Quantum non-Markovian noise in randomized benchmarking of spin-boson models

Published

April 24, 2026

Author(s)

Srilekha Gandhari, Michael Gullans

Abstract

In non-Markovian systems, the current state of the system depends on the full or partial history of its past evolution. Owing to these time correlations, non-Markovian noise violates common assumptions in gate characterization protocols such as randomized benchmarking and gate-set tomography. Here, we perform a case study of the effects of a quantum non-Markovian bath on qubit randomized benchmarking experiments. We consider a model consisting of qubits coupled to a multimode Bosonic bath. We apply unitary operations on the qubits, interspersed with brief interactions with the environment governed by a Hamiltonian. Allowing for non-Markovianity in the interactions leads to clear differences in the randomized benchmarking decay curves in this model, which we analyze in detail. The Markovian model's decay is exponential as expected whereas the model with non-Markovian interactions displays a much slower, almost polynomial, decay. We develop efficient numerical methods for this problem that we use to support our theoretical results. These results inform efforts on incorporating quantum non-Markovian noise in the characterization and benchmarking of quantum devices.

Citation

Physical Review Research

Volume

8

Issue

2

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/z8zh-n1hl

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Keywords

Quantum computing, quantum process tomography, open quantum systems

Citation

Gandhari, S. and Gullans, M. (2026), Quantum non-Markovian noise in randomized benchmarking of spin-boson models, Physical Review Research, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/z8zh-n1hl, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959450 (Accessed April 28, 2026)

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