Dissipation and Decoherence in a Quantum Register

Abstract

A model for a quantum register $\cal R$ made of $N$ replicas of a $d$-dimensional quantum system (cell) coupled with the environment, is studied by means of a Born-Markov Master Equation (ME). Dissipation and decoherence are discussed in various cases in which a sub-decoherent enconding can be rigorously found. For the qubit case ($d=2$) we have solved, for small $N,$ the ME by numerical direct integration and studied, as a function of the coherence length $\xi_c$ of the bath, fidelity and decoherence rates of states of the register. For large enough $\xi_c$ the singlet states of the global $su(2)$ pseudo-spin algebra of the register (noiseless at $\xi_c=\infty$) are shown to have a much smaller decoherence rates than the rest of the Hilbert space.