Apresentamos um estudo sobre o fenômeno da decoerência durante a evolução temporal de um estado atômico ao interagir com o campo eletromagnético de uma cavidade não ideal. Apresentamos um modelo em que o campo da cavidade esta acoplado a um banho externo e mostramos os efeitos dissipativos que este acoplamento pode gerar na decoerência para um sistema átomo campo. Discutimos as grandezas relevantes para analise da decoerência através de modelos analíticos e numéricos, principalmente entre os acoplamentos átomo campo e campo banho. Sugerimos que o retardamento observado no processo de decoerência seja uma característica geral em sistemas analisáveis como constituídos de três subsistemas acoplados sequencialmente, com propriedades espectrais e acoplamentos suficientemente assimétricos. / We present a study of the phenomenon of decoherence in the time evolution of an atomic state with the electromagnetic field of a non-ideal cavity. We present a model where the cavity field is coupled to an external bath and show the dissipative effects this coupling can generate in the decoherence of the atom field system. We discuss the relevant variables for the analysis of decoherence in terms of analytic and numerical models, especially the atom-field and field-bath couplings. We suggest that the observed hindrance of the decoherence process may be a general property in systems which can be considered as formed by three subsystems coupled sequentially, with spectral properties and sufficiently asymmetric coupling.

In this work our aim is to study several aspects related to quantum coherence as understood to correspond with the non-classical behaviour that can be observed for certain particular states of a physical system. In particular we are interested in the possible mechanisms that result in dynamically induced transitions between quantum and classical regimes. The thesis is organized as follows: The first chapter dubs as an introduction and serves to set out the basic philosophy underlying the questions addressed in this thesis. It also presents some elementary properties of states and state spaces in Quantum Theory including what we have chosen to define as classical and quantum behaviour. In chapter 2 we study some of the aspects related to observing quantum behaviour and of the properties of our main definition of classicality (and quantumness). Here we also study some of the restrictions imposed on measurements by the existence of globally conserved quantities (Wigner-Araki-Yanase theorem) and their relationship to weak measurements coupled to postselection. In the following chapter we review some of the basic tools used in the description of open quantum system dynamics that will be applied in other chapters. In chapter 4 we review the basics of decoherence and analyse the importance of the choice of initial conditions when trying to study the dynamical emergence of classical behaviour within Quantum Theory. Next we study the other direction of the transition and focus on how to obtain pure quantum states from states that originally were classically mixed. Along the same lines, in chapter 6 we cover some topics related to the production of pure quantum states from measurements. We pay special attention to a model of the non-selective continuous monitoring of a system coupled to another unmonitored system. Lastly we explore some of the possible similarities between the theory of phase transitions and the quantum-classical transition. We must emphasize that all the work done in this thesis assumes that Quantum Theory is generally valid (at least within a broad enough range of energies). Thus, when we say that a state is "classical" we will mainly be referring to one of all the possible states contained in Quantum Theory, but that is susceptible to being interpreted as corresponding to "classical" behaviour. Similarly when we speak of creating a "quantum", or "quantum coherent", state we mean that the system has evolved to this state from one of the "classical" ones, but all of these still correspond to valid states within Quantum Theory. In the opinion of the author the main original contributions that can be found in this thesis are the following: - The recognition of the relationship between the Wigner-Araki-Yanase theorem and weak measurements coupled to postselection (sections 2.2 and 2.4); - A mathematical proof of the possible ambiguities arising when two observers try to decide if a state corresponds to quantum or classical behaviour (section 2.6); - The implications of initial correlations in decoherence models. In particular how the choice of certain (correlated) initial conditions can result in residual coherence and the production of pure quantum states in a model that otherwise results in ideal decoherence when (locally equivalent) uncorrelated initial conditions are used (section 4.2); - Various results related to the production of quantum states from initially classical states (sections 5.2 to 5.4); - The analysis of the inverse of a generalized depolarizing channel (section 5.7); - The study of a model of the non-selective continuous monitoring, in the quantum Zeno limit, of a subsystem A interacting with an unmonitored subsystem B. In particular the absence of the purification of B, which has been previously predicted in the selective case, but the possibility of coherent dynamics for B (section 6.4); - The identification of the loose equivalent of a broken symmetry and order parameter in the quantum-classical transition (section 7.2).

