An intriguing and deep analogy between classical and quantum states is revealed using the notion of positive definite function. By Bochner's theorem, (classical) positive definite functions on phase space can be obtained by taking the Fourier transform of probability measures; similarly, quantum positive definite functions are the image via the Fourier-Plancherel operator of Wigner quasi-probability distributions. Considering the basic properties of positive definite functions — classical and quantum — one is led to define a class of semigroups of operators, the so-called classical-quantum semigroups. It is then natural to wonder whether they have any physical meaning. It turns out that the classical-quantum semigroups can also be obtained by dequantizing a certain class of quantum dynamical semigroups, namely, the classical noise semigroups. This correspondence fits in a more general group-theoretical framework in which a larger class of quantum dynamical semigroups, the twirling semigroups, can be suitably dequantized. Connections with quantum information science will be briefly discussed.
Wigner phase space quasi-probability distribution function is a Fourier transform related to a given quantum mechanical wave function. It is shown that for the wave functions of type
ψ(q)=e−aq2ϕ(q), the Wigner function can be defined in terms of differential operators acting on a given function, independently from the integral formula which appears in the standard definition. Gaussian wave packet, harmonic and singular oscillators are given as the examples.
We study a generalization of the Wigner function to arbitrary tuples of Hermitian operators. We show that for any collection of Hermitian operators A1, …, An and any quantum state, there is a unique joint distribution on Rn with the property that the marginals of all linear combinations of the Ak coincide with their quantum counterparts. In other words, we consider the inverse Radon transform of the exact quantum probability distributions of all linear combinations. We call it the Wigner distribution because for position and momentum, this property defines the standard Wigner function. We discuss the application to finite dimensional systems, establish many basic properties, and illustrate these by examples. The properties include the support, the location of singularities, positivity, the behavior under symmetry groups, and informational completeness.
The quantum Fourier transform (QFT) is a fundamental primitive in quantum computation and quantum information. In this work, we extend the framework for the QFT from finite groups to finite-dimensional semisimple algebras, and give efficient QFTs for the partition algebra
Pn(d), Brauer algebra
Bn(d), and walled Brauer algebra
Br,s(d). These algebras play important roles in generalized Schur-Weyl duality, statistical physics and many-body systems, and have recently found several applications in quantum algorithms.
Unlike the group case, the Fourier transform over a semisimple algebra can be non-unitary. Nevertheless, we show that when the parameter
d is sufficiently large, the Fourier transform is well approximated by a unitary operator. Furthermore, we show that for each of the algebras
A from above, such an approximate Fourier transform can be implemented efficiently: we give a quantum algorithm with gate complexity
poly(n,logd,log(1/ε)) for approximating the Fourier transform to error
(d−1/2+ε)⋅poly(∣A∣). Along the way, we establish several properties of the Fourier basis of semisimple algebras that may be of independent interest.