Abstract In this paper the problem of tomographic reconstruction of states is investigated within the so-called Schwinger’s picture of quantum mechanics in which a groupoid is associated with every quantum system. The attention is focussed on spin tomography: in this context the groupoid of interest is the groupoid of pairs over a finite set. In a nutshell, this groupoid is made up of transitions between all possible pairs of outcomes belonging to a finite set. In addition, these transitions possess a partial composition rule, generalizing the notion of groups. The main goal of the paper consists in providing a reconstruction formula for states on the groupoid-algebra associated with the observables of the system. Using the group of bisections of this groupoid, which are special subsets in one-to-one correspondence with the outcomes, a frame is defined and it is used to prove the validity of the tomographic reconstruction. The special case of the set of outcomes being the set of integers modulo n, with n odd prime, is considered in detail. In this case the subgroup of discrete affine linear transformations, whose graphs are linear subspaces of the groupoid, provides a quorum in close analogy with the continuous case.
Abstract In this paper the problem of tomographic reconstruction of states is investigated within the so-called Schwinger’s picture of quantum mechanics in which a groupoid is associated with every quantum system. The attention is focussed on spin tomography: in this context the groupoid of interest is the groupoid of pairs over a finite set. In a nutshell, this groupoid is made up of transitions between all possible pairs of outcomes belonging to a finite set. In addition, these transitions possess a partial composition rule, generalizing the notion of groups. The main goal of the paper consists in providing a reconstruction formula for states on the groupoid-algebra associated with the observables of the system. Using the group of bisections of this groupoid, which are special subsets in one-to-one correspondence with the outcomes, a frame is defined and it is used to prove the validity of the tomographic reconstruction. The special case of the set of outcomes being the set of integers modulo n, with n odd prime, is considered in detail. In this case the subgroup of discrete affine linear transformations, whose graphs are linear subspaces of the groupoid, provides a quorum in close analogy with the continuous case.
In this paper, we will present the main features of what can be called Schwinger’s foundational approach to Quantum Mechanics. The basic ingredients of this formulation are the selective measurements, whose algebraic composition rules define a mathematical structure called groupoid, which is associated with any physical system. After the introduction of the basic axioms of a groupoid, the concepts of observables and states, statistical interpretation and evolution are derived. An example is finally introduced to support the theoretical description of this approach.
The existing relation between the tomographic description of quantum states and the convolution algebra of certain discrete groupoids represented on Hilbert spaces will be discussed. The realizations of groupoid algebras based on qudit, photon-number (Fock) states and symplectic tomography quantizers and dequantizers will be constructed. Conditions for identifying the convolution product of groupoid functions and the star--product arising from a quantization--dequantization scheme will be given. A tomographic approach to construct quasi--distributions out of suitable immersions of groupoids into Hilbert spaces will be formulated and, finally, intertwining kernels for such generalized symplectic tomograms will be evaluated explicitly.
Schwinger’s algebra of selective measurements has a natural interpretation in the formalism of groupoids. Its kinematical foundations, as well as the structure of the algebra of observables of the theory, were presented in [F. M. Ciaglia, A. Ibort and G. Marmo, Schwinger’s picture of quantum mechanics I: Groupoids, Int. J. Geom. Meth. Mod. Phys. (2019), arXiv: 1905.12274 [math-ph]. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219887819501196 . F. M. Ciaglia, A. Ibort and G. Marmo, Schwinger’s picture of quantum mechanics II: Algebras and observables, Int. J. Geom. Meth. Mod. Phys. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219887819501366 ]. In this paper, a closer look to the statistical interpretation of the theory is taken and it is found that an interpretation in terms of Sorkin’s quantum measure emerges naturally. It is proven that a suitable class of states of the algebra of virtual transitions of the theory allows to define quantum measures by means of the corresponding decoherence functionals. Quantum measures satisfying a reproducing property are described and a class of states, called factorizable states, possessing the Dirac–Feynman “exponential of the action” form are characterized. Finally, Schwinger’s transformation functions are interpreted similarly as transition amplitudes defined by suitable states. The simple examples of the qubit and the double slit experiment are described in detail, illustrating the main aspects of the theory.
The kinematical foundations of Schwinger’s algebra of selective measurements were discussed in [F. M. Ciaglia, A. Ibort and G. Marmo, Schwinger’s picture of quantum mechanics I: Groupoids, To appear in IJGMMP (2019)] and, as a consequence of this, a new picture of quantum mechanics based on groupoids was proposed. In this paper, the dynamical aspects of the theory are analyzed. For that, the algebra generated by the observables, as well as the notion of state, are discussed, and the structure of the transition functions, that plays an instrumental role in Schwinger’s picture, is elucidated. A Hamiltonian picture of dynamical evolution emerges naturally, and the formalism offers a simple way to discuss the quantum-to-classical transition. Some basic examples, the qubit and the harmonic oscillator, are examined, and the relation with the standard Dirac–Schrödinger and Born–Jordan–Heisenberg pictures is discussed.
In this job, we will present a theory called Quantum Tomography that is the natural extension of the theory of detection of signals in classical telecommunications to Quantum Mechanics. This theory mainly consists in the reconstruction of a quantum state of a system through a probability distribution measured directly in the laboratory, usually called Tomogram. This Thesis contains five chapters. In the first one, we will show the birth of this theory as an adaptation of homodyne and heterodyne classical detection to Quantum Mechanics. In the second, we will describe a tomographic description of Quantum Mechanics on C*-algebras by splitting the theory in two parts: a Generalized Sampling Theory and a Generalized Positive Transform. In the third, we will present the first numerical algorithm that solves the Clebsh-Gordan decomposition problem for any finite-dimensional unitary representation of any finite or compact Lie group. This algorithm receives the name of SMILY algorithm. In the fourth and fifth chapters, we will discuss tomography of systems parametrized with fields. In the fourth, we will reconstruct states of classical systems and in the fifth, we will do the same with quantum ones, but here in two different ways: the first one will be done by adapting the reconstruction formula of chapter four, and the second one by means of the axiomatic description of Wightamn-Streater of a Quantum Field Theory.
It is now well established that quantum tomography provides an alternative picture of quantum mechanics. It is common to introduce tomographic concepts starting with the Schrödinger–Dirac picture of quantum mechanics on Hilbert spaces. In this picture, states are a primary concept and observables are derived from them. On the other hand, the Heisenberg picture, which has evolved in the C ⋆ -algebraic approach to quantum mechanics, starts with the algebra of observables and introduces states as a derived concept. The equivalence between these two pictures amounts, essentially, to the Gelfand–Naimark–Segal construction. In this construction, the abstract C ⋆ -algebra is realized as an algebra of operators acting on a constructed Hilbert space. The representation that is defined may be reducible or irreducible, but in either case it allows us to identify a unitary group associated with the C ⋆ -algebra by means of its invertible elements. In this picture both states and observables are appropriate functions on the group; it also follows that quantum tomograms are strictly related with appropriate functions (positive-type) on the group. In this paper we present, using very simple examples, a tomographic description emerging from the set of ideas connected with the C ⋆ -algebra picture of quantum mechanics. In particular, we introduce the tomographic probability distributions for finite and compact groups, and formulate an autonomous criterion to recognize a given probability distribution as a tomogram of quantum state.