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Abstract
Entanglement and decoherence arguably define the central issues of concern in present day quantum information theory. Decoherence occurs when a system interacts with its environment in an irreversible way; this prevents the quantum superposition of the system + environment's wavefunction from interfering with each other. A better understanding of environment-induced destruction of coherent superposition states is needed, as well as a clear description of the degree of entanglement between the quantum system and its environment. We quantitatively establish a correspondence between entanglement, decoherence, and spin dynamics for a two-state system coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators, resulting in the celebrated spin-boson model. Applications to solid-state and cold atomic systems are also discussed.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge discussions with M. Büttiker, L. Glazman, W. Hofstetter, A. Imambekov, P.P. Orth, and D. Roosen. This work is supported by NSF through DMR-0803200 and through the Center for Quantum Information Physics (DMR-0653377), by DOE under the contract DE-FG02-08ER46541, and by YINQE.