中国物理B ›› 2019, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (10): 100501-100501.doi: 10.1088/1674-1056/ab3dff

• SPECIAL TOPIC—Recent advances in thermoelectric materials and devices • 上一篇    下一篇

Enhancing von Neumann entropy by chaos in spin-orbit entanglement

Chen-Rong Liu(刘郴荣), Pei Yu(喻佩), Xian-Zhang Chen(陈宪章), Hong-Ya Xu(徐洪亚), Liang Huang(黄亮), Ying-Cheng Lai(来颖诚)   

  1. 1 School of Physical Science and Technology, and Key Laboratory for Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of MOE, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China;
    2 School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA;
    3 Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
  • 收稿日期:2019-07-31 修回日期:2019-08-21 出版日期:2019-10-05 发布日期:2019-10-05
  • 通讯作者: Liang Huang E-mail:huangl@lzu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11775101 and 11422541) and the US Office of Naval Research (Grant No. N00014-16-1-2828).

Enhancing von Neumann entropy by chaos in spin-orbit entanglement

Chen-Rong Liu(刘郴荣)1, Pei Yu(喻佩)1, Xian-Zhang Chen(陈宪章)1, Hong-Ya Xu(徐洪亚)2, Liang Huang(黄亮)1, Ying-Cheng Lai(来颖诚)2,3   

  1. 1 School of Physical Science and Technology, and Key Laboratory for Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of MOE, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China;
    2 School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA;
    3 Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
  • Received:2019-07-31 Revised:2019-08-21 Online:2019-10-05 Published:2019-10-05
  • Contact: Liang Huang E-mail:huangl@lzu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11775101 and 11422541) and the US Office of Naval Research (Grant No. N00014-16-1-2828).

摘要: For a quantum system with multiple degrees of freedom or subspaces, loss of coherence in a certain subspace is intimately related to the enhancement of entanglement between this subspace and another one. We investigate intra-particle entanglement in two-dimensional mesoscopic systems, where an electron has both spin and orbital degrees of freedom and the interaction between them is enabled by Rashba type of spin-orbit coupling. The geometric shape of the scattering region can be adjusted to produce a continuous spectrum of classical dynamics with different degree of chaos. Focusing on the spin degree of freedom in the weak spin-orbit coupling regime, we find that classical chaos can significantly enhance spin-orbit entanglement at the expense of spin coherence. Our finding that classical chaos can be beneficial to intra-particle entanglement may have potential applications such as enhancing the bandwidth of quantum communications.

关键词: spin-orbit entanglement, chaos, von Neumann entropy, spin decoherence

Abstract: For a quantum system with multiple degrees of freedom or subspaces, loss of coherence in a certain subspace is intimately related to the enhancement of entanglement between this subspace and another one. We investigate intra-particle entanglement in two-dimensional mesoscopic systems, where an electron has both spin and orbital degrees of freedom and the interaction between them is enabled by Rashba type of spin-orbit coupling. The geometric shape of the scattering region can be adjusted to produce a continuous spectrum of classical dynamics with different degree of chaos. Focusing on the spin degree of freedom in the weak spin-orbit coupling regime, we find that classical chaos can significantly enhance spin-orbit entanglement at the expense of spin coherence. Our finding that classical chaos can be beneficial to intra-particle entanglement may have potential applications such as enhancing the bandwidth of quantum communications.

Key words: spin-orbit entanglement, chaos, von Neumann entropy, spin decoherence

中图分类号:  (Quantum chaos; semiclassical methods)

  • 05.45.Mt
71.15.Rf (Relativistic effects) 73.23.-b (Electronic transport in mesoscopic systems)