Quantum dynamics of two-spin-qubit systems

J Phys Condens Matter. 2009 Jul 8;21(27):273201. doi: 10.1088/0953-8984/21/27/273201. Epub 2009 Jun 12.

Abstract

The aim of this topical review is a systematic and concise presentation of the results of a series of theoretical works on the quantum dynamics of two-spin-qubit systems towards the elaboration of a physical mechanism of the quantum information transfer between two spin-qubits. For this purpose the main attention is paid to exactly solvable models of two-spin-qubit systems, since the analytical expressions of the elements of their reduced density matrices explicitly exhibit the mutual dependence of the quantum information encoded into the spin-qubits. The treatment of their decoherence due to the interaction with the environment is performed in the Markovian approximation. Rate equations for axially symmetric systems of two coupled spin-qubits non-interacting, as well as interacting, with the environment are exactly solved. It is shown how the solutions of rate equations demonstrate the physical mechanism of the quantum information exchange between the spin-qubits. This mechanism holds also in all two-spin-qubit systems whose rate equations can be solved only by means of numerical calculations. Exact solutions of rate equations for two uncoupled spin-qubits interacting with two separate environments reveal an interesting physical phenomenon in the time evolution of the qubit-qubit entanglement generated by their interaction with the environments: the entanglement sudden death and revival. A two-spin-qubit system with an asymptotically decoherence free subspace was also explicitly constructed. The presented calculations and reasonings can be extended for application to the study of spin-qubit chains or networks.