Due to omnipresent environmental interferences, quantum coherences inevitably undergo irreversible transformations over certain time-scales, thus leading to the loss of encoded information. This process, known as decoherence, has been a major obstacl
e in realizing efficient quantum information processors. Understanding the mechanism of decoherence is crucial in developing tools to inhibit it. Here we utilize a method proposed by Cory and co-workers [Phys. Rev. A 67, 062316 (2003)] to engineer artificial decoherence in the system qubits by randomly perturbing their surrounding ancilla qubits. Using a two qubit nuclear magnetic resonance quantum register, we characterize the artificial decoherence by noise spectroscopy and quantum process tomography. Further, we study the efficacy of dynamical decoupling sequences in suppressing the artificial decoherence. Here we describe the experimental results and their comparisons with theoretical simulations.
We report an experimental quantum simulation of unitary dynamics of an XY spin chain with pre-engineered couplings. Using this simulation, we demonstrate the mirror inversion of quantum states, proposed by Albanese et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 230502
(2004)]. The experiment is performed with a 5-qubit dipolar coupled spin system using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. To perform quantum simulation we make use of the recently proposed unitary operator decomposition algorithm of Ajoy et al. [Phys. Rev. A 85, 030303 (2012)] along with numerical pulse optimization techniques. Further, using mirror inversion, we demonstrate that entangled states can be transferred from one end of the chain to the other end. The simulations are implemented with high experimental fidelity, which implies that these kind of simulations may be possible in larger systems.
