In quantum technologies, quantum channels are essential elements for the transmission of quantum states. The action of a quantum channel usually introduces noise in the quantum state and thereby reduces the information contained in it. Concatenating a quantum channel with another quantum channel makes it more noisy and degrades its information and resource preservability. These are mathematically described by completely positive trace-preserving linear maps that represent the generic evolution of quantum systems. These are special cases of Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving linear maps. In this work, we demonstrate a physically meaningful way to compare a pair of quantum channels using Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving linear maps. More precisely, given a pair of quantum channels and an arbitrary unknown input state, we show that if the output state of one quantum channel from the pair can be obtained from the output statistics of the other channel from the pair using some quantum measurement, then the latter channel from the pair can be obtained from the former channel by concatenating it with a Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving linear map. This relation between these two channels is a preorder, and we try to study its characterization in this work. We try to characterize the difficulty of implementing the latter channel, given that the former channel has already been implemented via a quantifier, namely, physical implementability. We also illustrate the implications of our results for the incompatibility of quantum devices through an example.
In quantum technologies, quantum channels are essential elements for the transmission of quantum states. The action of a quantum channel usually introduces noise in the quantum state and thereby reduces the information contained in it. Concatenating a quantum channel with another quantum channel makes it more noisy and degrades its information and resource preservability. These are mathematically described by completely positive trace-preserving linear maps that represent the generic evolution of quantum systems. These are special cases of Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving linear maps. In this work, we demonstrate a physically meaningful way to compare a pair of quantum channels using Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving linear maps. More precisely, given a pair of quantum channels and an arbitrary unknown input state, we show that if the output state of one quantum channel from the pair can be obtained from the output statistics of the other channel from the pair using some quantum measurement, then the latter channel from the pair can be obtained from the former channel by concatenating it with a Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving linear map. This relation between these two channels is a preorder, and we try to study its characterization in this work. We try to characterize the difficulty of implementing the latter channel, given that the former channel has already been implemented via a quantifier, namely, physical implementability. We also illustrate the implications of our results for the incompatibility of quantum devices through an example.
Quantum control has been a cornerstone of quantum information science, driving major advances in quantum computing, quantum communication, and quantum sensing. Over the years, it has enabled the implementation of arbitrary completely positive and trace-preserving (CPTP) maps; an important next step is to extend control to Hermitian-preserving and trace-preserving (HPTP) maps, which underpin applications such as entanglement detection, quantum error mitigation, quantum simulation, and quantum machine learning. Here we present an efficient and fully constructive method for implementing arbitrary HPTP maps. Unlike existing methods that decompose an HPTP map into multiple CPTP maps or approximate it using bipartite Hamiltonians with large Hilbert spaces, our approach compiles a target HPTP map into a single executable CPTP map whose Kraus rank is guaranteed to be no larger than the intrinsic rank of the target HPTP map plus one, followed by simple classical post-processing. Numerical results for inverse noise channels used in quantum error mitigation, including bosonic photon loss, confirm substantial reductions in resources and highlight scalability in higher-dimensional settings. Together with our numerical benchmarks, these results validate the efficiency and versatility of the proposed framework, opening a route to broader quantum-information applications enabled by HPTP processing.
For an open quantum system to evolve under CPTP maps, assumptions are made on the initial correlations between the system and the environment. Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving (HPTP) maps are considered as the local dynamic maps beyond CPTP. In this paper, we provide a succinct answer to the question of what physical maps are in the HPTP realm by two approaches. The first is by taking one step out of the CPTP set, which provides us with Semi-Positivity (SP) TP maps. The second way is by examining the physicality of HPTP maps, which leads to Semi-Nonnegative (SN) TP maps. Physical interpretations and geometrical structures are studied for these maps. The non-CP SPTP maps Ψ correspond to the quantum non-Markovian process under the CP-divisibility definition (Ψ=Ξ∘Φ−1, where Ξ and Φ are CPTP). When removing the invertibility assumption on Φ, we land in the set of SNTP maps. A by-product of set relations is an answer to the following question -- what kind of dynamics the system will go through when the previous dynamic Φ is non-invertible. In this case, the only locally well-defined maps are in SN\SP, they live on the boundary of SN. Otherwise, the non-local information will be irreplaceable in the system's dynamic. With the understanding of physical maps beyond CPTP, we prove that the current quantum error correction scheme is still sufficient to correct quantum non-Markovian errors. In some special cases, lack of complete positivity could provide us with more error correction methods with less overhead.
