Advanced Quantum Mechanics 2016 KF

Third hand-in exercise:

decoherence by coupling to environment
When a quantum system is interacting with an environment the two systems become
entangled over time. Consequently, when a measurement is performed on the degree of
freedom of interest, but not on the environmental degrees of freedom, information is lost.
This fact shows up as a decoherence of, for example, superpositions states. In the language of
density matrices, the subsystem density matrix is no longer that of a pure state but instead
a mixed state.
In order to study this transition and the destruction of quantum coherence, we investigate
the following model of a single spin coupled to a harmonic oscillator
H = HS + HSB + HB
 
1
HB = ~ a a + ,
2 (1)
HS = Bz ,
HSB = (a + a )z .

The last term couples the z-component of the spin to the position x a +a of the oscillator.
As a reference, we start by studying the uncoupled situation = 0, with the spin state
being equal to | x i at t = 0.

Question 1:
a) If the spin state is | x i at t = 0, what is the spin density matrix for times t > 0. Check
if your result remains a pure-state density matrix.
b) Find the expectation values hx i and hz i at times t > 0.

For times t > 0, the coupling is turned on and we wish to find out what happens to the
spin density matrix. At t = 0, the combined density matrix is

(0) = S (0) B , (2)

where S (0) is the result from the first question at t = 0 and B is density matrix for the
harmonic oscillator. For a measurement where only the spin degree of freedom is measured
the reduced density matrix is the relevant quantity. The reduced density matrix is defined
as
red (t) = TrB [(t)] , (3)
where the trace is over the harmonic oscillator states only.

1
Question 2: Show that the time-evolved reduced density matrix can be written as
1
 
2
red,12 (t)
red (t) = , (4)
red,12 (t) 1
2

where
ei2Bt/~
TrB eiH t/~ eiH+ t/~ B , H = HB (a + a ).
 
red,12 (t) = (5)
2
Now we consider the case where the harmonic oscillator is in equilibrium with an envi-
ronment with a temperature T . In a high-temperature kB T  ~ limit, we can treat the
harmonic oscillator as a classical oscillator. This means that the thermal expectation value
of heiH t/~ eiH+ t/~ i can be done with x and p as independent classical variables:
  2 
1 1 p 2 2
B (x, p) = exp + m x . (6)
Z 2kB T m
Question 3: Show that the reduced density matrix in the classical-oscillator limit (6)
becomes
ei2Bt/~
 2
t
red,12 (t) = exp 2 , (7)
2 t0
where r
1~ ~
t0 = . (8)
2 kB T
Question 4: Again calculate the expectation values hx i and hz i. Sketch the dependence
as a function of t.
(The decaying off-diagonal component of red gives rise to decoherence.)
Finally, we consider the opposite limit where kB T  ~, where only the groundstate
contributes to the oscillator density matrix:
B = |0ih0|. (9)
Moreover, using the trick with the displacement operator from the first hand-in exercise, one
sees that
2
D(q)H D(q) = D(q)H+ D(q) = HB , D(q) = e(a a)q , q = . (10)
~ ~
(Remind yourself about this).

Question 5: Using the relations (9) and (10) to write the reduced density matrix as

ei2Bt/~ X
red,12 (t) = Km (q, t)Km (q, t), (11)
2 m

with
Km (q, t) = hm|D(q)eiHB t/~ D(q)|0i. (12)

2
 Again the trick from the first hand-in exercise can be used, and after some algebra, one
gets (you dont have to do this):

ei2Bt/~
exp 8q 2 sin2 (t) .
 
red,12 (t) = (13)
2
This result shows that the reduced density matrix coincides with the uncoupled case when-
ever t = 2n/ and that it does not reduce to a purely diagonal matrix even for large
times. This is because the entanglement is only shared with a single degree of freedom. For
example, in the limit where  B/~ it is relevant to look at red,12 (t) averaged over one
oscillator period, which gives
ei2Bt/~
red,12 (t) exp(4q 2 )I0 (4q 2 ), (14)
2
where I0 is the modified bessel function of the first kind.