Experimental investigation of the non-Markovian dynamics of classical and quantum correlations

We experimentally investigate the dynamics of classical and quantum correlations of a Bell diagonal state in a non-Markovian dephasing environment. The sudden transition from a classical to a quantum decoherence regime is observed during the dynamics of a Bell diagonal state. Due to the refocusing effect of the overall relative phase, the quantum correlation revives from near zero and then decays again in the subsequent evolution. However, the non-Markovian effect is too weak to revive the classical correlation, which remains constant in the same evolution range. With the implementation of an optical sigma(x) operation, the sudden transition from a quantum to a classical revival regime is obtained, and correlation echoes are formed. Our method can be used to control the revival time of correlations, which would be important in quantum memory.