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arXiv:1704.00376

Bures Contractive Channels on Operator Algebras

Douglas Farenick, Mizanur Rahaman

Published Apr 2, 2017• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In a unital C*-algebra with a faithful trace functional $τ$, the set $D_τ(A)$ of positive $ρ\in A$ 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 $D_τ(A)$ in terms of the Bures metric. Linear maps on A that map $D_τ(A)$ 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 $D_τ(A)$, (iii) to introduce and study channels on A that are locally contractive maps (which we call Bures contractions) on the metric space $D_τ(A)$, 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 $A^{**}$.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1704.00376

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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∗∗.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We prove that the topology on the density space with respect to a unital C*-algebra and a faithful induced by the C*-norm is finer than the Bures metric topology. We also provide an example when this containment is strict. Next, we provide a metric on the density space induced by a quantum metric in the sense of Rieffel and prove that the induced topology is the same as the topology induced by the Bures metric and C*-norm when the C*-algebra is assumed to be finite dimensional. Finally, we provide an example of when the Bures metric and induced quantum metric are not metric equivalent. Thus, we provide a bridge between these aspects of quantum information theory and noncommutative metric geometry.
We prove dimension-independent Hyers--Ulam stability for surjective approximate isometries of the positive trace-class cone in both the trace and Bures metrics. Here ε≥0\varepsilon\geq0ε≥0 is a uniform upper bound on the additive error in preserving distances. Such an approximate isometry is uniformly approximated by a Wigner symmetry (a unitary or antiunitary conjugation), with error at most 9ε/29\varepsilon/29ε/2 in the trace metric and 22ε2\sqrt2\varepsilon22​ε in the Bures metric, even if it does not fix zero. For maps fixing zero, the trace bound improves to 3ε3\varepsilon3ε even under the hypothesis of δδδ-surjectivity, independently of δδδ. In infinite dimensions, we construct spectrum-preserving homeomorphisms of the full state space, including mixed states, whose distortions tend to zero in both metrics but which stay a fixed uniform distance from every Wigner symmetry. For state spaces, stability holds in each fixed finite dimension with a dimension-dependent modulus tending to zero as ε→0\varepsilon\to0ε→0, but no such modulus can be chosen independently of dimension.