Retardation of entanglement decay of two spin qubits by quantum measurements

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to slow down entanglement decay in two spin qubits by using repeated quantum measurements and postselection, which builds system coherences and prolongs quantum correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel measurement-based protocol that counteracts entanglement decay without freezing the system, unlike the quantum Zeno effect.

Findings

Quantum measurements and postselection restore and enhance entanglement.

The protocol significantly slows down entanglement decay.

System coherences are built up through repeated cycles.

Abstract

We study a system of two electron spins each interacting with its small nuclear spin environment (NSE), which is a prototype system of two electron spin quantum dot (QD) qubits. We propose a way to counteract the decay of entanglement in two-electron spin subsystem (TESSS) by performing some manipulations on TESSS (the subsystem to which experimentalists have an access), e.g. repeatable quantum projective measurements of TESSS. Unlike in the quantum Zeno effect, the goal of the proposed manipulations is not to freeze TESSS in its initial state and to preclude any time evolution of the state by infinitely frequent quantum measurements. Instead of that, performing a few cycles of free evolution of the system for some time $\tau$ followed by a quantum measurement of TESSS with subsequent postselection of TESSS state (the same as the initial one) produces quantum correlations in NSEs and also restores the quantum correlations in TESSS. By numerical calculation of the system evolution (the full density matrix $\hat \rho(t)$), we show that, in contrast to the fast decay of TESSS entanglement on timescale of the order of $T_2^*$, application of the proposed manipulation sequence gradually builds up coherences in the entire system and the rest decay of quantum correlations of TESSS may be significantly slowed down for specific cycle durations $\tau$ and numbers of performed cycles.