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arXiv:1602.08177 · Journal of Mathematical Physics

The fidelity of density operators in an operator-algebraic framework

Douglas Farenick, Samuel Jaques, Mizanur Rahaman

Published Oct 1, 2016• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Josza’s definition of fidelity [R. Jozsa, J. Mod. Opt. 41(12), 2315–2323 (1994)] for a pair of (mixed) quantum states is studied in the context of two types of operator algebras. The first setting is mainly algebraic in that it involves unital C∗-algebras A that possess a faithful trace functional τ. In this context, the role of quantum states (that is, density operators) in the classical quantum-mechanical framework is assumed by positive elements ρ ∈ A for which τ(ρ) = 1. The second setting is more operator theoretic: by fixing a faithful normal semifinite trace τ on a semifinite von Neumann algebra M, we define and consider the fidelity of pairs of positive operators in M of unit trace. The main results of this paper address monotonicity and preservation of fidelity under the action of certain trace-preserving positive linear maps of A or of the predual M∗. Our results in the von Neumann algebra setting are novel in that we focus on the Schrödinger picture rather than the Heisenberg picture, and they also yield a new proof of a theorem of Molnár [Rep. Math. Phys. 48(3), 299–303 (2001)] on the structure of fidelity-preserving quantum channels on the trace-class operators.

