Decoherence Dynamics of Complex Photon States in a Superconducting Circuit
Abstract
Quantum states inevitably decay with time into a probabilistic mixture of classical states, due to their interaction with the environment and measurement instrumentation. We present the first measurement of the decoherence dynamics of complex photon states in a condensed-matter system. By controllably preparing a number of distinct, quantum-superposed photon states in a superconducting microwave resonator, we show that the subsequent decay dynamics can be quantitatively described by taking into account only two distinct decay channels, energy relaxation and dephasing. Our ability to prepare specific initial quantum states allows us to measure the evolution of specific elements in the quantum density matrix, in a very detailed manner that can be compared with theory.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0909.4585,
title = {Decoherence Dynamics of Complex Photon States in a Superconducting Circuit},
author = {H. Wang and M. Hofheinz and M. Ansmann and R. C. Bialczak and Erik Lucero and M. Neeley and A. D. O'Connell and D. Sank and M. Weides and J. Wenner and A. N. Cleland and John M. Martinis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.4585},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary movies can be downloaded at http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~martinisgroup/movies.shtml