Dynamical decoupling operations have been shown to reduce errors in quantum information processing. Leakage from an encoded subspace to the rest of the system space is a particularly serious problem for which leakage elimination operators (LEOs) were introduced. Here we provide an analysis of nonideal pulses, rather than the well-understood idealization or bang-bang controls. Under realistic conditions, we show that these controls will provide the same protection from errors as idealized controls. Our work indicates that the effectiveness of LEOs depends on the integral of the pulse sequence in the time domain, which has been missing because of the idealization of pulse sequences. Our results are applied to a three-level system for the nitrogen-vacancy centers under an external magnetic field and are illustrated by the fidelity dynamics of LEO sequences, ranging from regular rectangular pulses, random pulses, and even disordered (noisy) pulses.

It is proposed that high-speed universal quantum gates can be realized by using non-Abelian holonomic transformation. A cyclic evolution path which brings the system periodically back to a degenerate qubit subspace is crucial to holonomic quantum computing. The cyclic nature and the resulting gate operations are fully dependent on the precise control of driving parameters, such as the modulated envelop function of Rabi frequency and the control phases. We investigate the effects of fluctuations in these driving parameters on the transformation fidelity of a universal set of single-qubit quantum gates. We compare the damage effects from different noise sources and determine the “sweet spots” in the driving parameter space. The nonadiabatic non-Abelian quantum gate is found to be more susceptible to classical noises on the envelop function than that on the control phases. We also extend our study to a two-qubit quantum gate.

Quantum physics dictates fundamental speed limits during time evolution. We present a quantum speed limit governing the generation of nonclassicality and the mutual incompatibility of two states connected by time evolution. This result is used to characterize the timescale required to generate a given amount of quantumness under an arbitrary physical process. The bound is found to be tight under pure dephasing dynamics. More generally, our analysis reveals the dependence on the initial and final states and non-Markovian effects.

We propose a scheme for inverse engineering control in open quantum systems. Starting from an undetermined time evolution operator, a time-dependent Hamiltonian is derived in order to guide the system to attain an arbitrary target state at a predefined time. We calculate the fidelity of our inverse engineering control protocol in the presence of the noise with respect to the stochastic fluctuation of the linear parameters of the Hamiltonian during the time evolution. For a special family of Hamiltonians for two-level systems, we show that the control evolution of the system under noise can be categorized into two standard decohering processes: dephasing and depolarization, for both Markovian and non-Markovian conditions. In particular, we illustrate our formalism by analyzing the robustness of the engineered target state against errors. Moreover, we discuss the generalization of the inverse protocol for higher-dimensional systems.

In spin-based nanosystems for quantum information processing, electron spin qubits are subject to decoherence due to their interactions with nuclear spin environments. In this paper, we present an exact master equation for a central spin-1/2 system in time-dependent external fields and coupled to a spin-half bath in terms of hyperfine interaction. The master equation provides a unified description for free and controlled dynamics of the central spin and is formally independent of the details and size of spin environments. Different from the previous approaches, the master equation remains exact even in the presence of external control fields. Using the parameters for realistic nanosystems with nonzero nuclear spins, such as GaAs, we investigate the Overhauser’s effect on the decoherence dynamics of the central spin under different distributions of bath-spin frequencies and system-bath coupling strengths. Furthermore, we apply the leakage elimination operator, in a nonperturbative manner, to this system to suppress the decoherence induced by hyperfine interaction.

Ground-state cooling and pure state preparation of a small object that is embedded in a thermal environment is an important challenge and a highly desirable quantum technology. This paper proves, with two different methods, that a fundamental constraint on the cooling dynamic implies that it is impossible to cool, via a unitary system-bath quantum evolution, a system that is embedded in a thermal environment down to its ground state, if the initial state is a factorized product of system and bath states. The latter is a crucial but artificial assumption included in numerous tools that treat system-bath dynamics, such as master equation approaches and Kraus operator based methods. Adopting these approaches to address ground state and even approximate ground state cooling dynamics should therefore be done with caution, considering the fundamental theorem exposed in this work.