Sudden transition between classical and quantum decoherence

We study the dynamics of quantum and classical correlations in the presence of nondissipative decoherence. We discover a class of initial states for which the quantum correlations, quantified by the quantum discord, are not destroyed by decoherence for times t < \bar{t}. In this initial time interval classical correlations decay. For t > \bar{t}, on the other hand, classical correlations do not change in time and only quantum correlations are lost due to the interaction with the environment. Therefore, at the transition time \bar{t} the open system dynamics exhibits a sudden transition from classical to quantum decoherence regime.Comment: version accepted for publication by Physical Review Letter

Sudden death and sudden birth of entanglement in common structured reservoirs

We study the exact entanglement dynamics of two qubits in a common structured reservoir. We demonstrate that, for certain classes of entangled states, entanglement sudden death occurs, while for certain initially factorized states, entanglement sudden birth takes place. The backaction of the non-Markovian reservoir is responsible for revivals of entanglement after sudden death has occurred, and also for periods of disentanglement following entanglement sudden birth.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Quantum discord dynamical behaviors due to initial system-cavity correlations

We analyze the roles of initial correlations between the two-qubit system and a dissipative cavity on quantum discord dynamics of two qubits. Considering two initial system-cavity states, we show that the initial system-cavity correlations not only can initially increase the two-qubit quantum discord but also would lead to a larger long-time quantum discord asymptotic value. Moreover, quantum discord due to initial correlations is more robust than the case of the initial factorized state. Finally, we show the initial correlations' importance for dynamics behaviors of mutual information and classical correlation

Phenomenological memory-kernel master equations and time-dependent Markovian processes

Do phenomenological master equations with memory kernel always describe a non-Markovian quantum dynamics characterized by reverse flow of information? Is the integration over the past states of the system an unmistakable signature of non-Markovianity? We show by a counterexample that this is not always the case. We consider two commonly used phenomenological integro-differential master equations describing the dynamics of a spin 1/2 in a thermal bath. By using a recently introduced measure to quantify non-Markovianity [H.-P. Breuer, E.-M. Laine, and J. Piilo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 210401 (2009)] we demonstrate that as far as the equations retain their physical sense, the key feature of non-Markovian behavior does not appear in the considered memory kernel master equations. Namely, there is no reverse flow of information from the environment to the open system. Therefore, the assumption that the integration over a memory kernel always leads to a non-Markovian dynamics turns out to be vulnerable to phenomenological approximations. Instead, the considered phenomenological equations are able to describe time-dependent and uni-directional information flow from the system to the reservoir associated to time-dependent Markovian processes.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Pseudomodes as an effective description of memory: Non-Markovian dynamics of two-state systems in structured reservoirs

We investigate the non-Markovian dynamics of two-state systems in structured reservoirs. We establish a connection between two theoretical quantum approaches, the pseudomodes [B. M. Garraway, Phys. Rev. A 55, 2290 (1997)] and the recently developed non-Markovian quantum jump method [J. Piilo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 180402 (2008)]. This connection provides a clear physical picture of how the structured reservoir affects the system dynamics, indicating the role of the pseudomodes as an effective description of the environmental memory.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. V2: minor changes, published versio

Quantum Discord in the Ground and Thermal States of Spin Clusters

Quantum discord is a general measure of bipartite quantum correlations with a potential role in quantum information processing tasks. Spin clusters serve as ideal candidates for the implementation of some of the associated protocols. In this paper, we consider a symmetric spin trimer and a tetramer, which describe a number of known molecular magnets, and compute the quantum discord in the ground and thermal states of the clusters. The variations of the quantum discord as a function of anisotropy parameter, magnetic field and temperature are investigated. We obtain a number of interesting results such as a finite value of the quantum discord in the trimer ground state for which the pairwise entanglement is known to be zero, differences in the nature of some of the variations in the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic cases and discontinuous jumps in the magnitude of the quantum discord at first order quantum phase transition points. A remarkable feature that is observed is that the quantum discord completely vanishes only in the asymptotic limit of temperature $T\rightarrow\infty$. We further study the dynamics of the quantum discord and the pairwise entanglement at T=0 under the effect of a dephasing channel describing the interaction of the reduced spin cluster state with independent local environments. The QD is found to vanish asymptotically as $t\rightarrow\infty$. In the case of the spin trimer, the pairwise entanglement has a zero value at all times and reaches a zero value in a finite time in the case of the tetramer.Comment: Article, 16 pages, 9 figure