Real quantum systems couple to their environment and lose their intrinsic quantum nature through the process known as decoherence. Here we present a method for minimizing decoherence by making it energetically unfavorable. We present a Hamiltonian made up solely of two-body interactions between four two-level systems (qubits) which has a 2-fold degenerate ground state. This degenerate ground state has the property that any decoherence process acting on an individual physical qubit must supply energy from the bath to the system. Quantum information can be encoded into the degeneracy of the ground state and such coherence-preserving qubits will then be robust to local decoherence at low bath temperatures. We show how this quantum information can be universally manipulated and indicate how this approach may be applied to a quantum dot quantum computer.

• Received 4 December 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.247902