Coherence properties of NV-center ensembles in diamond coupled to an electron-spin bath

Abstract: We investigate nitrogen-vacancy center (NV) ensembles in diamond under the influence of strongly-correlated electron-spin baths. We thoroughly calculate the decoherence properties of the NV central spin for bath concentrations of 0.1-100 ppm using the cluster-correlation expansion (CCE) method. We systematically analyze possible origins of the significant deviations in the values of the $T_2$ coherence time reported in literature. We demonstrate that significant variations can originate from the choice of averaging and fitting procedures used for the ensemble average and we point out the respective aspects that need to be considered, when comparing the various theoretical studies. Our study may ease readers to perform reliable and fast simulations on the central spin problem. It provides an understanding and interpretation of the outcome parameters describing the dynamics of the local bath spins.