No Intrinsic Decoherence of Inflationary Cosmological Perturbations

After a brief summary of the four main veins in the treatment of decoherence and quantum to classical transition in cosmology since the 1980s, we focus on one of these veins in the study of quantum decoherence of cosmological perturbations in inflationary universe, the case when it does not rely on any environment. This is what ‘intrinsic’ in the title refers to—a closed quantum system, consisting of a quantum field which drives inflation. The question is whether its quantum perturbations, which interact with the density contrast giving rise to structures in the universe, decohere with an inflationary expansion of the universe. A dominant view which had propagated for a quarter of a century asserts yes, based on the belief that the large squeezing of a quantum state after a duration of inflation renders the system effectively classical. This paper debunks this view by identifying the technical fault-lines in its derivations and revealing the pitfalls in its arguments which drew earlier authors to this wrong conclusion. We use a few simple quantum mechanical models to expound where the fallacy originated: The highly squeezed ellipse quadrature in phase space cannot be simplified to a line, and the Wigner function cannot be replaced by a delta function. These measures amount to taking only the leading order in the relevant parameters in seeking the semiclassical limit and ignoring the subdominant contributions where quantum features reside. Doing so violates the bounds of the Wigner function, and its wave functions possess negative eigenvalues. Moreover, the Robertson-Schrödinger uncertainty relation for a pure state is violated. For inflationary cosmological perturbations, in addition to these features, entanglement exists between the created pairs. This uniquely quantum feature cannot be easily argued away. Indeed, it could be our best hope to retroduce the quantum nature of cosmological perturbations and the trace of an inflation field. All this points to the invariant fact that a closed quantum system, even when highly squeezed, evolves unitarily without loss of coherence; quantum cosmological perturbations do not decohere by themselves.

Quantum coherence induced by a flux qubit coupled by a resonator coherent field through a two-photon interaction

The intrinsic decoherence effects on a flux qubit coupled to a resonator through a two-photon interaction where the resonator field is initially in coherent and even coherent states are investigated. The qubit-resonator entanglement and coherence loss (mixedness) of the system and its subsystems are examined using entropy and negativity. The ability of the qubit-resonator interaction to generate quantum coherence (qubit-resonator entanglement and the mixedness) is shown to be dependent on the initial cavity non-classicality, detuning, and decoherence. For larger values of the qubit-resonator detuning, the initial resonator non-classicality can enhance the generation and stability of quantum coherence. The decoherence degrades the qubit-resonator entanglement and destroys the sudden death-birth entanglement.

Signatures of intrinsic decoherence and weak measurement on quantum correlations

In this article, we consider a pair of spin-1/2 particles with squeezing coupling serving as the physical carrier of quantum information. We then examine the dynamics of quantum correlation quantified by the entanglement and measurement-induced nonlocality (MIN) under the intrinsic decoherence. The impact of intrinsic decoherence on the dynamical behaviors of quantum correlations is investigated. We show that the MIN quantities are more robust, while intrinsic decoherence cause sudden death in entanglement. Besides, we highlight the role of spin squeezing coupling and external magnetic field on quantum correlation measures. Finally, we investigate the impact of weak measurement on MIN.

Fisher and Skew Information Correlations of Two Coupled Trapped Ions: Intrinsic Decoherence and Lamb-Dicke Nonlinearity

It is well known that many quantum information processing methods in artificial atoms depend largely on their engineering properties and their ability to generate quantum correlations. In this paper, we investigate the non-classical correlation dynamics of two trapped ions by using local quantum Fisher information, local quantum uncertainty, as well as logarithmic negativity. The system engineering is designed such that the two-trapped-ions work as two diploe-coupled qubits in a Lamb-Dicke regime. The center-of-mass vibrational modes are initially in coherent/even coherent states. It is found that the two-trapped-ions correlations can be controlled by the Lamb-Dicke nonlinearity, the nonclassicality effect of the initial center-of-mass vibrational mode, as well as the trapped-ion coupling and the intrinsic decoherence. The sudden changes in the non-classical correlations and their stability are shown against Lamb-Dicke nonlinearity, the nonclassicality, the trapped-ion coupling, and the intrinsic decoherence.

NONLOCALITY DYNAMICS INDUCED BY A LAMB–DICKE NONLINEARITY IN TWO DIPOLE-COUPLED TRAPPED IONS UNDER INTRINSIC DECOHERENCE

In this paper, we explore the nonlinear dynamics of two dipole-coupled-trapped ions in the Lamb–Dicke regime. The dynamics of the generated two-trapped-ions correlations under intrinsic decoherence is quantified by Bell function, the uncertainty-induced nonlocality, and the concurrence. We investigate the effects of the Lamb–Dicke nonlinearity, the intrinsic decoherence, and the two-trapped-ions coupling. It is found that the two-trapped-ions state has different nonlocal correlations. These correlations can be controlled. In the absence of decoherence, the nonlocal correlations can be enhanced by the Lamb–Dicke nonlinearity and the two-trapped-ions coupling. The stable value and the sudden death-birth phenomenon of the entanglement can be apperceived due to the increase of the Lamb–Dicke nonlinearity. The intrinsic decoherence reduces and stabilizes the nonlocal correlations. They are more pronounced with large Lamb–Dicke values. The decoherence effects are reduced by the strong Lamb–Dicke nonlinearity.