Coherence in magnetic quantum tunneling

We study effect of noise on the tunneling process of the magnetization in a sweeping field from the viewpoint of the nonadiabatic transition. The tunneling probability depends on the properties of the noise, e.g. the direction, the amplitude, and the relaxation time of the autocorrelation function. We investigate the tunneling process in the presence of noise by solving the time-dependent Schr$\rm{\ddot{o}}$dinger equation numerically, and analyze its parameter dependence. We...

We have developed a quantitative theory of resonant tunneling of magnetic flux between discrete macroscopically distinct quantum states in SQUID systems. The theory is based on the standard density-matrix approach. Its new elements include the discussion of the two different relaxation mechanisms that exist for the double-well potential, and description of the ``photon-assisted'' tunneling driven by external rf radiation. It is shown that in the case of coherent flux dynamics...

We consider an effect of a strong magnetic field on the ground state and macroscopic coherent tunneling in small antiferromagnetic particles with uniaxial and biaxial single-ion anisotropy. We find several tunneling regimes that depend on the direction of the magnetic field with respect to the anisotropy axes. For the case of a purely uniaxial symmetry and the field directed along the easy axis, an exact instanton solution with two different scales in imaginary time is constr...

We investigate the effect of dynamic nuclear spin fluctuation on quantum tunneling of the magnetization (QTM) in the molecular magnet Fe8 by increasing the nuclei temperature using radio frequency (RF) pulses before the hysteresis loop measurements. The RF pulses do not change the electrons spin temperature. Independently we show that the nuclear spin-spin relaxation time T2 has strong temperature dependence. Nevertheless, we found no effect of the nuclear spin temperature on...

We consider a large spin \bf S in the magnetic field parallel to the uniaxial crystal field, interacting with N >> 1 nuclear spins \bf I_i via Hamiltonian \cal H = -DS_z^2 - H_zS_z+ A{\bf S}\cdot \sum_{i=1}^N {\bf I}_i with A << D, at temperature T. Tunneling splittings and the selection rules for the resonant values of H_z are obtained perturbatively. The quantum coherence exists at T << ASI while at T >= ASI the coherence is destroyed and the relaxation of \bf S is describe...

We analyze how decoherence appears in the I-V characteristics of a voltage-biased single-Cooper-pair transistor. Especially the effect on resonant single or several Cooper-pair tunneling is studied. We consider both a symmetric and an asymmetric transistor. As a decoherence source we use a small resistive impedance (Re[Z(w)]<<R_Q=h/4e^2) in series with the transistor, which provides both thermal and quantum fluctuations of the voltage. Additional decoherence sources are quasi...

A time-dependent bias voltage on a tunnel junction generates a time-dependent modulation of its current fluctuations, and in particular of its variance. This translates into an excitation at frequency $\tilde{f}$ generating correlations between current fluctuating at any frequency $f$ and at frequency $\pm$ $\tilde{f} -f$. We report the measurement of such a correlation in the fully quantum regime, i.e. when both frequencies are much greater than $k_BT/h$ with $T$ the tempera...

We present a method, the dynamical cumulant expansion, that allows to calculate quantum corrections for time-dependent quantities of interacting spin systems or single spins with anisotropy. This method is applied to the quantum-spin model \hat{H} = -H_z(t)S_z + V(\bf{S}) with H_z(\pm\infty) = \pm\infty and \Psi (-\infty)=|-S> we study the quantity P(t)=(1-<S_z>_t/S)/2. The case V(\bf{S})=-H_x S_x corresponds to the standard Landau-Zener-Stueckelberg model of tunneling at avo...

We consider a particle bound to a two-dimensional plane and a double well potential, subject to a perpendicular uniform magnetic field . The energy difference between the lowest two eigenvalues--the eigenvalue splitting--is related to the tunneling probability between the two wells. We obtain upper and lower bounds on this splitting in the regime where both the magnetic field strength and the depth of the wells are large. The main step is a lower bound on the hopping probabil...

We present a detailed study of the non-Markovian two-state system dynamics for the regime of incoherent quantum tunneling. Using perturbation theory in the system tunneling amplitude $\Delta$, and in the limit of strong system-bath coupling, we determine the short time evolution of the reduced density matrix and thereby find a general equation of motion for the non-Markovian evolution at longer times. We relate the nonlocality in time due to the non-Markovian effects with the...