Measurement in control and discrimination of entangled pairs under self-distortion

Quantum correlations and entanglement are fundamental resources for quantum information and quantum communication processes. Developments in these fields normally assume these resources stable and not susceptible of distortion. That is not always the case, Heisenberg interactions between qubits can produce distortion on entangled pairs generated for engineering purposes (e. g. for quantum computation or quantum cryptography). Experimental work shows how to produce entangled spin qubits in quantum dots and electron gases, so its identification and control are crucial for later applications. The presence of parasite magnetic fields modifies the expected properties and behavior for which the pair was intended. Quantum measurement and control help to discriminate the original state in order to correct it or, just to try of reconstruct it using some procedures which do not alter their quantum nature. Two different kinds of quantum entangled pairs driven by a Heisenberg Hamiltonian with an additional inhomogeneous magnetic field which becoming self-distorted, can be reconstructed without previous discrimination by adding an external magnetic field, with fidelity close to 1 (with respect to the original state, but without discrimination). After, each state can be more efficiently discriminated. The aim of this work is to show how combining both processes, first reconstruction without discrimination and after discrimination with adequate non-local measurements, it's possible a) improve the discrimination, and b) reprepare faithfully the original states. The complete process gives fidelities better than 0.9. In the meanwhile, some results about a class of equivalence for the required measurements were found. This property lets us select the adequate measurement in order to ease the repreparation after of discrimination, without loss of entanglement.Comment: 6 figure

Cotunneling theory of inelastic STM spin spectroscopy

We propose cotunneling as the microscopic mechanism that makes possible inelastic electron spectroscopy of magnetic atoms in surfaces for a wide range of systems, including single magnetic adatoms, molecules and molecular stacks. We describe electronic transport between the scanning tip and the conducting surface through the magnetic system (MS) with a generalized Anderson model, without making use of effective spin models. Transport and spin dynamics are described with an effective cotunneling Hamiltonian in which the correlations in the magnetic system are calculated exactly and the coupling to the electrodes is included up to second order in the tip-MS and MS-substrate. In the adequate limit our approach is equivalent to the phenomenological Kondo exchange model that successfully describe the experiments . We apply our method to study in detail inelastic transport in two systems, stacks of Cobalt Phthalocyanines and a single Mn atom on Cu$_2$N. Our method accounts both, for the large contribution of the inelastic spin exchange events to the conductance and the observed conductance asymmetry.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Spin-transfer torque on a single magnetic adatom

We theoretically show how the spin orientation of a single magnetic adatom can be controlled by spin polarized electrons in a scanning tunneling microscope configuration. The underlying physical mechanism is spin assisted inelastic tunneling. By changing the direction of the applied current, the orientation of the magnetic adatom can be completely reversed on a time scale that ranges from a few nanoseconds to microseconds, depending on bias and temperature. The changes in the adatom magnetization direction are, in turn, reflected in the tunneling conductance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Spin dynamics of current driven single magnetic adatoms and molecules

A scanning tunneling microscope can probe the inelastic spin excitations of a single magnetic atom in a surface via spin-flip assisted tunneling in which transport electrons exchange spin and energy with the atomic spin. If the inelastic transport time, defined as the average time elapsed between two inelastic spin flip events, is shorter than the atom spin relaxation time, the STM current can drive the spin out of equilibrium. Here we model this process using rate equations and a model Hamiltonian that describes successfully spin flip assisted tunneling experiments, including a single Mn atom, a Mn dimer and Fe Phthalocyanine molecules. When the STM current is not spin polarized, the non-equilibrium spin dynamics of the magnetic atom results in non-monotonic $dI/dV$ curves. In the case of spin polarized STM current, the spin orientation of the magnetic atom can be controlled parallel or anti-parallel to the magnetic moment of the tip. Thus, spin polarized STM tips can be used both to probe and to control the magnetic moment of a single atom.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure

The emergence of classical behavior in magnetic adatoms

A wide class of nanomagnets shows striking quantum behavior, known as quantum spin tunneling (QST): instead of two degenerate ground states with opposite magnetizations, a bonding-antibonding pair forms, resulting in a splitting of the ground state doublet with wave functions linear combination of two classically opposite magnetic states, leading to the quenching of their magnetic moment. Here we study how QST is destroyed and classical behavior emerges in the case of magnetic adatoms, as the strength of their coupling, either to the substrate or to each other, is increased. Both spin-substrate and spin-spin coupling renormalize the QST splitting to zero allowing the environmental decoherence to eliminate superpositions between classical states, leading to the emergence of spontaneous magnetization.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Diverging Entanglement Length in Gapped Quantum Spin Systems

We prove the existence of gapped quantum Hamiltonians whose ground states exhibit an infinite entanglement length, as opposed to their finite correlation length. Using the concept of entanglement swapping, the localizable entanglement is calculated exactly for valence bond and finitely correlated states, and the existence of the so--called string-order parameter is discussed. We also report on evidence that the ground state of an antiferromagnetic chain can be used as a perfect quantum channel if local measurements on the individual spins can be implemented.Comment: 4 page