Quantum mechanics features a variety of distinct properties such as coherence and entanglement, which could be explored to showcase potential advantages over classical counterparts in information processing. In general, legitimate quantum operations must adhere to principles of quantum mechanics, particularly the requirements of complete positivity and trace preservation. Nonetheless, non-physical maps, especially Hermitian-preserving maps, play a crucial role in quantum information science. To date, there exists no effective method for implementing these non-physical maps with quantum devices. In this work, we introduce the Hermitian-preserving map exponentiation algorithm, which can effectively realize the action of an arbitrary Hermitian-preserving map by encoding its output into a quantum process. We analyze the performances of this algorithm, including its sample complexity and robustness, and prove its optimality in certain cases. When combined with algorithms such as the Hadamard test and quantum phase estimation, it allows for the extraction of information and generation of states from outputs of Hermitian-preserving maps, enabling various applications. Utilizing positive but not completely positive maps, this algorithm provides exponential advantages in entanglement detection and quantification compared to protocols based on single-copy operations. In addition, it facilitates the recovery of noiseless quantum states from multiple copies of noisy states by implementing the inverse map of the corresponding noise channel, offering an intriguing approach to handling quantum errors. Our findings present a pathway for systematically and efficiently implementing non-physical actions with quantum devices, thereby boosting the exploration of potential quantum advantages across a wide range of information processing tasks.
Entanglement fidelity quantifies how well a quantum channel preserves the correlations between a transmitted system and an inaccessible reference system. We derive closed-form expressions for the entanglement fidelity associated with several standard quantum noise models, including the random Pauli-X, dephasing, depolarizing, Werner-Holevo, generalized Pauli (Weyl), and amplitude-damping channels. For each model, we express the entanglement fidelity in terms of a general input density operator ρ, using Schumacher's Kraus-operator approach, which provides a channel-agnostic recipe applicable to any completely positive trace-preserving (CPTP) map with a finite Kraus representation. We then specialize to a communication scenario in which the source emits a two-letter parametric alphabet, thereby making explicit the dependence of entanglement preservation on both channel and source parameters. The resulting expressions enable direct comparisons of channel performance and rankings for representative families of input states, including common qubit states.
In general quantum operations, or quantum channels cannot be inverted by physical operations, i.e., by completely positive trace-preserving maps. An arbitrary state passing through a quantum channel loses its fidelity with the input. Given a quantum channel E, we discuss the concept of its quasi-inverse as a completely positive trace-preserving map Eqi which when composed with E increases its average input-output fidelity in an optimal way. The channel Eqi comes as close as possible to the inverse of a quantum channel. We give a complete classification of such maps for qubit channels and provide quite a few illustrative examples.
For a given set of input-output pairs of quantum states or observables, we ask the question whether there exists a physically implementable transformation that maps each of the inputs to the corresponding output. The physical maps on quantum states are trace-preserving completely positive maps, but we also consider variants of these requirements. We generalize the definition of complete positivity to linear maps defined on arbitrary subspaces, then formulate this notion as a semidefinite program, and relate it by duality to approximative extensions of this map. This gives a characterization of the maps which can be approximated arbitrarily well as the restriction of a map that is completely positive on the whole algebra, also yielding the familiar extension theorems on operator spaces. For quantum channel extensions and extensions by probabilistic operations we obtain semidefinite characterizations, and we also elucidate the special case of Abelian inputs or outputs. Finally, revisiting a theorem by Alberti and Uhlmann, we provide simpler and more widely applicable conditions for certain extension problems on qubits, and by using a semidefinite programming formulation we exhibit counterexamples to seemingly reasonable but false generalizations of the Alberti-Uhlmann theorem.