δ in some cases can make the environmental non-Markovianity stronger and hence can lead to faster evolution of the open system.

Promote entanglement trapping in photonic band gaps

We study the entanglement trapping of two entangled qubits, each of which is in its own photonic band gap, based on the weak measurement and quantum measurement reversal. An almost maximal entanglement of the two-qubit system can be trapped by using a certain weak measurement strength. Furthermore, we find that the optimal entanglement enhancing is not only dependent on the weak measurement strength but also on the different initial states. The outcomes in our scheme are completely different from that without any measurement on the studied system.