Decoherence by Quantum Telegraph Noise

Abstract

We investigate the time-evolution of a charge qubit subject to quantum telegraph noise produced by a single electronic defect level. We obtain results for the time-evolution of the coherence that are strikingly different from the usual case of a harmonic oscillator bath (Gaussian noise). When the coupling strength crosses a certain temperature-dependent threshold, we observe coherence oscillations in the strong-coupling regime. Moreover, we present the time-evolution of the echo signal in a spin-echo experiment. Our analysis relies on a numerical evaluation of the exact solution for the density matrix of the qubit.