Correlation dynamics of qubit-qutrit systems in a classical dephasing environment

We study the time evolution of classical and quantum correlations for hybrid qubit-qutrit systems in independent and common dephasing environments. Our discussion involves a comparative analysis of the Markovian dynamics of negativity, quantum discord, geometric measure of quantum discord and classical correlation. For the case of independent environments, we have demonstrated the phenomenon of sudden transition between classical and quantum decoherence for qubit-qutrit states. In the common environment case, we have shown that dynamics of quantum and geometric discords might be completely independent of each other for a certain time interval, although they tend to be eventually in accord. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.