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arXiv:2608.22919

Geometric Phases of a Driven Qubit: Comparing Berry and Uhlmann Holonomies

Hyeonseok Yang, Changsuk Noh

quant-phmath-phSubmitted Aug 24, 2026• Announced Aug 25, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

The Berry phase arises naturally from the adiabatic dynamics of a pure quantum state, whereas the Uhlmann phase is usually formulated kinematically for a prescribed path of mixed states. For a qubit subject to a uniformly gapped conical drive, we obtain the Uhlmann connection and holonomy in closed form for the equilibrium Gibbs cycle. We then solve the corresponding Lindblad equation exactly in the rotating frame and show that its steady state forms a nonequilibrium limit cycle that lags the instantaneous Gibbs cycle. As the driving becomes slow, the Uhlmann phase approaches the equilibrium Uhlmann phase, which cooling then reduces to the Berry phase: in the joint adiabatic and low-temperature limit, the dynamical Uhlmann phase therefore converges to the Berry phase. This grounds the Uhlmann--Berry correspondence in the physical dynamics of an open system. We also characterize the finite-driving corrections, together with the discontinuous $π$ jump that the Uhlmann phase undergoes on the equatorial cycle as the temperature is varied. Finally, we examine an isolated transversal gap closing, where this zero-temperature correspondence can break down: the pure-state path becomes open, its closure is ambiguous, and gap-opening regularizations close it along a geodesic set by the direction of the bias field, splitting the Berry phase into a one-parameter family of values. The Gibbs path instead closes smoothly through the maximally mixed state, so the Uhlmann holonomy requires no regularization and remains unique and continuous at every finite temperature. In the low-temperature limit the Uhlmann phase selects a single member of the Berry family---the geodesic closure in the osculating plane, fixed by the velocity and acceleration of the driving field. The Uhlmann--Berry correspondence of the gapped regime thus survives the gap closing as a geodesic selection rule.

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40 pages, single column, 4 figures

