Uncovering many-body correlations in nanoscale nuclear spin baths by central spin decoherence

Abstract

Many-body correlations can yield key insights into the nature of interacting systems; however, detecting them is often very challenging in many-particle physics, especially in nanoscale systems. Here, taking a phosphorus donor electron spin in a natural-abundance 29Si nuclear spin bath as our model system, we discover both theoretically and experimentally that many-body correlations in nanoscale nuclear spin baths produce identifiable signatures in the decoherence of the central spin under multiple-pulse dynamical decoupling control. We find that when the number of decoupling -pulses is odd, central spin decoherence is primarily driven by second-order nuclear spin correlations (pairwise flip-flop processes). In contrast, when the number of -pulses is even, fourth-order nuclear spin correlations (diagonal interaction renormalized pairwise flip-flop processes) are principally responsible for the central spin decoherence. Many-body correlations of different orders can thus be selectively detected by central spin decoherence under different dynamical decoupling controls, providing a useful approach to probing many-body processes in nanoscale nuclear spin baths.

References in corpus (8)

• Quantum Computing
• Universal dynamical decoupling of a single solid-state spin from a spin bath
• Theory of electron spin decoherence by interacting nuclear spins in a quantum dot
• Quantum many-body theory of qubit decoherence in a finite-size spin bath
• Nuclear spin pair coherence in diamond for atomic scale magnetometry
• Universality of Uhrig dynamical decoupling for suppressing qubit pure dephasing and relaxation
• Electron spin decoherence in isotope-enriched silicon
• Anomalous decoherence effect in a quantum bath

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Quantum many-body theory for electron spin decoherence in nanoscale nuclear spin baths
• Keeping a spin qubit alive in natural silicon: Comparing optimal working points and dynamical decoupling
• Decoherence and pointer states in small antiferromagnets: A benchmark test
• Unfolding multi-particle quantum correlations hidden in decoherence