The Mpemba effect is a counterintuitive phenomena in which a hot system reaches a cold temperature faster than a colder system, under otherwise identical conditions. Here, we propose a quantum analog of the Mpemba effect, on the simplest quantum system, a qubit. Specifically, we show it exhibits an inverse effect, in which a cold qubit reaches a hot temperature faster than a hot qubit. Furthermore, in our system a cold qubit can heat up exponentially faster, manifesting the strong version of the effect. This occurs only for sufficiently coherent systems, making this effect quantum mechanical, i.e., due to interference effects. We experimentally demonstrate our findings on a single ${}^{88}{\mathrm{Sr}}^{+}$ trapped ion qubit. The existence of this anomalous relaxation effect in simple quantum systems reveals its fundamentality, and may have a role in designing and operating quantum information processing devices.

中文翻译：

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在单个俘获离子量子位上展示逆 Mpemba 效应


姆彭巴效应是一种违反直觉的现象，在其他条件相同的情况下，热系统比冷系统更快地达到低温。在这里，我们提出了 Mpemba 效应在最简单的量子系统（量子位）上的量子模拟。具体来说，我们证明它表现出相反的效应，即冷量子位比热量子位更快地达到高温。此外，在我们的系统中，冷量子位的升温速度可以呈指数级增长，从而体现出该效应的强版本。这种情况仅发生在足够相干的系统中，使得这种效应成为量子力学的，即由于干涉效应。我们通过实验证明了我们在单个 ${}^{88}{\mathrm{Sr}}^{+}$ 俘获离子量子位上的发现。简单量子系统中这种反常弛豫效应的存在揭示了其基本性，并且可能在设计和操作量子信息处理设备中发挥作用。