Environmentally induced Quantum Dynamical Phase Transition in the spin swapping operation

Quantum Information Processing relies on coherent quantum dynamics for a precise control of its basic operations. A swapping gate in a two-spin system exchanges the degenerate states |+,-> and |-,+>. In NMR, this is achieved turning on and off the spin-spin interaction b=\Delta E that splits the energy levels and induces an oscillation with a natural frequency \Delta E/\hbar. Interaction of strength \hbar/\tau_{SE}, with an environment of neighboring spins, degrades this oscillation within a decoherence time scale \tau_{\phi}. While the experimental frequency \omega and decoherence time \tau_{\phi} were expected to be roughly proportional to b/\hbar and \tau_{SE} respectively, we present here experiments that show drastic deviations in both \omega and \tau_{\phi}. By solving the many spin dynamics, we prove that the swapping regime is restricted to \Delta E \tau_{SE} > \hbar. Beyond a critical interaction with the environment the swapping freezes and the decoherence rate drops as 1/\tau_{\phi} \propto (b/\hbar)^2 \tau_{SE}. The transition between quantum dynamical phases occurs when \omega \propto \sqrt{(b/\hbar)^{2}-(k/\tau_{SE})^2} becomes imaginary, resembling an overdamped classical oscillator. Here, 0<k^2<1 depends only on the anisotropy of the system-environment interaction, being 0 for isotropic and 1 for XY interactions. This critical onset of a phase dominated by the Quantum Zeno effect opens up new opportunities for controlling quantum dynamics.