Bloch-sphere approach to correlated noise in coupled qubits

In order to demonstrate a generalized Bloch-sphere approach for the treatment of noise in coupled qubits, we perform a case study of the decoherence of a system composed of two interacting qubits in a noisy environment. In particular, we investigate the effects of correlations in the noise acting on distinct qubits. Our treatment of the two-qubit system by use of the generalized Bloch vector leads to tractable analytic equations for the dynamics of the four-level Bloch vector and allows for the application of geometrical concepts from the well-known two-level Bloch sphere. We find that in the presence of correlated or anticorrelated noise, the rate of decoherence is very sensitive to the initial two-qubit state, as well as to the symmetry of the Hamiltonian. In the absence of symmetry in the Hamiltonian, correlations only weakly impact the decoherence rate.