DOI
10.1063/1.4965876

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Josza’s definition of fidelity [R. Jozsa, J. Mod. Opt. 41(12), 2315–2323 (1994)] for a pair of (mixed) quantum states is studied in the context of two types of operator algebras. The first setting is mainly algebraic in that it involves unital C∗-algebras A that possess a faithful trace functional τ. In this context, the role of quantum states (that is, density operators) in the classical quantum-mechanical framework is assumed by positive elements ρ ∈ A for which τ(ρ) = 1. The second setting is more operator theoretic: by fixing a faithful normal semifinite trace τ on a semifinite von Neumann algebra M, we define and consider the fidelity of pairs of positive operators in M of unit trace. The main results of this paper address monotonicity and preservation of fidelity under the action of certain trace-preserving positive linear maps of A or of the predual M∗. Our results in the von Neumann algebra setting are novel in that we focus on the Schrödinger picture rather than the Heisenberg picture, and they also yield a new proof of a theorem of Molnár [Rep. Math. Phys. 48(3), 299–303 (2001)] on the structure of fidelity-preserving quantum channels on the trace-class operators.
In a unital C*-algebra with a faithful trace functional τττ, the set Dτ(A)D_τ(A)Dτ​(A) of positive ρ∈Aρ\in Aρ∈A of trace τ(ρ)=1 is an algebraic analogue of the space of density matrices (the set of all positive matrices of a fixed dimension of unit trace). Motivated by the literature concerning the metric properties of the space of density matrices, the present paper studies the density space Dτ(A)D_τ(A)Dτ​(A) in terms of the Bures metric. Linear maps on A that map Dτ(A)D_τ(A)Dτ​(A) back into itself are positive and trace preserving, hence, they may be viewed as an algebraic analogue of a quantum channel, which are studied intensely in the literature on quantum computing and quantum information theory. The main results in this paper are: (i) to establish that the Bures metric is indeed a metric, (ii) to prove that channels induce nonexpansive maps of the density space Dτ(A)D_τ(A)Dτ​(A), (iii) to introduce and study channels on A that are locally contractive maps (which we call Bures contractions) on the metric space Dτ(A)D_τ(A)Dτ​(A), and (iv) to analyse Bures contractions from the point of view of the Frobenius theory of cone preserving linear maps. Although the focus is on unital C*-algebras, an important class of examples is furnished by finite von Neumann algebras. Indeed, several of the C*-algebra results are established by first proving them for finite von Neumann algebras and then proving them for C*-algebras by embedding a C*-algebra A into its enveloping von Neumann algebra A∗∗A^{**}A∗∗.
Abstract Very recently, Karder and Petek completely described maps on density matrices (positive semidefinite matrices with unit trace) preserving certain entropy-like convex functionals of any convex combination. As a result, maps could be characterized that preserve von Neumann entropy or Schatten ppp -norm of any convex combination of quantum states (whose mathematical representatives are the density matrices). In this note we consider these latter two problems on the set of invertible density operators, in a much more general setting, on the set of positive invertible elements with unit trace in a C∗C^{\ast }C∗ -algebra.
G.A. RAGGIO Abstract. We give a brief and incomplete survey of the problem of entan- glement of of composite quantum systems. 1960's - 1980's there were serious attempts (all of them anticipated by J. von Neu- mann) to do away with the underlying Hilbert space and work directly with the abstract algebraic structure modeled by C � -algebras or W � -algebras (abstract von Neumann algebras)(1, 2, 3). This was particularly fruitful when dealing with sys- tems of infinitely many degrees of freedom (quantum fields, thermodynamic limits, etc.). The problem of entanglement which we want to address here can be formu- lated quite straightforwardly in this algebraic framework of quantum theory. But we will stick to the quantum mechanics of the 1930's and keep the Hilbert space. Mainly because the results which are available concern the finite dimensional case. The states of the quantum system specified by H are associated with the lin- ear functionals f : B(H) → C which are positive (i.e., f(a) ≥ 0 for all positive a ∈ B(H)), normalized (i.e., f(1) = 1) and normal (i.e., f(supn{an}) = supnf(an) for any increasing family of selfadjoint operators {an : n = 1,2, � � � } which is uni- formly bounded). It is this normality condition which guarantees that the are in one-to-one correspondence with positive trace class operators d of unit trace (density operators) via the formula B(H) ∋ a 7→ tr(da). This gives an extremely convenient representation of and one often confuses the state f as a linear functional with the associated density operator d for which f(a) = tr(da). States are automatically continuous, and satisfy f(a � ) = f(a). The complex number f(a) is interpreted probabilistically as the expected value of the observable associated with the operator a when the system is in the state f. The normalization condi- tion is thus necessary for the consistency of this interpretation and the normality condition is seen as a non-commutative version of the �-additivity of probability measures. Clearly states, which we will denote by �(H), form a convex set which is closed
This dissertation undertakes the study of quantum delity, a distinguishability measure in the context of quantum mechanics, from the operator algebraic viewpoint. The notion of delity provides a quantitative measure of how close one state of a quantum system is to another state. High delity occurs when the two states are very close to each other. Evidently, this concept is closely related to a metric on the quantum states which is known as the Bures metric. In this thesis, delity and the Bures metric have been studied in the context of (i) unital C -algebras that possess a faithful positive trace functional and (ii) semi nite von Neumann algebras. In addition, these notions have been analysed in the matrix algebras in an e ort to relate to the quantum information theory literature.
We describe a categorical model of MALL (Multiplicative Additive Linear Logic) inspired by the Heisenberg-Schrödinger duality of finite-dimensional quantum theory. Proofs of formulas with positive logical polarity correspond to CPTP (completely positive trace-preserving) maps in our model, i.e. the quantum operations in the Schrödinger picture, whereas proofs of formulas with negative logical polarity correspond to CPU (completely positive unital) maps, i.e. the quantum operations in the Heisenberg picture. The mathematical development is based on noncommutative geometry and finite-dimensional von Neumann (co)algebras, which can be defined as special kinds of (co)monoid objects internal to the category of finite-dimensional operator spaces.
Abstract We establish an operator algebra generalization of Watrous’ theorem (Watrous 2009 Quantum Inf. Comput. 9 403–413) on mixing unital quantum channels (completely positive trace-preserving maps) with the completely depolarizing channel, wherein the more general objects of focus become (finite-dimensional) von Neumann algebras, the unique trace preserving conditional expectation onto the algebra, the group of unitary operators in the commutant of the algebra, and the fixed point algebra of the channel. As an application, we obtain a result on the asymptotic theory of quantum channels, showing that all unital channels are eventually mixed unitary. We also discuss the special case of the diagonal algebra in detail, and draw connections to the theory of correlation matrices and Schur product maps.