title: Enhancing coherent transport in a photonic network using controllable decoherence.
abstract: Transport phenomena on a quantum scale appear in a variety of systems, ranging from photosynthetic complexes to engineered quantum devices. It has been predicted that the efficiency of coherent transport can be enhanced through dynamic interaction between the system and a noisy environment. We report an experimental simulation of environment-assisted coherent transport, using an engineered network of laser-written waveguides, with relative energies and inter-waveguide couplings tailored to yield the desired Hamiltonian. Controllable-strength decoherence is simulated by broadening the bandwidth of the input illumination, yielding a significant increase in transport efficiency relative to the narrowband case. We show integrated optics to be suitable for simulating specific target Hamiltonians as well as open quantum systems with controllable loss and decoherence.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems and Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Devon N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Biggerstaff
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, D-07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Heilmann
authors.affiliation: Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems and Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Aidan A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Zecevik
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, D-07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gräfe
authors.affiliation: Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems and Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Matthew A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Broome
authors.affiliation: Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems and Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.|Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5089-3148
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fedrizzi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, D-07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nolte
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, D-07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Szameit
authors.affiliation: Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems and Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew G
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9639-5200
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: White
authors.affiliation: Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems and Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kassal