Majorana stars, the 2S spin coherent states that are orthogonal to a spin- S state, offer an elegant method to visualize quantum states, disclosing their intrinsic symmetries. These states are naturally described by the corresponding multipoles. These quantities can be experimentally determined and allow for an SU(2)-invariant analysis. We investigate the relationship between Majorana constellations and state multipoles, thus providing insights into the underlying symmetries of the system. We illustrate our approach with some relevant and informative examples. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Majorana stars, the 2S spin coherent states that are orthogonal to a spin- S state, offer an elegant method to visualize quantum states, disclosing their intrinsic symmetries. These states are naturally described by the corresponding multipoles. These quantities can be experimentally determined and allow for an SU(2)-invariant analysis. We investigate the relationship between Majorana constellations and state multipoles, thus providing insights into the underlying symmetries of the system. We illustrate our approach with some relevant and informative examples. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Majorana stars, the 2S spin coherent states that are orthogonal to a spin-S state, offer an elegant method to visualize quantum states. This representation offers deep insights into the structure, symmetries, and entanglement properties of quantum states, bridging abstract algebraic formulations with intuitive geometrical intuition. In this paper, we briefly survey the development and applications of the Majorana constellation, exploring its relevance in modern areas of quantum information.
Abstract By representing a quantum state and its evolution with the Majorana stars on the Bloch sphere, the Majorana representation provides us an intuitive way to study a physical system with SU(2) symmetry. In this work, based on coherent states, we propose a method to establish the generalization of Majorana representation for a general symmetry. By choosing a generalized coherent state as a reference state, we give a more general Majorana representation for both finite and infinite systems and the corresponding star equations are given. Using this method, we study the squeezed vacuum states for three different symmetries, Heisenberg–Weyl, SU(2) and SU(1,1), and express the effect of squeezing parameter on the distribution of stars. Furthermore, we also study the dynamical evolution of stars for an initial coherent state driven by a nonlinear Hamiltonian, and find that at a special time point, the stars are distributed on two orthogonal large circles.
The Majorana stellar representation maps a pure spin-S state to 2S points on a sphere. This review develops it with entanglement as the organising principle, and two objects recur throughout: the constellation, and the permanent of the Gram matrix of its stars. The degeneracy pattern of the constellation is invariant under stochastic local operations and classical communication, so the integer partitions of N label a finite set of families of symmetric N-qubit states. That labelling is a coarse-graining rather than a classification, since from four distinct stars onwards each family carries continuous Möbius moduli. The permanent supplies what the pattern omits. Normalised by it, inter-star chordal distances give the concurrence and the three-tangle in closed form, and the same permanent governs the anomalous contribution to the Berry phase acquired under adiabatic cyclic evolution, so that a single quantity links static correlations to dynamical holonomy. We also fix the computational reach of the geometry. Overlaps of symmetric states are permanents of matrices of rank at most two and are polynomially computable, whereas measures defined by an optimisation over the sphere are not reached by that argument. Interest in stellar representations has resurged, but the literature remains dispersed, and no existing treatment develops the link between constellation geometry, multipartite entanglement, and geometric phases within a single framework. The same two objects organise the applications reviewed here, from extremal states in metrology and permutation-invariant codes to collective spin models and photonic constellations, together with extensions to mixed states and to continuous-variable systems through the stellar rank. Whether the anomalous phase admits a bound in terms of any entanglement monotone remains open.
Majorana stars, the 2j spin coherent states that are orthogonal to a spin-j state, offer a visualization of general quantum states and may disclose deep structures in quantum states and their evolutions. In particular, the genuine tripartite entanglement---the three-tangle of a symmetric three-qubit state, which can be mapped to a spin-3/2 state---is measured by the normalized product of the distance between the Majorana stars. However, the Majorana representation cannot be applied to general nonsymmetric n-qubit states. We show that, after a series of SL(2,C) transformations, nonsymmetric three-qubit states can be transformed to symmetric three-qubit states, while at the same time the three-tangle is unchanged. Thus the genuine tripartite entanglement of general three-qubit states has the geometric representation of the associated Majorana stars. The symmetrization and hence the Majorana star representation of certain genuine high-order entanglement for more qubits are possible for some special states. In general cases, however, the constraints on the symmetrization may prevent the Majorana star representation of the genuine entanglement.
The characterization of quantum polarization of light requires knowledge of all the moments of the Stokes variables, which are appropriately encoded in the multipole expansion of the density matrix. We look into the cumulative distribution of those multipoles and work out the corresponding extremal pure states. We find that SU(2) coherent states are maximal to any order whereas the converse case of minimal states (which can be seen as the most quantum ones) is investigated for a diverse range of the number of photons. Taking advantage of the Majorana representation, we recast the problem as that of distributing a number of points uniformly over the surface of the Poincar\'e sphere.
Abstract Spin states of maximal projection along some direction in space are called (spin) coherent, and are, in many respects, the ‘most classical’ available. For any spin s , the spin coherent states form a 2-sphere in the projective Hilbert space P of the system. We address several questions regarding that sphere, in particular its possible intersections with complex lines. We also find that, like Dali’s iconic clocks, it extends in all possible directions in P . Given a generic spin state, we introduce an adapted spin coherent basis, and its dual, and comment on their possible uses. We give a simple expression for the Majorana constellation of the linear combination of two coherent states, and use Mason’s theorem to give a lower bound on the number of distinct stars of a linear combination of two arbitrary spin- s states. Finally, we plot the image of the spin coherent sphere, assuming light in P propagates along Fubini–Study geodesics. We argue that, apart from their intrinsic geometric interest, such questions translate into statements experimentalists might find useful.