November 15, 2012
In the 5th century B.C.,the philosopher and logician Zeno of Elea posed several paradoxes which remained unresolved for over two thousand five hundred years. The $20^{th}$ century saw some resolutions to Zeno's mind boggling problems. This long journey saw many significant milestones in the form of discoveries like the tools of converging series and theories on infinite sets in mathematics. In recent times, the Zeno effect made an intriguing appearance in a rather unlikely pl...
October 12, 2023
We study the Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE) on a single qubit on IBM Quantum Experience devices under the effect of multiple measurements. We consider two possible cases: the Rabi evolution and the free decay. In both cases we observe the occurrence of the QZE as an increasing of the survival probability with the number of measurements.
September 7, 2019
The quantum Zeno effect is the prediction, going back to Alan Turing, that the decay of an unstable system can be slowed down by measuring it frequently enough. It was also noticed later that the opposite effect, i.e., enhancement of the decay due to frequent measurements, is rather common. An important question arising in this regards is how to choose the optimal measurement strategy to achieve the highest possible decay rate. Here we rigorously prove the universal optimalit...
November 30, 2009
The evolution of a quantum system subjected to infinitely many measurements in a finite time interval is confined in a proper subspace of the Hilbert space. This phenomenon is called "quantum Zeno effect": a particle under intensive observation does not evolve. This effect is at variance with the classical evolution, which obviously is not affected by any observations. By a semiclassical analysis we will show that the quantum Zeno effect vanishes at all orders, when the Planc...
May 2, 2006
We perform stochastic simulations of the quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects for two level system and for the decaying one. Instead of simple projection postulate approach, a more realistic model of a detector interacting with the environment is used. The influence of the environment is taken into account using the quantum trajectory method. The simulation of the measurement for a single system exhibits the probabilistic behavior showing the collapse of the wave-packet. When a...
September 25, 2010
We present a generalization of continuous position measurements that accounts for a spatially inhomogeneous measurement strength. This describes many real measurement scenarios, in which the rate at which information is extracted about position has itself a spatial profile, and includes measurements that detect if a particle has crossed from one region into another. We show that such measurements can be described, in their averaged behavior, as stochastically fluctuating pote...
December 30, 2002
We study the measurement process by treating classical detectors entirely quantum mechanically. As a generic model we use a point-contact detector coupled to an electron in a quantum dot and tunneling into the continuum. Transition to the classical description and the mechanism of decoherence are investigated. We concentrate on the influence of the measurement on the electron decay rate to the continuum. We demonstrate that the Zeno (or the anti-Zeno) effect requires a nonuni...
May 13, 2023
We report on the possibility of teleportation of a quantum particle, a distinctly different phenomenon from the teleportation of a quantum state through entanglement. With the first meaning, teleportation is theoretically possible by placing the particle initially at rest (with a certain uncertainty) out of any equilibrium point of a potential well or barrier and by frequently monitoring whether the particle remains at rest. This quantum Zeno dynamics inhibits acceleration, a...
December 30, 2020
Repeated measurements in quantum mechanics can freeze (the quantum Zeno effect) or enhance (the quantum anti-Zeno effect) the time-evolution of a quantum system. In this paper, we present a general treatment of the quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects for arbitrary driven open quantum systems, assuming only that the system-environment coupling is weak. In particular, we obtain a general expression for the effective decay rate of a two-level system subjected to arbitrary driving...
June 24, 2020
We study the Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE) induced by continuous partial measurement in the presence of short-correlated noise in the system Hamiltonian. We study the survival probability and the onset of the QZE as a function of the measurement strength, and find that, depending on the noise parameters, the quantum Zeno effect can be enhanced or suppressed by the noise in different regions of the parameter space. Notably, the conditions for the enhancement of the QZE are differe...