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The Berry phase arises naturally from the adiabatic dynamics of a pure quantum state, whereas the Uhlmann phase is usually formulated kinematically for a prescribed path of mixed states. For a qubit subject to a uniformly gapped conical drive, we obtain the Uhlmann connection and holonomy in closed form for the equilibrium Gibbs cycle. We then solve the corresponding Lindblad equation exactly in the rotating frame and show that its steady state forms a nonequilibrium limit cycle that lags the instantaneous Gibbs cycle. As the driving becomes slow, the Uhlmann phase approaches the equilibrium Uhlmann phase, which cooling then reduces to the Berry phase: in the joint adiabatic and low-temperature limit, the dynamical Uhlmann phase therefore converges to the Berry phase. This grounds the Uhlmann--Berry correspondence in the physical dynamics of an open system. We also characterize the finite-driving corrections, together with the discontinuous πππ jump that the Uhlmann phase undergoes on the equatorial cycle as the temperature is varied. Finally, we examine an isolated transversal gap closing, where this zero-temperature correspondence can break down: the pure-state path becomes open, its closure is ambiguous, and gap-opening regularizations close it along a geodesic set by the direction of the bias field, splitting the Berry phase into a one-parameter family of values. The Gibbs path instead closes smoothly through the maximally mixed state, so the Uhlmann holonomy requires no regularization and remains unique and continuous at every finite temperature. In the low-temperature limit the Uhlmann phase selects a single member of the Berry family---the geodesic closure in the osculating plane, fixed by the velocity and acceleration of the driving field. The Uhlmann--Berry correspondence of the gapped regime thus survives the gap closing as a geodesic selection rule.
The Uhlmann phase extends geometric phases to mixed quantum states via a parallel-transport condition on purification amplitudes, yet its direct implementation under standard Hamiltonian dynamics is obstructed by the non-Hermitian nature of the purification. We establish that for any smooth one-dimensional closed loop of full-rank qubit density matrices, there exists a four-level Hermitian parent Hamiltonian whose doubly degenerate ground-state subspace carries a Wilczek--Zee connection exactly equal to the Uhlmann connection. Consequently, the Uhlmann holonomy is faithfully reproduced by adiabatic evolution in the enlarged system. We further prove that this auxiliary-field construction is obstructed in generic two-dimensional parameter spaces by a Frobenius integrability condition, which we derive explicitly. The one-dimensional Uhlmann phase is thus placed on the same footing as the non-Abelian Berry phase, offering a purely Hermitian, Hamiltonian-based route to simulating mixed-state geometric phases. Numerical integration of the adiabatic dynamics confirms the exact correspondence and validates the convergence to the Uhlmann holonomy in the large-gap limit.
When the control field of a qubit, a polarization state, or a spin-12\tfrac1221​ system is swept through a level degeneracy, its direction traces an open curve on the Bloch sphere whose endpoints are antipodal, and the geodesic rule for the open-path geometric phase becomes ambiguous: infinitely many geodesics close the path, and different closures enclose different solid angles. We resolve this ambiguity in closed form. A coordinate-free monopole connection defines the open-path solid angle Ω[C]Ω[C]Ω[C] intrinsically, and displacing the degeneracy by $ε\uhat$ closes the path with enclosed solid angle $Ω(ε\uhat)=Ω[C]+2α+O(ε)$, where ααα is the azimuth of the transverse part of $\uhat$ measured from the principal normal of the control curve at the crossing. The identity between geometric phase and enclosed solid angle therefore holds for exactly one closing geodesic---the great circle in the osculating plane (α=0α=0α=0)---supplied by the curvature at the degeneracy. Berry's πππ invariant under reversal of the displacement and the values ±π/2\pmπ/2±π/2 under a reflection symmetry follow as corollaries, and the pure-state limit of the finite-temperature Uhlmann phase selects the osculating-plane closure automatically, turning the heuristic closing rules of the open-path literature into a computable prescription.
Note that equations and expressions has been omitted here and is instead presented in the work. This thesis focuses on the geometric phase in pure and mixed quantum states. For the case of a pure quantum state, Berry's adiabatic approach (4.1.10) and Aharonov & Anandan's non-adiabatic generalization of Berry's approach (4.2.8) are included in this work. Mixed quantum state involves Uhlmanns approach (5.1.42), which is used extensively in Section 7 and Sjöqvist's et al. approach (5.2.22), used extensively in Section 6. Sjöqvist's approach states that the Uhlmann phase is an observable and provides the experimental groundworkusing an interferometer.􀀀This was later proven, by Du et al.[45] to reproduce experimental data (Figure 19) on page 56. The Uhlmann phase can be used to observe the behaviour of topological kinks. This was tested on 3 models, the Creutz-ladder, the Majorana chain andthe SSU-model. It is found that the Uhlmann phase is split into two regimes with the dividing parameter being the temperature. This temperature is called the critical temperature, Tc. If the temperatureis is below the critical temperature, the Uhlmann phase yields Π and if thetemperature is above the critical temperature, the Uhlmann phase yields zero.
We first compare the geometric frameworks behind the Uhlmann and Berry phases in a fiber-bundle language and then evaluate the Uhlmann phases of bosonic and fermionic coherent states. The Uhlmann phases of both coherent states are shown to carry geometric information and decrease smoothly with temperature. Importantly, the Uhlmann phases approach the corresponding Berry phases as temperature decreases. Together with previous examples in the literature, we propose a correspondence between the Uhlmann and Berry phases in the zero-temperature limit as a general property except some special cases and present a conditional proof of the correspondence.
We show that a cyclically controlled non-coherence-generating channel supplies a two-parameter family of closed Bloch trajectories, absent in the single-parameter (temperature) cycles of the thermal Uhlmann literature, whose associated Uhlmann phase develops a genuine vortex--antivortex structure on the channel-parameter torus. A qubit prepared in a pure state, which carries no geometric phase of its own, acquires a nontrivial Uhlmann phase, obtained here in closed form, purely from a closed loop in the space of the native quantum channel parameters. The net topological charge of these defects is constrained to zero by the Poincaré--Hopf theorem. As the input-state orientation approaches its critical values, the defects merge and annihilate in pairs following a square-root coalescence law. This defect dynamics drives local geometric transitions, a mechanism that contrasts with single-parameter thermal Uhlmann transitions, where a global quantized winding jumps as a bulk invariant.
For full-rank density matrices the state space is contractible, the Uhlmann bundle is topologically trivial, and the holonomy admits no quantized invariants; although the Uhlmann phase is genuinely geometric, this topological poverty has kept it from serving as a robust physical diagnostic of mixed-state matter. Mixed states of fixed rank below the Hilbert-space dimension, however, are ubiquitous: reduced states of constrained subsystems, states confined to invariant sectors, and states supported on decoherence-free subspaces can have a support smaller than the Hilbert space, a support that can vary with parameters. Their geometry is far richer: the support carries genuine curvature, non-Abelian holonomy, and Chern topology. We formulate Uhlmann's theory directly on the manifold of rank-kkk density matrices: minimal purifications make the fixed-rank stratum the base of a principal U(k)U(k)U(k)-bundle whose Uhlmann connection is uniquely determined by a Sylvester equation, and in an eigenframe this connection takes a closed form reducing to the Berry, Wilczek--Zee, and faithful Uhlmann connections at k=1k=1k=1, at equal weights, and at k=Nk=Nk=N. The fixed-rank bundle inherits the topology of the Grassmannian, and non-factorizable higher Chern topology requires failure of the global eigenline splitting, which in the present spectral setting requires degeneracy, minimally realized by a rank-2 Yang monopole whose quantized second Chern number links the geometry to the four-dimensional quantum Hall response. Solvable models, from a genuinely non-Abelian holonomy to a dissipatively driven orbit whose Uhlmann holonomy is steered by the reservoir through an elliptic-integral spectral dressing, illustrate the content: the supporting subspace carries the topology, the spectral weights shape the transport, and Uhlmann holonomy provides a direct geometric probe of the resulting mixed-state structures.