  We experimentally demonstrate a single-qubit decohering quantum channel using
linear optics. We implement the channel, whose special cases include both the
amplitude-damping channel and the bit-flip channel, using a single, static
optical setup. Following a recent theoretical result [M. Piani et al., Phys.
Rev. A, 84, 032304 (2011)], we realize the channel in an optimal way,
maximizing the probability of success, i.e., the probability for the photonic
qubit to remain in its encoding. Using a two-photon entangled resource, we
characterize the channel using ancilla-assisted process tomography and find
average process fidelities of 0.9808 \pm 0.0002 and 0.9762 \pm 0.0002 for
amplitude-damping and the bit-flip case, respectively.
