Realizing quantum speed limit in open system with a PT -symmetric trapped-ion qubit

Abstract

Abstract Quantum speed limit (QSL), the lower bound of the time for transferring an initial state to a target one, is of fundamental interest in quantum information processing. Despite that the speed limit of a unitary evolution could be well analyzed by either the Mandelstam–Tamm or the Margolus–Levitin bound, there are still many unknowns for the QSL in open systems. A particularly exciting result is about that the evolution time can be made arbitrarily small without violating the time-energy uncertainty principle, whenever the dynamics is governed by a parity-time ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-calligraphic">P</mml:mi> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-calligraphic">T</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) symmetric Hamiltonian. Here we study the QSLs with both <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-calligraphic">P</mml:mi> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-calligraphic">T</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> and anti- <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-calligraphic">P</mml:mi> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-calligraphic">T</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> Hamiltonians, and pose the QSL as a brachistochrone problem on a non-Hermitian Bloch sphere. We then use dissipative trapped-ion qubits to construct the Hamiltonians, where the state evolutions reach the QSL governed by a generalized Margolus-Levitin bound of the non-Hermitian system. We find that the evolution time monotonously decreases with the increase of the dissipation strength and exhibits chiral dependence on the Bloch sphere. These results enable a well-controlled knob for speeding up the state manipulation in open quantum systems, which could be used for quantum control and simulation with non-unitary dynamics.

Topics & Concepts