In this paper we shall re-visit the well-known Schrödinger and Lindblad dynamics of quantum mechanics. However, these equations may be realized as the consequence of a more general, underlying dynamical process. In both cases we shall see that the evolution of a quantum state $P_ψ=\varrho(0)$ has the not so well-known pseudo-quadratic form $\partial_t\varrho(t)=\mathbf{V}^\star\varrho(t)\mathbf{V}$ where $\mathbf{V}$ is a vector operator in a complex Minkowski space and the pseudo-adjoint $\mathbf{V}^\star$ is induced by the Minkowski metric $\boldsymbolη$. The interesting thing about this formalism is that its derivation has very deep roots in a new understanding of the differential calculus of time. This Minkowski-Hilbert representation of quantum dynamics is called the \emph{Belavkin Formalism}; a beautiful, but not well understood theory of mathematical physics that understands that both deterministic and stochastic dynamics may be `unraveled' in a second-quantized Minkowski space. Working in such a space provided the author with the means to construct a QS (quantum stochastic) Duhamel principle and known applications to a Schrödinger dynamics perturbed by a continual measurement process are considered. What is not known, but presented here, is the role of the Lorentz transform in quantum measurement, and the appearance of Riemannian geometry in quantum measurement is also discussed.
In this paper we shall re-visit the well-known Schrödinger and Lindblad dynamics of quantum mechanics. However, these equations may be realized as the consequence of a more general, underlying dynamical process. In both cases we shall see that the evolution of a quantum state Pψ=ϱ(0) has the not so well-known pseudo-quadratic form ∂tϱ(t)=V⋆ϱ(t)V where V is a vector operator in a complex Minkowski space and the pseudo-adjoint V⋆ is induced by the Minkowski metric η. The interesting thing about this formalism is that its derivation has very deep roots in a new understanding of the differential calculus of time. This Minkowski-Hilbert representation of quantum dynamics is called the \emph{Belavkin Formalism}; a beautiful, but not well understood theory of mathematical physics that understands that both deterministic and stochastic dynamics may be `unraveled' in a second-quantized Minkowski space. Working in such a space provided the author with the means to construct a QS (quantum stochastic) Duhamel principle and known applications to a Schrödinger dynamics perturbed by a continual measurement process are considered. What is not known, but presented here, is the role of the Lorentz transform in quantum measurement, and the appearance of Riemannian geometry in quantum measurement is also discussed.
In this paper we shall re-visit the well-known Schrödinger equation of quantum mechanics. However, this shall be realized as a marginal dynamics of a more general, underlying stochastic counting process in a complex Minkowski space. One of the interesting things about this formalism is that its derivation has very deep roots in a new understanding of the differential calculus of time. This Minkowski-Hilbert representation of quantum dynamics is called the Belavkin formalism ; a beautiful, but not well understood theory of mathematical physics that understands that both deterministic and stochastic dynamics may be formally represented by a counting process in a second-quantized Minkowski space. The Minkowski space arises as a canonical quantization of the clock, and this is derived naturally from the matrix-algebra representation [1, 2] of the Newton-Leibniz differential time increment, dt . And so the unitary dynamics of a quantum object, described by the Schrödinger equation, may be obtained as the expectation of a counting process of object-clock interactions.
Here we shall consider the idea that the Hamiltonian evolution of a quantum system is generated by sequential observations of the system by a `pseudo-apparatus'. This representation of Hamiltonian dynamics, originally discovered by Belavkin, is a canonical dilation of the Schroedinger equation that reveals a Minkowski space structure outside of the context of Special Relativity. In particular, this formalism gives rise to the notion of a Boosted Schroedinger equation referred to a dilated time increment which is the manifestation of a Lorentz transform in the Minkowski space of the apparatus.
A new idea for the quantization of dynamic systems, as well as space time itself, using a stochastic metric is proposed. The quantum mechanics of a mass point is constructed on a space time manifold using a stochastic metric. A stochastic metric space is, in brief, a metric space whose metric tensor is given stochastically according to some appropriate distribution function. A mathematically consistent model of a space time manifold equipping a stochastic metric is proposed in this work. The quantum theory in the local Minkowski space can be recognized as a classical theory on the stochastic Lorentz-metric-space. A stochastic calculus on the space time manifold is performed using white noise functional analysis. A path-integral quantization is introduced as a stochastic integration of a function of the action integral, and it is shown that path-integrals on the stochastic metric space are mathematically well-defined for large variety of potential functions. The Newton–Nelson equation of motion can also be obtained from the Newtonian equation of motion on the stochastic metric space. It is also shown that the commutation relation required under the canonical quantization is consistent with the stochastic quantization introduced in this work. The quantum effects of general relativity are also analyzed through natural use of the stochastic metrics. Some example of quantum effects on the Universe is discussed.
