English

Decoherence-Free Subspaces for Multiple-Qubit Errors: (I) Characterization

Quantum Physics 2016-09-08 v2

Abstract

Coherence in an open quantum system is degraded through its interaction with a bath. This decoherence can be avoided by restricting the dynamics of the system to special decoherence-free subspaces. These subspaces are usually constructed under the assumption of spatially symmetric system-bath coupling. Here we show that decoherence-free subspaces may appear without spatial symmetry. Instead, we consider a model of system-bath interactions in which to first order only multiple-qubit coupling to the bath is present, with single-qubit system-bath coupling absent. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the appearance of decoherence-free states in this model, and give a number of examples. In a sequel paper we show how to perform universal and fault tolerant quantum computation on the decoherence-free subspaces considered in this paper.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/9908064,
  title  = {Decoherence-Free Subspaces for Multiple-Qubit Errors: (I) Characterization},
  author = {Daniel A. Lidar and Dave Bacon and Julia Kempe and K. B. Whaley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/9908064},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

18 pages, no figures. Major changes. Section on universal fault tolerant computation removed. This section contained a crucial error. A new paper [quant-ph/0007013] presents the correct analysis