Decoherence in a dynamical quantum phase transition

Journal Article · Mon Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.81.032305· OSTI ID:21408385

Mostame, Sarah ^[1]; Schaller, Gernot ^[2]; Schuetzhold, Ralf ^[3]

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1. Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik Komplexer Systeme, D-01187 Dresden (Germany)
2. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Technische Universitaet Berlin, D-10623 Berlin (Germany)
3. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Technische Universitaet Dresden, D-01062 Dresden (Germany)

Motivated by the similarity between adiabatic quantum algorithms and quantum phase transitions, we study the impact of decoherence on the sweep through a second-order quantum phase transition for the prototypical example of the Ising chain in a transverse field and compare it to the adiabatic version of Grover's search algorithm, which displays a first-order quantum phase transition. For site-independent and site-dependent coupling strengths as well as different operator couplings, the results show (in contrast to first-order transitions) that the impact of decoherence caused by a weak coupling to a rather general environment increases with system size (i.e., number of spins or qubits). This might limit the scalability of the corresponding adiabatic quantum algorithm.

• OSTI ID: 21408385
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 81, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.81.032305; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ALGORITHMS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COUPLING
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
QUBITS
SPIN
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
EVALUATION
INFORMATION
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
QUANTUM INFORMATION