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arXiv:1610.00217 · Physical Review A

Coherence-generating power of quantum unitary maps and beyond

Paolo Zanardi A, Georgios Styliaris, Lorenzo Campos Venuti

Published May 2, 2017• 65 citations
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Abstract

Given a preferred orthonormal basis $B$ in the Hilbert space of a quantum system, we define a measure of the coherence-generating power of a unitary operation with respect to $B$. This measure is the average coherence generated by the operation acting on a uniform ensemble of incoherent states. We give its explicit analytical form in any dimension and provide an operational protocol to directly detect it. We characterize the set of unitaries with maximal coherence-generating power and study the properties of our measure when the unitary is drawn at random from the Haar distribution. For a large state-space dimension a random unitary has, with overwhelming probability, nearly maximal coherence-generating power with respect to any basis. Finally, extensions to general unital quantum operations and the relation to the concept of asymmetry are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.95.052306

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Given a preferred orthonormal basis BBB in the Hilbert space of a quantum system, we define a measure of the coherence-generating power of a unitary operation with respect to BBB. This measure is the average coherence generated by the operation acting on a uniform ensemble of incoherent states. We give its explicit analytical form in any dimension and provide an operational protocol to directly detect it. We characterize the set of unitaries with maximal coherence-generating power and study the properties of our measure when the unitary is drawn at random from the Haar distribution. For a large state-space dimension a random unitary has, with overwhelming probability, nearly maximal coherence-generating power with respect to any basis. Finally, extensions to general unital quantum operations and the relation to the concept of asymmetry are discussed.
Given a preferred orthonormal basis BBB in the Hilbert space of a quantum system we define a measure of the coherence generating power of a unitary map with respect to BBB. We give its explicit analytical form and provide an operational protocol to directly detect it. This measure vanishes if and only if the unitary map transforms all the incoherent states into themselves and is non-increasing under pre- or post-processing by incoherent operations. We characterize the set of unitaries with maximal coherence generating power and study the properties of our measure when the unitary is drawn at random from the Haar distribution. For large state-space dimension a random unitary has, with overwhelming probability, nearly maximal coherence generating power with respect to any basis. Finally, extensions to general unital completely positive maps and the relation to the concept of asymmetry are discussed.
Given an orthonormal basis BBB in a ddd-dimensional Hilbert space and a unital quantum operation E\mathcal{E}E acting on it, one can define a nonlinear mapping that associates with E\mathcal{E}E a $d\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}d$ real-valued matrix that we call the coherence matrix of E\mathcal{E}E with respect to BBB. This is the Gram matrix of the coherent part of the basis projections of BBB under E\mathcal{E}E. We show that one can use this coherence matrix to define vast families of measures of the coherence-generating power (CGP) of the operation. These measures have a natural geometrical interpretation as separation of E\mathcal{E}E from the set of incoherent unital operations. The probabilistic approach to CGP discussed in P. Zanardi et al. [Phys. Rev. A 95, 052306 (2017).] can be reformulated and generalized, introducing, alongside the coherence matrix, another $d\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}d$ real-valued matrix, the simplex correlation matrix. This matrix describes the relevant statistical correlations in the input ensemble of incoherent states. Contracting these two matrices, one finds CGP measures associated with the process of preparing the given incoherent ensemble and processing it with the chosen unital operation. Finally, in the unitary case, we discuss how these concepts can be made compatible with an underlying tensor product structure by defining families of CGP measures that are additive.
We study the ability of a quantum channel to generate quantum coherence when it applies to incoherent states. Based on probabilistic averages, we define a measure of such coherence generating power (CGP) for a generic quantum channel, based on the average coherence generated by the quantum channel acting on a uniform ensemble of incoherent states. Explicit analytical formula of the CGP for any unitary channels are presented in terms of subentropy. An upper bound for CGP of unital quantum channels has been also derived. Detailed examples are investigated.
Imaginarity, stemming from the complex structure of quantum mechanics, has recently emerged as a fundamental resource, yet its dynamical generation remains largely unexplored. In this work, we introduce the notion of imaginarity-generating power (IGP) of unitary dynamics, which quantifies the ability of unitary operations to produce imaginarity from initially real quantum states. To quantify imaginarity, we employ a measure based on the Hilbert--Schmidt norm, which we show to be monotone under real unital operations. Within the framework of dynamical resource theories, we derive an exact expression for the purity-constrained IGP in arbitrary dimensions and show that, for pure real input states, it depends solely on intrinsic and experimentally accessible properties of the unitary. We further analyze its average behavior over ensembles of states with varying purity under both uniform and Hilbert--Schmidt distributions. We prove that it satisfies the essential properties of a valid resource monotone within the dynamical resource theory of imaginarity. We also characterize the unitaries that maximize the IGP and determine the corresponding bounds. Moreover, for Haar-random unitaries, we show that the IGP concentrates near its maximal value in high dimensions with small fluctuations, indicating that typical high-dimensional quantum dynamics are highly effective at generating imaginarity.
We establish a direct connection between the power of a unitary map in d-dimensions (d < ∞) to generate quantum coherence and the geometry of the set Md of maximally abelian subalgebras (of the quantum system full operator algebra). This set can be seen as a topologically non-trivial subset of the Grassmannian over linear operators. The natural distance over the Grassmannian induces a metric structure on Md, which quantifies the lack of commutativity between the pairs of subalgebras. Given a maximally abelian subalgebra, one can define, on physical grounds, an associated measure of quantum coherence. We show that the average quantum coherence generated by a unitary map acting on a uniform ensemble of quantum states in the algebra (the so-called coherence generating power of the map) is proportional to the distance between a pair of maximally abelian subalgebras in Md connected by the unitary transformation itself. By embedding the Grassmannian into a projective space, one can pull-back the standard Fubini-Study metric on Md and define in this way novel geometrical measures of quantum coherence generating power. We also briefly discuss the associated differential metric structures.
The coherence power of a quantum channel, that is, its maximum ability to increase the coherence of input states, is a fundamental concept within the framework of the resource theory of coherence. In this note we discuss various possible definitions of coherence power and coherence rate and their basic properties. Then we prove that the coherence power of a unitary operator acting on a qubit, computed with respect to the l1-coherence measure, can be calculated by maximizing its coherence gain over pure incoherent states. We proceed to show that this result fails in the general case, that is, the maximal coherence gain is found when acting on a state with non-vanishing coherence in the case of the l1-coherence and dimension N > 2, the relative entropy of coherence and the geometric measure of coherence.