On the affine space containing the space [Formula: see text] of quantum states of finite-dimensional systems, there are contravariant tensor fields by means of which it is possible to define Hamiltonian and gradient vector fields encoding the relevant geometrical properties of [Formula: see text]. Guided by Dirac’s analogy principle, we will use them as inspiration to define contravariant tensor fields, Hamiltonian and gradient vector fields on the affine space containing the space of fair probability distributions on a finite sample space and analyze their geometrical properties. Most of our considerations will be dealt with for the simple example of a three-level system.
On the affine space containing the space [Formula: see text] of quantum states of finite-dimensional systems, there are contravariant tensor fields by means of which it is possible to define Hamiltonian and gradient vector fields encoding the relevant geometrical properties of [Formula: see text]. Guided by Dirac’s analogy principle, we will use them as inspiration to define contravariant tensor fields, Hamiltonian and gradient vector fields on the affine space containing the space of fair probability distributions on a finite sample space and analyze their geometrical properties. Most of our considerations will be dealt with for the simple example of a three-level system.
Abstract A geometric description of the space of states of a finite-dimensional quantum system and of the Markovian evolution associated with the Kossakowski–Lindblad operator is presented. This geometric setting is based on two composition laws on the space of observables defined by a pair of contravariant tensor fields. The first one is a Poisson tensor field that encodes the commutator product and allows us to develop a Hamiltonian mechanics. The other tensor field is symmetric, encodes the Jordan product and provides the variances and covariances of measures associated with the observables. This tensorial formulation of quantum systems is able to describe, in a natural way, the Markovian dynamical evolution as a vector field on the space of states. Therefore, it is possible to consider dynamical effects on non-linear physical quantities, such as entropies, purity and concurrence. In particular, in this work the tensorial formulation is used to consider the dynamical evolution of the symmetric and skew-symmetric tensors and to read off the corresponding limits as giving rise to a contraction of the initial Jordan and Lie products.
Geometrical properties of space are described by relations between quantum observables, functions of generalized coordinate and momentum operators of a physical system. Space comprises the set of eigenvalues of the coordinate observables, which may be a discrete set of points instead of the continuum of classical geometry. Differentiation on coordinates and momenta is defined by commutation operations. Well-known formulas from classical geometry for gradient and divergence operators, connections, covariant differentiation, tangent vectors, geodesics, and the Riemann curvature tensor are derived as relations between quantum operators. The quantum formulation retains the symmetry between coordinate and momentum representations required by the principle of complementarity.
It is usually taken for granted that the natural mathematical framework for quantum mechanics is the theory of Hilbert spaces, where pure states of a quantum system correspond to complex vectors of unit length. These vectors can be combined to create more general states expressed in terms of positive semidefinite matrices of unit trace called density operators. A density operator tells us everything we know about a quantum system. In particular, it specifies a unique probability for any measurement outcome. Thus, to fully appreciate quantum mechanics as a statistical model for physical phenomena, it is necessary to understand the basic properties of its set of states. Studying the convex geometry of quantum states provides important clues as to why the theory is expressed most naturally in terms of complex amplitudes. At the very least, it gives us a new perspective into thinking about structure of quantum mechanics. \n \n \nThis thesis is concerned with the structure of quantum state space obtained from the geometry of the convex set of probability distributions for a special class of measurements called symmetric informationally complete (SIC) measurements. In this context, quantum mechanics is seen as a particular restriction of a regular simplex, where the state space is postulated to carry a symmetric set of states called SICs, which are associated with equiangular lines in a complex vector space. The analysis applies specifically to 3-dimensional quantum systems or qutrits, which is the simplest nontrivial case to consider according to Gleason's theorem. It includes a full characterization of qutrit SICs and includes specific proposals for implementing them using linear optics. The infinitely many qutrit SICs are classified into inequivalent families according to the Clifford group, where equivalence is defined by geometrically invariant numbers called triple products. The multiplication of SIC projectors is also used to define structure coefficients, which are convenient for elucidating some additional structure possessed by SICs, such as the Lie algebra associated with the operator basis defined by SICs, and a linear dependency structure inherited from the Weyl-Heisenberg symmetry. After describing the general one-to-one correspondence between density operators and SIC probabilities, many interesting features of the set of qutrits are described, including an elegant formula for its pure states, which reveals a permutation symmetry related to the structure of a finite affine plane, the exact rotational equivalence of different SIC probability spaces, the shape of qutrit state space defined by the radial distance of the boundary from the maximally mixed state, and a comparison of the 2-dimensional cross-sections of SIC probabilities to known results. Towards the end, the representation of quantum states in terms of SICs is used to develop a method for reconstructing quantum theory from the postulate of maximal consistency, and a procedure for building up qutrit state space from a finite set of points corresponding to a Hesse configuration in Hilbert space is sketched briefly.
The subject of this thesis is the geometry of the space of quantum states.
The aim of this thesis is to present a geometrical analysis of the structural properties of this space, being them of ``kinematical'' or ``dynamical'' character.
We will see that the space of quantum states of finite-dimensional systems may be partitioned into the union of disjoint orbits of the complexification of the unitary group.
These orbits are the manifolds of quantum states with fixed rank.
On the one hand, we will compute the two-parameter family of quantum metric tensors associated with the two-parameter family of quantum q-z-Renyi relative entropies on the manifold of invertible quantum states (maximal rank).
Using the powerful language of differential geometry we are able to perform all the computations in an arbitrary number of (finite) dimensions without the need to introduce explicit coordinate systems.
On the other hand, we will develop a geometrization of the GKLS equation for the dynamical evolution of Markovian open quantum systems.
Specifically, we will write the GKLS generator by means of an affine vector field on an affine space, and we will decompose this vector field into the sum of a Hamiltonian vector field, a gradient-like vector field, and a so-called Kraus vector field.
This geometrization will be used in order to analyze and completely characterize the asymptotic behaviour of the dynamical evolutions known as quantum random unitary semigroups by means of the so-called purity function.
Finally, we will comment on the possibility of extending the results presented to the infinite-dimensional case, and to the case of multipartite quantum systems.
In finite dimension (at least), Quantum Mechanics can be formulated as a proper Hamiltonian theory where a notion of phase space is given by the projective space P(H) constructed on the Hilbert space H of the considered quantum theory. It is well-known P(H) can be equipped with a structure of Kähler manifold, in particular we have a symplectic form and a Poisson structure; Quantum dynamics can be described in terms of a Hamiltonian vector field on P(H). In this paper, exploiting the notion and properties of so-called frame functions, I describe a general prescription for associating quantum observables to real functions on P(H), classical-like observables, and quantum states to probability densities on P(H), Liouville densities, in order to obtain a complete and meaningful Hamiltonian formulation of a finite-dimensional quantum theory.