Decoherence Time in Quantum Harmonic Oscillators as Quantum Memory Systems

This paper is concerned with open quantum harmonic oscillators (OQHOs) described by linear quantum stochastic differential equations. This framework includes isolated oscillators with zero Hamiltonian, whose system variables remain unchanged (in the Heisenberg picture of quantum dynamics) over the course of time, making such systems potentially applicable as quantum memory devices. In a more realistic case of system-environment coupling, we define a memory decoherence horizon as a typical time for a mean-square deviation of the system variables from their initial values to become relatively significant as specified by a weighting matrix and a fidelity parameter. We consider the maximization of the decoherence time over the energy and coupling matrices of the OQHO as a memory system in its storage phase and obtain a condition under which the zero Hamiltonian delivers a suboptimal solution. This optimization problem is also discussed for an interconnection of OQHOs.