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arXiv:1712.03219 · Journal of Mathematical Physics

Strong convergence of quantum channels: Continuity of the Stinespring dilation and discontinuity of the unitary dilation

M. E. Shirokov

Published Aug 1, 2020• 23 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

It is shown that a sequence {Φn} of quantum channels strongly converges to a quantum channel Φ0 if and only if there exist a common environment for all the channels and a corresponding sequence {Vn} of Stinespring isometries strongly converging to a Stinespring isometry V0 of the channel Φ0. A quantitative description of the above characterization of the strong convergence in terms of appropriate metrics on the sets of quantum channels and Stinespring isometries is given. As a result, the uniform selective continuity of the complementary operation with respect to the strong convergence is established. The discontinuity of the unitary dilation is shown by constructing a strongly converging sequence of quantum channels that cannot be represented as a reduction of a strongly converging sequence of unitary channels. The Stinespring representation of strongly converging sequences of quantum channels allows us to prove the lower semicontinuity of the entropic disturbance as a function of a pair (channel, input ensemble). Some corollaries of this property are considered.

DOI
10.1063/1.5134660

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It is shown that a sequence {Φn} of quantum channels strongly converges to a quantum channel Φ0 if and only if there exist a common environment for all the channels and a corresponding sequence {Vn} of Stinespring isometries strongly converging to a Stinespring isometry V0 of the channel Φ0. A quantitative description of the above characterization of the strong convergence in terms of appropriate metrics on the sets of quantum channels and Stinespring isometries is given. As a result, the uniform selective continuity of the complementary operation with respect to the strong convergence is established. The discontinuity of the unitary dilation is shown by constructing a strongly converging sequence of quantum channels that cannot be represented as a reduction of a strongly converging sequence of unitary channels. The Stinespring representation of strongly converging sequences of quantum channels allows us to prove the lower semicontinuity of the entropic disturbance as a function of a pair (channel, input ensemble). Some corollaries of this property are considered.
We show that a sequence {Φn}\{\Phi_n\}{Φn​} of quantum channels strongly converges to a quantum channel Φ0\Phi_0Φ0​ if and only if there exist a common environment for all the channels and a corresponding sequence {Vn}\{V_n\}{Vn​} of Stinespring isometries strongly converging to a Stinespring isometry V0V_0V0​ of the channel Φ0\Phi_0Φ0​. We also give a quantitative description of the above characterization of the strong convergence in terms of the appropriate metrics on the sets of quantum channels and Stinespring isometries. As a result, the uniform selective continuity of the complementary operation with respect to the strong convergence is established. We show discontinuity of the unitary dilation by constructing a strongly converging sequence of channels which can not be represented as a reduction of a strongly converging sequence of unitary channels. The Stinespring representation of strongly converging sequences of quantum channels allows to prove the lower semicontinuity of the entropic disturbance as a function of a pair (channel, input ensemble). Some corollaries of this property are considered.
We prove that for any infinite-dimensional quantum channel the entropic disturbance (defined as difference between the χχχ-quantity of a generalized ensemble and that of the image of the ensemble under the channel) is lower semicontinuous on the natural set of its definition. We establish a number of useful corollaries of this property, in particular, we prove the continuity of the output χ-χ\textrm{-}χ-quantity and the existence of χχχ-optimal ensemble for any quantum channel under the energy-type input constraint.
In the study of open quantum systems, one commonly describes the evolution of a system of interest through reduced dynamics, obtained by treating the environment indirectly rather than as a part of the full model. This thesis presents an expository account of an alternative, dilation-based viewpoint in the finite-dimensional setting, where a family of reduced dynamics is represented through unitary evolution on a larger system consisting of the original system together with an ancillary environment. After reviewing the reduced-dynamics perspective and the language of quantum channels, we formulate finite-dimensional quantum dynamics as channel-valued dynamical curves and use this framework to discuss Stinespring dilations of such curves. We then present exact dilation results for analytic dynamical curves, explain the singular behavior that can arise at t=0, and describe approximation results showing that Lipschitz-continuous dynamical curves admit approximate finite-dimensional Stinespring dilations. The thesis therefore provides a mathematically focused introduction to dilation-based modeling of quantum dynamics and argues that a change of perspective can lead to new ways of formulating problems in the theory of open quantum systems.
The geometric channel fidelity, the geometric Rényi divergences and the Belavkin--Staszewski relative entropy give converse bounds for capacities, discrimination and estimation. Channels are known only approximately, yet two pairs of channels with equal sums can be arbitrarily close in the diamond norm and have fidelities 000 and 111. The remedy is the Arveson--Radon--Nikodym derivative TTT of one map with respect to the sum ΩΩΩ, whose transpose is the environment effect selecting that map in a Stinespring dilation of ΩΩΩ. In TTT, these quantities and all maximal fff-divergences of operator convex fff are continuous, with explicit dimension-free moduli; for two pairs of channels with the same sum the fidelities differ by at most 2∥T1−T2∥∞1/22\|T_1-T_2\|_\infty^{1/2}2∥T1​−T2​∥∞1/2​, which gives Hölder continuity in the diamond norm on such splittings. The fidelity is continuous at a pair of completely positive maps exactly when the Choi matrix of the sum is invertible or the fidelity vanishes: noisy channels of full Kraus rank are continuity points, unitary gates are not.
Quantitative analysis of discontinuity of information characteristics of quantum states and channels is presented. Estimates for discontinuity jump (loss) of the von Neumann entropy for a given converging sequence of states are obtained. It is shown, in particular, that for any sequence the loss of entropy is upper bounded by the loss of mean energy (with the coefficient characterizing the Hamiltonian of a system). Then we prove that discontinuity jumps of basic measures of classical and quantum correlations in composite quantum systems are upper bounded by the loss of one of the marginal entropies (with a corresponding coefficient). Quantitative discontinuity analysis of the output entropy of a quantum operation and of basic information characteristics of a quantum channel considered as functions of a pair (channel, input state) is presented.
We explore the symmetry properties of Stinespring dilations of single-qubit Pauli channels, addressing both the generic case and the specific examples of phase damping and depolarizing channels. For each scenario, we derive the representation of the Pauli group acting on the Hilbert space of the environment. We then focus on dilations that are continuous in time and driven by a time-independent Hamiltonian, and on collision models that generate a Pauli dynamical semigroup in the limit of fast collisions. First, we complement some recent general results on these types of dilations (M. Cattaneo, Phys. Rev. A 111, 022209 (2025)) with some additions and clarifications, including the case of covariant channels with strongly conserved quantities. Next, we show that the covariance property of Pauli channels impose strong constraints on both the dilation Hamiltonian and the initial state of the environment, and demonstrate how these constraints can be exploited to explicitly construct the time-dependent dilations in all considered cases. Our results are relevant for the quantum simulation of Pauli channels via unitary dilations and of Pauli semigroups via collision models, both in the laboratory and on quantum computers.