Deviations from reversible dynamics in a qubit-oscillator system coupled to a very small environment

In this contribution it is considered a simple and solvable model consisting of a qubit in interaction with an oscillator exposed to a very small "environment" (a second qubit). An isolated qubit-oscillator system having the oscillator initially in one of its energy eigen-states exhibits Rabi oscillations, an evidence of coherent quantum behaviour. It is shown here in which way the coupling to a small "environment" disrupts such regular behaviour, leading to a quasi-periodic dynamics for the qubit linear entropy. In particular, it is found that the linear entropy is very sensitive to the amount of mixedness of the "environment". For completeness, fluctuations in the oscillator energy are also taken into account. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.