Time evolution of a single spin inhomogeneously coupled to an interacting spin environment

We study the time evolution of a single spin coupled by exchange interaction to an environment of interacting spin bath modeled by the XY Hamiltonian. By evaluating the spin correlator of the single spin, we observed that the decay rate of the spin oscillations strongly depends on the relative magnitude of the exchange coupling between the single spin and its nearest neighbor J(') and coupling among the spins in the environment J. The decoherence time varies significantly based on the relative coupling magnitudes of J and J('). The decay rate law has a Gaussian profile when the two exchange couplings are of the same order J(')similar to J but converts to exponential and then a power law as we move to the regimes of J(')>J and J(')< J. We also show that the spin oscillations propagate from the single spin to the environmental spins with a certain speed. The effect of varying the anisotropic parameter, external magnetic field, and temperature on the decaying rate of the spin state is also discussed. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.