Decoherence by a spin thermal bath: Role of spin-spin interactions and initial state of the bath

Abstract

We study the decoherence of two coupled spins that interact with a spin-bath environment. It is shown that the connectivity and the coupling strength between the spins in the environment are of crucial importance for the decoherence of the central system. For the anisotropic spin bath, changing the connectivity or coupling strength changes the decoherence of the central system from Gaussian to exponential decay law. The initial state of the environment is shown to affect the decoherence process in a qualitatively significant manner. © 2008 The American Physical Society.