Scientific Reports 5

Zeno dynamics in quantum open systems

Yu-Ran Zhang, Heng Fan.
Quantum Zeno effect shows that frequent observations can slow down or even stop the unitary time evolution of an unstable quantum system. This effect can also be regarded as a physical consequence of the statistical indistinguishability of neighboring quantum states. The accessibility of quantum Zeno dynamics under unitary time evolution can be quantitatively estimated by quantum Zeno time in terms of Fisher information. In this work, we investigate the accessibility of quantum Zeno dynamics in quantum open systems by calculating noisy Fisher information when a trace preserving and completely positive map is assumed. We firstly study the consequences of non-Markovian noise on quantum Zeno effect and give the exact forms of the dissipative Fisher information and the quantum Zeno time. Then, for the operator-sum representation, an achievable upper bound of the quantum Zeno time is given with the help of the results in noisy quantum metrology. It is of significance that the noise reducing the accuracy in the entanglement-enhanced parameter estimation can conversely be favorable for the accessibility of quantum Zeno dynamics of entangled states.