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arXiv:2605.20907

Symmetric dilations of Pauli channels and semigroups

Marco Cattaneo

quant-phSubmitted May 20, 2026• Announced May 21, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

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.

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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.
Quantum maps are fundamental to quantum information theory and open quantum systems. Covariant or weakly symmetric quantum maps, in particular, play a key role in defining quantum evolutions that respect thermodynamics, establish free operations in resource theories, and are consistent with transformations of quantum reference frames. To implement quantum maps in the laboratory, one typically engineers a physical dilation, which corresponds to a unitary evolution entangling the system with an environment. This work systematically explores how weak symmetries of quantum maps manifest in their dilations. We demonstrate that for various classes of physical dilations, including Hamiltonian-driven dilations and short-time collision models that simulate Markovian open quantum dynamics, weak symmetries always lead to strong symmetries in the dilated evolution, resulting in conserved quantities in the system-environment space. We also characterize the subspace where these symmetries arise using Krylov subspaces. Moreover, we show that some different types of physical dilations have no constraints on the dilated evolution, requiring no strong symmetry. Finally, we complement our findings with a variety of illustrative and pedagogical examples. Our results provide essential guidelines for constructing physical dilations of quantum maps, offering a comprehensive understanding of how symmetries shape their implementations in a laboratory or on a quantum computer.
In this work we investigate Stinespring dilations of quantum-dynamical semigroups, which are known to exist by means of a constructive proof given by Davies in the early 70s. We show that if the semigroup describes an open system, that is, if it does not consist of only unitary channels, then the evolution of the dilated closed system has to be generated by an unbounded Hamiltonian; subsequently the environment has to correspond to an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, regardless of the original system. Moreover, we prove that the second derivative of Stinespring dilations with a bounded total Hamiltonian yields the dissipative part of some quantum-dynamical semigroup — and vice versa. In particular this characterizes the generators of quantum-dynamical semigroups via Stinespring dilations.
In Chapter 6 we built a theory of quantum stochastic dilation ‘naturally’ associated with an arbitrary Q.D.S. on a von Neumann or C * -algebra with bounded generator. There the computations involved C * or von Neumann Hilbert modules, using the results of [24], map-valued quantum stochastic processes on modules and quantum stochastic integration with respect to them, developed in Chapter 5. It is now natural to consider the case of a Q.D.S. with unbounded generator and ask the same questions about the possibility of dilation. As one would expect, the problem is too intractable in this generality and we need to impose some further structures on it. In this chapter we shall consider a few classes of such Q.D.S. and try to construct H–P and E–H dilation for them. At first, we shall work under the framework of a Lie group action on the underlying algebra, and consider covariant Q.D.S. For H–P dilation, symmetry with respect to a trace is also assumed, whereas a general theory for E–H dilation has been built under the assumption of covariance under the action of a compact group, but without it being symmetric. Then, in the last section, we deal with a class of Q.D.S. on the U.H.F. algebra, described in Chapter 3. In this case, E–H dilation is constructed by a direct iteration using some natural estimates. However, what is common to the methods used in constructing dilation for the different kinds of Q.D.S. mentioned above is the use of a natural locally convex topology, in which the generator (unbounded in the norm topology) is continuous.
In recent times, there has been a growing scholarly focus on investigating the intricacies of quantum channel mixing. It has been commonly believed, based on intuition in the literature, that every generalized Pauli channel with dimensionality ddd could be represented as a convex combination of (d+1)(d+1)(d+1) generalized Pauli dephasing channels (see [Phys. Rev. A 103, 022605 (2021)] as a reference). To our surprise, our findings indicate the inaccuracy of this intuitive perspective. This has stimulated our interest in exploring the properties of convex combinations of generalized Pauli channels, beyond the restriction to just (d+1)(d+1)(d+1) generalized Pauli dephasing channels. We demonstrate that many previously established properties still hold within this broader context. For instance, any mixture of invertible generalized Pauli channels retains its invertibility. It's worth noting that this property doesn't hold when considering the Weyl channels setting. Additionally, we demonstrate that every Pauli channel (for the case of d=2d=2d=2) can be represented as a mixture of (d+1)(d+1)(d+1) Pauli dephasing channels, but this generalization doesn't apply to higher dimensions. This highlights a fundamental distinction between qubit and general qudit cases. In contrast to prior understanding, we show that non-invertibility of mixed channels is not a prerequisite for the resulting mapping to constitute a Markovian semigroup.
This is a continuation of the study of the theory of quantum stochastic dilation of completely positive semigroups on a von Neumann or C∗C^*C∗ algebra, here with unbounded generators. The additional assumption of symmetry with respect to a semifinite trace allows the use of the Hilbert space techniques, while the covariance gives rise to better handle on domains. An Evans-Hudson flow is obtained, dilating the given semigroup.
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.