Simulating open quantum dynamics on an NMR quantum processor using the Sz.-Nagy dilation algorithm

Abstract

We experimentally implement the Sz.-Nagy dilation algorithm to simulate open quantum dynamics on an nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) quantum processor. The Sz.-Nagy algorithm enables the simulation of the dynamics of arbitrary-dimensional open quantum systems, using only a single ancilla qubit. We experimentally simulate the action of two non-unitary processes, namely, a phase damping channel acting independently on two qubits and a magnetic field gradient pulse (MFGP) acting on an ensemble of two coupled nuclear spin-1/2 particles. To evaluate the quality of the experimentally simulated quantum process, we perform convex optimization-based full quantum process tomography to reconstruct the quantum process from the experimental data and compare it with the target quantum process to be simulated.