1

Ph 12b
Homework Assignment No. 4
Due: 5pm, Thursday, 4 February 2010
1. Weaker decoherence. In class we discussed the phase damping of a
qubit that results when the qubit scatters a photon with probability p.
The scattered photon is knocked into one of two mutually orthogonal
states {|0
E
, |1
E
}, correlated with the qubits state, both of which are
orthogonal to the state |un
E
of the unscattered photon. If the initial
state of the qubit is |
S
= a|0
S
+ b|1
S
, then the joint state of the
qubit and photon evolves as
|
S
|un
E

_
1 p |
S
|un
E
+

p (a|0
S
|0
E
+ b|1
S
|1
E
) .
(1)
Thus the qubit density operator evolves as
=
_

00

01

10

11
_

=
_

00
(1 p)
01
(1 p)
10

11
_
.
Now consider a dierent model of decoherence, in which photon scat-
tering does not perfectly resolve the state of the qubit. The scattered
photon is knocked to the normalized state |
E
if the qubits state is
|0
S
and it is knocked to the normalized state |
E
if the photons state
is |1
S
; thus eq.(1) is replaced by
|
S
|un
E

_
1 p |
S
|un
E
+

p (a|0
S
|
E
+ b|1
S
|
E
) .
(2)
Both |
E
and |
E
are orthogonal to the state |un
E
of the unscattered
photon, but they are not necessarily mutually orthogonal; rather
E
|
E
= 1 ,
where is a real number. Thus for = 1, the states |
E
and |
E
are
orthogonal, and we recover the model considered previously, while for
= 0, the scattered photon remains uncorrelated with the qubit, and
there is no decoherence at all.
Show that eq.(2) implies that the density operator evolves according
to
=
_

00

01

10

11
_

=
_

00

01

10

11
_
,
2
and express in terms of p and . You may nd it convenient to
expand |
E
and |
E
in terms of two orthonormal vectors |e
0

E
and
|e
1

E
(which are both orthogonal to |un
E
), so that
|
E
=
0
|e
0

E
+
1
|e
1

E
, |
E
=
0
|e
0

E
+
1
|e
1

E
.
2. Master equation for spontaneous decay. A two-level atom has a
ground state |g with energy E
g
and an excited state |e with energy
E
e
= E
g
+ h. We may adjust the denition of energy by an additive
constant, so that the ground state has zero energy, and the excited
states energy is h. Thus the Hamiltonian of the atom is

H = h|ee|,
and the state vector |(t) of the atom evolves according to
|(t + dt) = |(t) idt|ee|,
where dt is an innitesimal time increment.
a) Recall that a general density operator for the atom can be repre-
sented as =

a
p
a
|
a

a
|, where each |
a
is a normalized
state vector and the p
a
s are positive real numbers satisfying

p
a
= 1. Show that the time-evolving density operator (t)
obeys the dierential equation
d
dt
= i|ee| + i |ee|. (3)
b) Writing the density operator as the matrix
=
_

gg

ge

eg

ee
_
in the basis {|g, |e}, express eq.(3) as four separate dierential
equations for
gg
(t) = g| |g,
ge
(t) = g| |e,
eg
(t) = e| |g,

ee
(t) = e| |e. Solve these equations, nding (t) in terms of
(0).
Now suppose that the excited state of the atom can decay to the
ground state by emitting a photon. The rate for the decay process is
3
. Thus in the time interval (t, t +dt) the joint state of the atom and
its environment evolves according to
|(t) |0
_
|gg|(t) +

1 dt |ee|(t)
_
|0
+

dt |ge|(t) |1. (4)

Here |0 denotes the state of the environment containing no photon,
and |1 denotes the state of the environment containing one photon.
(For now we are considering only the evolution due to spontaneous
decay, we are ignoring the evolution arising from the Hamiltonian

H.)
c) Show that eq.(4) implies a dierential equation satised by the
density operator
d
dt
= |ge| |eg|
1
2
|ee|
1
2
|ee|. (5)
Eq.(5) is called the atoms master equation.
d) Extract from eq.(5) dierential equations satised by
ee
,
eg
, and

ge
. Solve these equations, nding (t) in terms of (0).
e) When we combine eq.(5) describing spontaneous decay with eq.(3)
describing the atoms evolution governed by the Schr odinger equa-
tion, we obtain a new master equation
d
dt
=
_
i
1
2

_
|ee| +
_
i
1
2

_
|ee| + |ge| |eg|.
(6)
Again, nd dierential equations satised by
ee
,
eg
, and
ge
and
solve them, determining (t) in terms of (0).
3. Diagonalizing the density operator. Suppose that the state of a
qubit is prepared by ipping a fair coin, and then preparing the state
vector |
H
if the outcome of the coin ip is heads, and preparing the
state vector |
T
if the outcome of the coin ip is tails, where
|
H
=
_
1
0
_
, |
T
=
1

2
_
1
1
_
.
a) Find the density operator of the qubit.
b) What are the eigenvalues of ?
4
c) Find the eigenvectors of . It is convenient to express your answer
in terms of cos(/8) and sin(/8).
4. Schmidt decomposition. Consider a composite quantum system AB
with Hilbert space H
AB
= H
A
H
B
, where
dimension (H
A
) = dimension (H
B
) = N.
If {|e
a
, a = 1, 2, 3, . . . N} is an orthonormal basis for H
A
and and
{|f
b
, b = 1, 2, 3, . . . N} is an orthonormal basis for H
B
, then a nor-
malized state vector | H
AB
can be expanded as
| =
N

a,b=1

ab
|e
a
|f
b
,
where
N

a,b=1
|
ab
|
2
= 1.
a) Any N N matrix M has a singular value decomposition M =
UDV , where U and V are N N unitary matrices, and D
is a diagonal real N N matrix with nonnegative eigenvalues.
Use the singular value decomposition to show that for any given
state vector | H
AB
, one can choose an orthonormal ba-
sis {|e

a
, a = 1, 2, 3, . . . N} for H
A
and an orthonormal basis
{|f

b
, b = 1, 2, 3, . . . N} for H
B
such that | can be expressed
as
| =
N

a=1

p
a
|e

a
|f

a
, (7)
where the {p
a
} are nonnegative real numbers such that
N

a=1
p
a
= 1.
This expression is called the Schmidt decomposition of the state
vector |.
b) Using the expression for | in eq.(7), express the density opera-
tor
A
for system A in the basis {|e

a
} and express the density
operator
B
for system B in the basis {|f

a
}.
c) What are the eigenvalues of
A
and of
B
?