Weighted graph states and applications to spin chains, lattices and gases

Weighted graph states naturally arise when spin systems interact via an Ising-type interaction. First, we abstractly define the class of weighted graph states and demonstrate its computational accessibility. We show how reduced density matrices of a small number of spins (≈10) can be computed from arbitrarily large systems using weighted graph techniques and projected entangled pair techniques, and we discuss various entanglement measures accessible from these reduced density matrices. Second, we apply these findings to spin chains and lattices with long-range interactions and analytically derive area laws for the scaling of block-wise entanglement. Then, we turn to disordered spin systems, spin gases, which are connected to random weighted graph states and which share their entanglement properties. Finally, we use a spin gas as a bath that introduces decoherence in single as well as multipartite spin systems. The microscopic, exact decoherence model we obtain can operate in different regimes and exhibit non-Markovian features as well as spatially correlated noise effects. © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd.