Disentangling Scrambling and Decoherence via Quantum Teleportation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum teleportation protocol that distinguishes between information scrambling and decoherence effects in quantum systems, enabling more accurate measurement of quantum chaos.

Contribution

It presents a novel protocol that explicitly separates scrambling from decoherence, allowing for precise quantification and verification of quantum information dynamics.

Findings

Protocol can differentiate scrambling from decoherence effects.

Extracts a noise parameter to quantify non-scrambling decay.

Provides bounds on true OTOC values for experimental verification.

Abstract

Out-of-time-order correlation (OTOC) functions provide a powerful theoretical tool for diagnosing chaos and the scrambling of information in strongly-interacting, quantum systems. However, their direct and unambiguous experimental measurement remains an essential challenge. At its core, this challenge arises from the fact that the effects of both decoherence and experimental noise can mimic that of information scrambling, leading to decay of OTOCs. Here, we analyze a quantum teleportation protocol that explicitly enables one to differentiate between scrambling and decoherence. Moreover, we demonstrate that within this protocol, one can extract a precise "noise" parameter which quantitatively captures the non-scrambling induced decay of OTOCs. Using this parameter, we prove explicit bounds on the true value of the OTOC. Our results open the door to experimentally measuring quantum scrambling with built-in verifiability.