Decoherence is a major barrier to the implementation of quantum technologies. Theoretical techniques for understanding decoherence in composite systems have traditionally been focused on systems with distinguishable emission spectra, where measuring the frequency of an emitted photon allows one to determine which process took place. Here the photon contains information about the state of the system. On the other hand, systems with indistinguishable spectra do not necessarily completely reveal information about the state of the system when a photon is emitted. It can be impossible to say for certain which of two nearly degenerate transitions has occurred just by measuring the photon's frequency. It is then possible to preserve information within the system throughout the decay process. In this Thesis we show that indistinguishable spectra can lead to protected coherences within one part of a coupled quantum system, even as another part decays. We develop a zero-temperature exact approach for modelling such systems, and compare it to the microscopically derived Born-Markov master equation. This comparison helps us to understand the range of validity of the Markovian approximation. We use this understanding to extend the master equation approach to finite temperature within the Markovian regime, and we compare its high temperature results to a semiclassical model. We examine the physical conditions required for coherence protection, and remarkably we find that heating the system can improve coherence protection. Similarly, increasing the decay rate of the unprotected part of the coupled system can also enhance the coherence of the protected part. These effects are the results of linewidth broadening and thus greater spectral indistinguishability. The findings in this Thesis are of interest to both those seeking to engineer hybrid quantum systems and those seeking to develop theoretical techniques for dealing with the decoherence of composite quantum systems.

A aplicação da Mecânica Quântica para o processamento de informação chamou a atenção para o problema da perda de características quânticas e, consequentemente, estimulou os estudos de tal fenômeno. Desde então, uma das maiores dificuldades neste campo é responder a pergunta: Como entender a interação entre sistema e ambiente? Em sistemas quânticos abertos tal interação é responsável pelo fenômeno da decoerência, que transforma um estado quântico inicialmente puro em uma mistura estatística de estados possíveis. Banhos térmicos são comumente utilizados para modelar a influência inevitável do ambiente e descrever matematicamente seus efeitos. Muitos estudos têm sido realizados no sentido de construir mecanismos que evitam a perda de informação para o ambiente, recuperando-se a potencialidade oferecida pelo mundo quântico. Assim, seria possível a utilização de um ruído estocástico para anular os efeitos do ruído térmico? Em outras palavras, queremos construir um ambiente artificial onde a ação do banho térmico é minimizada devido à presença de um campo estocástico. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar a influência da injeção de um ruído estocástico colorido na dinâmica de um oscilador harmônico em contato com um banho térmico, quando o sistema de interesse é preparado em um estado coerente. Nós faremos isso através de uma equação mestra quântica, abordando-a com o auxílio da representação P de Glauber-Sudarshan. Será sugerido que a recoerência causada pelo ruído estocástico colorido é uma assinatura da não-Markovianidade. / The application of Quantum Mechanics to information processing called attention to the problem of losing quantum characteristics and, consequently, stimulated the studies of such phenomenon. Since then, one of the biggest difficulties in this field is to answer the question: How can the interaction between system and environment be understood? In open quantum systems such interaction is responsible for the decoherence phenomenon, which turns a quantum pure initial states into a statistical mixture of possible states. Thermal environments are commonly used to model the unavoidable influence of the environment and to mathematically describe its effects. Many studies have been done in order to build a mechanism that avoids the loss of information to the environment, recovering the potentiality offered by the quantum world. Thus, would be possible to use a stochastic noise to cancel the thermal noise effects? In other words, we want to build an artificial environment where the action of the thermal bath is minimized due to the presence of a stochastic field. The purpose of this work is to investigate the influence of the injection of a colored stochastic noise in the dynamics of a harmonic oscillator in contact with a thermal bath, when the system of interest is initially prepared in a coherent state. We are going to do this through a Glauber-Sudarshan P-representation approach to a quantum master equation. It will be suggested that the recoherence caused by the colored stochastic noise is a signature of non-Markovianity.

