Chapter 9 - Dynamical Decoupling Controls

Introduction

In the last chapter, it was shown that a symmetry in the system-bath Hamiltonian, if present, could be used to construct states immune to noise. In this chapter we will see that under certain conditions it is possible to reduce errors, create a symmetry, or even remove errors in the evolution of a quantum system. This is done though repeated use of external controls which act on the system. These controls are often called "dynamical decoupling controls" due to their original objective of decoupling the system from the bath. They are quite generally useful controls to consider for the elimination and/or reduction of errors. In this chapter, a simple introduction to dynamical decoupling controls is given and some important concepts discussed.

General Conditions

As stated in Chapter 8 the Hamiltonian describing the evolution of a system and bath which are coupled together can always be written as

Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle H = H_S\otimes I_B + I_S\otimes H_B + H_I, \,\!}

where $H_{S}\,\!$ acts only on the system, $H_{B}\,\!$ acts only on the bath, and

Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle H_I = \sum_\alpha S_\alpha\otimes B_\alpha, \,\!}

is the interaction Hamiltonian with the Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle S_\alpha\,\!} acting only on the system and the $B_{\alpha }\,\!$ acting only on the bath.

The idea is to modify the evolution of the system and bath such that the errors are reduced or eliminated using external control Hamiltonians. These controls are called dynamical decoupling controls since they are used to decouple (at least approximately decouple) the system from the bath. Since can be difficult to change states of a bath, indeed one often does not know details of the bath, the controls which are to be used for reducing errors should act on the system. As discussed previously, the errors arise from the system-bath interaction Hamiltonian Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle H_I\,\!} and, in particular, the system operators Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle S_\alpha\,\!} are the operators which describe the affect of the coupling on the system. In general the interaction Hamiltonian is time-dependent since the bath operators will change in time. However, for short times we may assume the interaction Hamiltonian is unchanged, or at least approximately constant. This is sometimes called the short-time assumption in dynamical decoupling.

The Magnus Expansion

A fairly good starting point to see how this is done is the so-called Magnus expansion. (See Blanes, et al. and references therein.) The general problem is that a time-dependent operation is to be applied to the Hamiltonian making the Hamiltonian itself time-dependent and one would like to solve the time-dependent Schrodinger equation:

	Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle i\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\left\vert \Psi(t)\right\rangle = H(t) \left\vert \Psi(t) \right\rangle,\,\! }	(9.1)

which is sometimes written as

	$U^{\prime }(t)=-iH(t)U(t).\,\!$	(9.2)

The question is, what $U(t)\,\!$ will solve this equation? If Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle U(t) \,\!} and $H(t)\,\!$ are just numbers, the solution would be

	Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle U^\prime(t) = \exp\left(-i\int_0^t H(t^\prime)dt^\prime\right). \,\!}	(9.3)

However, when the Schrodinger equation is the equation to be solved, Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle U(t) \,\!} and $H(t)\,\!$ are matrices. To be specific, Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle U(t) \,\!} is a unitary matrix and Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle H(t)\,\!} is a Hermitian matrix. The solution is often written in the form

	Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle U^\prime(t) = {\mathcal{T}}\left[\exp\left(-i\int_0^t H(t^\prime)dt^\prime\right)\right], \,\!}	(9.4)

where ${\mathcal {T}}\,\!$ denotes the time-ordered exponential. In this case, matrices do not commute so that the exponential must be handled with care. Operators must be ordered according to the time where they appear in the operation, and the solution Eq.(9.2) is not the solution to the problem unless $H(t)\,\!$ is a constant matrix.

The solution to this problem is the following,

	Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle U^\prime(T) = \exp\left(-i\Omega(T)T\right), \,\!}	(9.5)

where

	Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \Omega(T) = \sum_{k=1}^\infty\Omega_k, \,\!}	(9.6)

and

	Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \begin{align} \Omega_1 &= \frac{1}{T}\int_0^T H(t_1)dt_1, \\ \Omega_2 &= -\frac{1}{T^2}\frac{i}{2}\int_0^T dt_1\int_0^{t_1}dt_2 [H(t_1),H(t_2)], \\ \Omega_3 &= -\frac{1}{T^3}\frac{1}{6} \int_0^T dt_1\int_0^{t_1} dt_2 \int_0^{t_2} dt_3 ([H(t_1),[H(t_2),H(t_3)]] + [H(t_3),[H(t_2),H(t_1)]]) \\ & \mbox{etc.}, \end{align}\,\!}	(9.7)

where $T\,\!$ is some characteristic time scale.

Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \,\!}

A First-Order Theory

To show how this theory of dynamical decoupling controls could work in an ideal case, let us consider a simple example. Suppose that the external controls (decoupling controls) are so strong that the Hamiltonian evolution can be neglected during the time the external controls are turned on. Due to their strength, we will also assume that they can be implemented in a very short time. The effective evolution of the system during this time will be

Furthermore, suppose that during the time Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \,\!} $\,\!$

The Single-Qubit Case

The simplest case involves the elimination of an error on a single qubit state.