The active harnessing of quantum resources in engineered quantum devices poses unprecedented requirements on device control. Besides the residual interaction with the environment, causing environment-induced decoherence, uncontrolled parameters in the system itself—disorder—remain as a substantial factor limiting the precision and thus the performance of devices. These perturbations may arise, for instance, due to imperfect sample production, stray fields, or finite accuracy of control electronics. Disorder-dressed quantum evolution means a unifying framework, based on quantum master equations, to analyze how these detrimental influences cause deviations from the desired system dynamics. This description may thus contribute to unveiling and mitigating disorder effects towards robust schemes. To demonstrate the broad scope of this framework, we evaluate two distinct scenarios: a central spin immersed in an isotropic spin bath and a random mass Dirac particle. In the former scenario, we demonstrate how the disorder average reflects purity oscillations, indicating the time- and state-dependent severity of the disorder impact. In the latter scenario, we discuss disorder-induced backscattering and disorder-induced Zitterbewegung as consequences of the breakup of spin-momentum locking.

• Received 18 February 2019
• Revised 4 May 2020
• Accepted 26 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.101.214203