Björn Bartels: "Decoherence of Coupled Quantum Oscillators"

Björn Bartels
University of Würzburg

Decoherence of Coupled Quantum Oscillators

Decoherence is responsible for the absence of quantum mechanical effects in our everyday life. On the other hand, quantum information needs coherent superpositions of states in order to exploit quantum mechanical effects for computations. Suppressing decoherence effects remains therefore a big challenge. Recently, indications for decoherence free subspaces in oscillator networks have been found. In the present talk, we will discuss the quantum dynamics of a network of coupled harmonic oscillators in a bosonic heat bath. Furthermore, it will be shown that in multipartite systems the reservoir gives rise to some interesting effects. The simple case of two interacting oscillators will be analyzed in detail for different types of dissipation.