Probing Quantum Memory Effects with High Resolution

Trapped atomic ions enable a precise quantification of the flow of information between internal and external degrees of freedom by employing a non-Markovianity measure [H.-P. Breuer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 210401 (2009)]. We reveal that the nature of projective measurements in quantum mechanics leads to a fundamental, nontrivial bias in this measure. We observe and study the functional dependence of this bias to permit a demonstration of applications of local quantum probing. An extension of our approach can act as a versatile reference, relevant for understanding complex systems.