Mesures continues en mécanique quantique : quelques résultats et applications
Antoine Tilloy
Abstract
This thesis is devoted to the study of the quantum trajectories obtained from the theory of continuous measurement in non relativistic quantum mechanics. New theoretical results as well as examples of applications are presented. On the theoretical front, we study mostly the limit of "strong" measurement where we put forward the emergence of quantum jumps and quantum spikes, two phenomena we characterize in detail. Out of the strong measurement limit, we investigate a method to extract information from a register of qubits optimally. On the application front, we introduce an original method to control quantum systems exploiting only the freedom of changing the measurement intensity and we explain the transition between a ballistic and a diffusive behavior in open quantum random walks; two byproduct of the theoretical study of the strong measurement regime. We further study the problem of semi-classical gravity and show that continuous measurement theory allows to construct a consistent model in the Newtonian regime. We eventually suggest possible extensions of the formalism to a posteriori estimation and hint at generalizations of the results for the strong measurement limit in the wider context of discrete repeated measurements. In the course of our presentation, we emphasize the link with other approaches to the theory of continuous measurement (parallels with stochastic filtering and collapse models in foundations) rather than aim for mathematical rigor.