Landau-Zener transitions in a two-level system coupled to a finite-temperature harmonic oscillator

Abstract

We analyze the dynamics and final populations in a Landau-Zener problem for a two level system (or qubit) when this system interacts with one harmonic oscillator mode that is initially set to a finite-temperature thermal equilibrium state. The harmonic oscillator could represent an external mode that is strongly coupled to the qubit, e.g. an ionic oscillation mode in a molecule, or it could represent a prototypical uncontrolled environment. We analyze the qubit's occupation probabilities at the final time in a number of different regimes, varying the qubit and oscillator frequencies, their coupling strength and the temperature. In particular we find some surprising non-monotonic dependence on the coupling strength and temperature.