Following previous works by E. Prugovečki [Physica A 91A, 202 (1978) and Stochastic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Space–time (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1986)] on common features of classical and quantum mechanics, we develop a unified mathematical framework for classical and quantum mechanics (based on L2-spaces over classical phase space), in order to investigate to what extent quantum mechanics can be obtained as a simple modification of classical mechanics (on both logical and analytical levels). To obtain this unified framework, we split quantum theory in two parts: (i) general quantum axiomatics (a system is described by a state in a Hilbert space, observables are self-adjoints operators, and so on) and (ii) quantum mechanics proper that specifies the Hilbert space as L2(Rn); the Heisenberg rule [pi,qj]=−iℏδij with p=−iℏ∇, the free Hamiltonian H=−ℏ2Δ/2m and so on. We show that general quantum axiomatics (up to a supplementary “axiom of classicity”) can be used as a nonstandard mathematical ground to formulate physical ideas and equations of ordinary classical statistical mechanics. So, the question of a “true quantization” with “ℏ” must be seen as an independent physical problem not directly related with quantum formalism. At this stage, we show that this nonstandard formulation of classical mechanics exhibits a new kind of operation that has no classical counterpart: this operation is related to the “quantization process,” and we show why quantization physically depends on group theory (the Galilei group). This analytical procedure of quantization replaces the “correspondence principle” (or canonical quantization) and allows us to map classical mechanics into quantum mechanics, giving all operators of quantum dynamics and the Schrödinger equation. The great advantage of this point of view is that quantization is based on concrete physical arguments and not derived from some “pure algebraic rule” (we exhibit also some limit of the correspondence principle). Moreover spins for particles are naturally generated, including an approximation of their interaction with magnetic fields. We also recover by this approach the semi-classical formalism developed by E. Prugovečki [Stochastic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Space–time (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1986)].
In the last chapter, we dealt with the wide class of physical operations that preserve the Gaussian character of the initial state, treating them as discrete transformations. Here, we describe what could loosely be considered the continuous-time version of such transformations. This chapter is intended to provide the reader with the tools to describe a wide range of notable quantum dynamics, with a very broad applicative scope. After a note on the action of linear and quadratic Hamiltonians, whose description follows directly from the theory of Gaussian states presented in Chapter 3 but was not explicitly clarified so far, we shall address systems linearly coupled to a reservoir of modes that are delta-correlated in time (a situation commonly referred to as ‘white noise’), and thus give rise to Markovian dynamics which we shall refer to as ‘diffusive’ for reasons that will be made clear in due time. Our story will commence with a derivation of the Gaussian dynamics resulting from such an environmental coupling, in the form of dynamical equations for the first and second statistical moments. Besides their interest per se , the latter will be instrumental in obtaining an unconventional derivation of the master equations that govern general, not necessarily Gaussian, quantum states under the same conditions. The corresponding quantum Langevin equations for the canonical operators in the Heisenberg picture will also be derived. Next, we will turn our attention to the study of the system's dynamics that result from the measurement of the environment. This is a topic with a longstanding tradition in quantum mechanics, grounded in the formalism of quantum stochastic calculus that emerged within the mathematical physics community as early as the seventies, and then re-introduced as the quantum trajectories approach in quantum optics almost twenty years later. The ‘weak’ POVMs resulting from observing a weakly coupled environment (as opposed to ‘strong’, projective measurements), carried out continuously in time (a prescription customarily subsumed by the term ‘monitoring’), leads to a stochastic dynamics for the system, where the randomness of the measurement outcomes is compactly and most elegantly represented by infinitesimal stochastic increments, giving rise to continuous but not differentiable quantum dynamics. Existing approaches to this subject tend to be quite impervious to the uninitiated. In the quantum optics literature, this is largely due to the technicalities involved in incorporating the discontinuous update of the quantum state prescribed by the von Neumann postulate. More mathematically oriented treatments have instead typically preferred an algebraic approach where the usual difficulty of describing measurements in the Heisenberg picture is compounded by the adoption of a rather abstract hierarchy of filters, in part inspired by classical control theory, to describe different possible updates of the quantum state. This state of affairs is further complicated by the added difficulties that come with the necessary introduction of some form of quantum stochastic calculus. Our approach to monitoring will therefore take a different route. Like in our derivation of diffusion and master equations, we shall keep restricting to linear couplings with a white noise environment, forfeiting full generality This situation is well modelled by the so called input-output formalism, whose physical origin will be discussed in detail in Chapter 9 , which approximates reliably, among other instances, the interaction between internal resonating modes and electromagnetic radiation leaking in and out of an optical cavity. First, we shall introduce stochastic Wiener increments and the Itô rule, which will arise naturally from the identification of the continuum field's modes subject to monitoring. We shall deliberately keep our arsenal of stochastic methods to these bare essentials, sacrificing to some extent both depth and generality, but still providing the reader with a powerful and seminal demonstration of the formalism. We shall then restrict to Gaussian general-dyne detections and apply the exact formalism developed in the previous chapter to the continuous filtering of the system's state conditioned by such measurements' outcomes. Next, as in our derivation of the unconditional master equations, we shall use the Gaussian dynamics as a key to unlock the full stochastic master equations governing general states. Hence, we will build on the quantum theory of filtering in the Gaussian regime to derive dynamical equations for linear feedback control and also apply our theoretical tools to the enhanced production of squeezing. Finally, we will turn to the closely related paradigm of coherent feedback, where environmental modes do not undergo measurements but are fed back to interact coherently with the system, see in detail how it modifies Gaussian diffusive dynamics and assess its potential for control by reconsidering the production of squeezing assisted by interferometric coherent feedback loops.
Among the famous formulations of quantum mechanics, the stochastic picture developed since the middle of the last century remains one of the less known ones. It is possible to describe quantum mechanical systems with kinetic equations of motion in configuration space based on conservative diffusion processes. This leads to the representation of physical observables through stochastic processes instead of self-adjoint operators. The mathematical foundations of this approach were laid by Edward Nelson in 1966. It allows a different perspective on quantum phenomena without necessarily using the wave-function. This article recaps the development of stochastic mechanics with a focus on variational and extremal principles. Furthermore, based on recent developments of optimal control theory, the derivation of generalized canonical equations of motion for quantum systems within the stochastic picture are discussed. These so-called quantum Hamilton equations add another layer to the different formalisms from classical mechanics that find their counterpart in quantum mechanics.