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arXiv:2607.01158 · International Journal of Quantum Information

Continuous Observation of Quantum Systems

Hans Maassen

quant-phmath-phSubmitted Jul 1, 2026• Announced Jul 2, 2026• 2 citations• Revised Jul 3, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Jul 1, 2026v2 · Jul 3, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In a series of papers in the 1980's Alexander Holevo proved a classification theorem for continuous quantum measurement processes, or, as they would today be called, stationary quantum trajectories in continuous time. His main tools were functional analytic in character: starting from a Bochner-type inequality he employed dilation techniques for positive definite kernels. Here we give an alternative, more probabilistic proof: we use weak convergence of measures and employ Levy's Continuity Theorem. We clarify the boundedness conditions in Holevo's theorem, and supply a simple example from quantum optics.

Journal reference
International Journal of Quantum Information 22.5, 2024
DOI
10.1142/S0219749924020015
Comments
37 pages. This paper grew from a chapter in the book on Quantum Markov Processes that Burkhard Kümmerer and the author are preparing on Quantum Markov Processes. It appeared in "Communicating the Quantum Way, Contributions in Honor of Alexander S Holevo's 80th Birthday" (World Scientific 2026)

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In a series of papers in the 1980's Alexander Holevo proved a classification theorem for continuous quantum measurement processes, or, as they would today be called, stationary quantum trajectories in continuous time. His main tools were functional analytic in character: starting from a Bochner-type inequality he employed dilation techniques for positive definite kernels. Here we give an alternative, more probabilistic proof: we use weak convergence of measures and employ Levy's Continuity Theorem. We clarify the boundedness conditions in Holevo's theorem, and supply a simple example from quantum optics.
In this thesis we study the problem of continuous measurement on an open quantum system.The starting point of our analysis is the time-evolution of an open quantum system where the evolution of the environment is not explicitly described, i.e. traced out.More explicitly we restrict to time-evolutions having the structure of a semigroup or evolution system.That is, for time-points 0 ≤ r ≤ s ≤ t there exists a two-parameter family of completely-positive maps E * (t, s), such that E * (t, s)E * (s, r) = E * (t, r) and the systems state evolved according to ρ(tPhysically this means that in our Ansatz the interaction between system and environment is already fixed and can only be weak.The main goal of this thesis is now to describe, mathematically rigorous, all continuous measurements compatible with the given evolution.A measurement is compatible with the given time-evolution, if the evolution does not change when measurement results are ignored.In other words the measurement is indirect and does not further disturb the systems evolution.Our results can be interpreted as a rigorous construction of continuous matrix product states, and are related to the Hudson-Parthasarathy quantum stochastic calculus.The analysis in this thesis separates into two parts.In the first we study the class of quantum systems having an evolution system structure as described above.Precisely we study the theory of minimal solutions to a Cauchy equation with a generator of Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad type.We do this for the case of time-dependent and unbounded generators.This analysis culminates in the description of a counterexample due to Holevo of a semigroup which is not the minimal solution to such a standard Lindblad equation.In the second part we construct a description of all measurements compatible with a given evolution and thus achieve our main goal.The analysis starts with the discrete-time version of the problem, i.e.where the time-points r, s, t in the above description of the evolution are chosen from a finite set.This discrete-time problem is completely solved by Stinespring dilation theory.We then construct our solution of the continuous-time case as a refinement limit over arbitrary discretizations of the evolution.Hence, our construction gives a continuous-time analogue of the Stinespring dilation for semigroups and evolution systems.It can be interpreted as a complete quantum description of the information the system radiates into the environment, i.e. it yields a quantum state of the environment.We complement the description of the state with a description of the observables for continuous measurements and the calculation expectation values.
The topics presented in this thesis have continuous quantum measurements and quantum walks at their core. The first topic being discussed centers around simulating a generalize measurement with a finite number of outcomes using a continuous measurement process with a continuous measurement history. We provide conditions under which it is possible to prove that such a process exists and that at long times it simulates faithfully the generalized measurement. We give the stochastic equations governing the feedback between the measurement history and the instantaneous weak measurements. The second topic examines a definition of hitting time for continuous-time quantum walks. A crucial component for such a definition is the use of weak measurements. Several methods using alternative but equivalent definitions of weak, continuous measurements are employed to derive a formula for the hitting time. The behavior of the thus defined hitting time is studied subsequently, in general and for specific graphs. The last topic explores continuous-time quantum walks on graphs with infinite tails. The equations for propagating and bound states are derived and the S-matrix is defined. Their properties, such as orthogonality of the propagating and bound states, unitarity of the S-matrix, are discussed. Formulas for the S-matrix under operations of cutting, adding or connecting tails are derived.
Beyond their use as numerical tools, quantum trajectories can be ascribed a degree of reality in terms of quantum measurement theory. In fact, they arise naturally from considering continuous observation of a damped quantum system. A particularly useful form of quantum trajectories is as linear (but non-unitary) stochastic Schrödinger equations. In the limit where a strong local oscillator is used in the detection, and where the system is not driven, these quantum trajectories can be solved. This gives an alternative derivation of the probability distributions for completed homodyne and heterodyne detection schemes. It also allows the previously intractable problem of real-time adaptive measurements to be treated. The results for an analytically soluble example of adaptive phase measurements are presented, and future developments discussed.
Beyond their use as numerical tools, quantum trajectories can be ascribed a degree of reality in terms of quantum measurement theory. In fact, they arise naturally from considering continuous observation of a damped quantum system. A particularly useful form of quantum trajectories is as linear (but non-unitary) stochastic Schrodinger equations. In the limit where a strong local oscillator is used in the detection, and where the system is not driven, these quantum trajectories can be solved. This gives an alternate derivation of the probability distributions for completed homodyne and heterodyne detection schemes. It also allows the previously intractable problem of real-time adaptive measurements to be treated. The results for an analytically soluble example of adaptive phase measurements are presented, and future developments discussed.
Measurements continuous in time have been consistently introduced in quantum mechanics and applications worked out, mainly in quantum optics. In this context a quantum filtering theory has been developed giving the reduced state after a measurement when a certain trajectory of the measured observables is registered (the a posteriori states). In this paper a new derivation of filtering equations is presented for the cases of counting processes and of measurement processes of diffusive type. It is also shown that the equation for the a posteriori dynamics in the diffusive case can be obtained, by a suitable limit, from that in the counting case. Moreover, the paper is intended to clarify the meaning of the various concepts involved and to discuss the connections among them. As an illustration of the theory, simple models are worked out.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a basis of theory of measurements of continuous observables. We generalize von Neumann’s description of measuring processes of discrete quantum observables in terms of interaction between the measured system and the apparatus to continuous observables, and show how every such measuring process determines the state change caused by the measurement. We establish a one-to-one correspondence between completely positive instruments in the sense of Davies and Lewis and the state changes determined by the measuring processes. We also prove that there are no weakly repeatable completely positive instruments of nondiscrete observables in the standard formulation of quantum mechanics, so that there are no measuring processes of nondiscrete observables whose state changes satisfy the repeatability hypothesis. A proof of the Wigner–Araki–Yanase theorem on the nonexistence of repeatable measurements of observables not commuting conserved quantities is given in our framework. We also discuss the implication of these results for the recent results due to Srinivas and due to Mercer on measurements of continuous observables.