This project is a comprehensive investigation into the application of the exchange interaction, particularly with the realization of the SWAP^1/n quantum operator, in quantum information processing. We study the generation, characterization and application of entanglement in such systems. Given the non-commutativity of neighbouring SWAP^1/n gates, the mathematical study of combinations of these gates is an interesting avenue of research that we have explored, though due to the exponential scaling of the complexity of the problem with the number of qubits in the system, numerical techniques, though good for few-qubit systems, are found to be inefficient for this research problem when we look at systems with higher number of qubits. Since the group of SWAP^1/n operators is found to be isomorphic to the symmetric group Sn, we employ group-theoretic methods to find the relevant invariant subspaces and associated vector-states. Some interesting patterns of states are found including onedimensional invariant subspaces spanned by W-states and the Hamming-weight preserving symmetry of the vectors spanning the various invariant subspaces. We also devise new ways of characterizing entanglement and approach the separability problem by looking at permutation symmetries of subsystems of quantum states. This idea is found to form a bridge with the entanglement characterization tool of Peres-Horodecki's Partial Positive Transpose (PPT), for mixed quantum states. We also look at quantum information taskoriented 'distance' measures of entanglement, besides devising a new entanglement witness in the 'engle'. In terms of applications, we define five different formalisms for quantum computing: the circuit-based model, the encoded qubit model, the cluster-state model, functional quantum computation and the qudit-based model. Later in the thesis, we explore the idea of quantum computing based on decoherence-free subspaces. We also investigate ways of applying the SWAP^1/n in entanglement swapping for quantum repeaters, quantum communication protocols and quantum memory.

No description available.

The group theory allows one to study different branches of physics using the same set of commutation relations. It is shown that a formulation of the polarization optics that depends on the representations of the Lorentz group is possible. The set of four Stokes parameters, which is a standard tool of polarization optics, can be used to form a four-vector that is physically unrelated but mathematically equivalent to the space-time four-vector of the special relativity. By using the Stokes parameters, it is also possible to generate four-by-four matrix representations of the ordinary optical filters that are traditionally represented with the two-by-two Jones matrices. These four-by-four matrices are treated as the entities of the Lorentz group. They are like the Lorentz transformations applicable to the four-dimensional polarization space. Besides, optical decoherence process can be formulated within the framework of the SO(3,2) de Sitter group. The connection between the classical and quantum mechanical descriptions of the polarization of light allows the extension of the Stokes parameters to the quantum domain. In this respect, the properties of the polarization of the two-photon system can also be studied within the framework of the Lorentz group.

This dissertation presents investigations on dynamics of discrete-time quantum walk and some of its applications. Quantum walks has been exploited as an useful tool for quantum algorithms in quantum computing. Beyond quantum computational purposes, it has been used to explain and control the dynamics in various physical systems. In order to use the quantum walk to its fullest potential, it is important to know and optimize the properties purely due to quantum dynamics and in presence of noise. Various studies of its dynamics in the absence and presence of noise have been reported. We propose new approaches to optimize the dynamics, discuss symmetries and effect of noise on the quantum walk. Making use of its properties, we propose the use of quantum walk as an efficient new tool for various applications in physical systems and quantum information processing. In the first and second part of this dissertation, we discuss evolution process of the quantum walks, propose and demonstrate the optimization of discrete-time quantum walk using quantum coin operation from SU(2) group and discuss some of its properties. We investigate symmetry operations and environmental effects on dynamics of the walk on a line and an $n-$cycle highlighting the interplay between noise and topology. Using the properties and behavior of quantum walk discussed in part two, in part three we propose the application of quantum walk to realize quantum phase transition in optical lattice, that is to efficiently control and redistribute ultracold atoms in optical lattice. We also discuss the implementation scheme. Another application we consider is creation of spatial entanglement using quantum walk on a quantum many body system.

This dissertation presents investigations on dynamics of discrete-time quantum walk and some of its applications. Quantum walks has been exploited as an useful tool for quantum algorithms in quantum computing. Beyond quantum computational purposes, it has been used to explain and control the dynamics in various physical systems. In order to use the quantum walk to its fullest potential, it is important to know and optimize the properties purely due to quantum dynamics and in presence of noise. Various studies of its dynamics in the absence and presence of noise have been reported. We propose new approaches to optimize the dynamics, discuss symmetries and effect of noise on the quantum walk. Making use of its properties, we propose the use of quantum walk as an efficient new tool for various applications in physical systems and quantum information processing. In the first and second part of this dissertation, we discuss evolution process of the quantum walks, propose and demonstrate the optimization of discrete-time quantum walk using quantum coin operation from SU(2) group and discuss some of its properties. We investigate symmetry operations and environmental effects on dynamics of the walk on a line and an $n-$cycle highlighting the interplay between noise and topology. Using the properties and behavior of quantum walk discussed in part two, in part three we propose the application of quantum walk to realize quantum phase transition in optical lattice, that is to efficiently control and redistribute ultracold atoms in optical lattice. We also discuss the implementation scheme. Another application we consider is creation of spatial entanglement using quantum walk on a quantum many body system.

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