We study the relation between the linear stability of almost-symmetries and the geometry of the Banach spaces on which these transformations are defined. We show that any transformation between finite dimensional Banach spaces that preserves transition probabilities up to an additive error admits an approximation by a linear map, and the quality of the approximation depends on the type and cotype constants of the involved spaces.
We study the relation between the linear stability of almost-symmetries and the geometry of the Banach spaces on which these transformations are defined. We show that any transformation between finite dimensional Banach spaces that preserves transition probabilities up to an additive error admits an approximation by a linear map, and the quality of the approximation depends on the type and cotype constants of the involved spaces.
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 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/2 in the trace metric and 22ε in the Bures metric, even if it does not fix zero. For maps fixing zero, the trace bound improves to 3ε even under the hypothesis of δ-surjectivity, independently of δ. 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, but no such modulus can be chosen independently of dimension.
It d-pends. Wigner’s symmetry theorem implies that transformations that preserve transition probabilities of pure quantum states are linear maps on the level of density operators. We investigate the stability of this implication. On the one hand, we show that any transformation that preserves transition probabilities up to an additive ε in a separable Hilbert space admits a weak linear approximation, i.e., one relative to any fixed observable. This implies the existence of a linear approximation that is 4εd–close in Hilbert-Schmidt norm, with d the Hilbert space dimension. On the other hand, we prove that a linear approximation that is close in norm and independent of d does not exist in general. To this end, we provide a lower bound that depends logarithmically on d.
Let H be a complex Hilbert space and let P ( H ) be the associated projective space (the set of rank-one projections). Suppose dim H ⩾ 3 . We prove the following Wigner-type theorem: if H is finite dimensional, then every orthogonality preserving transformation of P ( H ) is induced by a unitary or anti-unitary operator. This statement will be obtained as a consequence of the following result: every orthogonality preserving lineation of P ( H ) to itself is induced by a linear or conjugate-linear isometry ( H is not assumed to be finite-dimensional). As an application, we describe (not necessarily injective) transformations of Grassmannians preserving some types of principal angles.
Abstract Let H be either a complex inner product space of dimension at least two or a real inner product space of dimension at least three, and let us fix an α∈(0,2π). The purpose of this paper is to characterise all bijective transformations on the projective space P(H) which preserve the quantum angle α (or Fubini–Study distance α) between lines in both directions. (Let us emphasise that we do not assume anything about the preservation of other quantum angles). For real inner product spaces and when H=C2 we do this for every α, and when H is a complex inner product space of dimension at least three we describe the structure of such transformations for α≤4π. Our result immediately gives an Uhlhorn-type generalisation of Wigner’s theorem on quantum mechanical symmetry transformations, that is considered to be a cornerstone of the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. Namely, under the above assumptions, every bijective map on the set of pure states of a quantum mechanical system that preserves the transition probability cos2α in both directions is a Wigner symmetry (thus automatically preserves all transition probabilities), except for the case when H=C2 and α=4π where an additional possibility occurs. (Note that the classical theorem of Uhlhorn is the solution for the α=2π case). Usually in the literature, results which are connected to Wigner’s theorem are discussed under the assumption of completeness of H; however, here we shall remove this unnecessary hypothesis in our investigation. Our main tool is a characterisation of bijective maps on unit spheres of real inner product spaces which preserve one spherical angle in both directions.
A symmetry witness is a subset of the space of selfadjoint trace class operators that allows one to ascertain whether a linear map acting in that space is a symmetry transformation. This notion arises from a certain type of linear preserver problems. Precisely, a symmetry witness is a suitable set which is invariant with respect to an injective linear map in the Banach space of selfadjoint trace class operators where the quantum states live if and only if this map acts as a symmetry transformation. In particular, by a linear version of Wigner's classical theorem, the set of pure states — the rank-one projections — is a symmetry witness. Linearity entails that the usual assumption of preservation of the transition probability between pure states becomes superfluous. This result extends to every set of projections of a fixed (finite) rank, with some suitable constraint on this rank. One then obtains a classification of the sets of projections of a fixed rank that are symmetry witnesses. These symmetry witnesses are projectable. Namely, formulating the mentioned result in terms of quantum states, the sets of 'uniform' density operators of a suitable fixed rank are symmetry witnesses as well.