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Open Systems & Information Dynamics

Quantum Systems Theory Viewed from Kossakowski-Lindblad Lie Semigroups — andVice Versa

Thomas Schulte‐Herbrüggen, Gunther Dirr, Robert Zeier

Published Dec 1, 2017• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The solutions to the celebrated Kossakowski-Lindblad equation extended by coherent controls yield Markovian quantum maps. More precisely, the set of all its solutions forms a semigroup of completely positive trace-preserving maps taking the specific form of a Lie semigroup. Non-trivial symmetries of these semigroups are shown to preclude accessibility in Markovian dissipative systems. This is the open-system analogue to closed systems, where triviality of (quadratic) symmetries of the Hamiltonian part suffices to decide that the system is fully controllable. The findings are placed into a unifying Lie frame of quantum systems and control theory alongside with illustrating examples.

DOI
10.1142/s1230161217400194

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The solutions to the celebrated Kossakowski-Lindblad equation extended by coherent controls yield Markovian quantum maps. More precisely, the set of all its solutions forms a semigroup of completely positive trace-preserving maps taking the specific form of a Lie semigroup. Non-trivial symmetries of these semigroups are shown to preclude accessibility in Markovian dissipative systems. This is the open-system analogue to closed systems, where triviality of (quadratic) symmetries of the Hamiltonian part suffices to decide that the system is fully controllable. The findings are placed into a unifying Lie frame of quantum systems and control theory alongside with illustrating examples.
This thesis focuses on the Lie-theoretic foundations of controlled open quantum systems. We describe Markovian open quantum system evolutions by Lie semigroups, whose corresponding infinitesimal generators lie in a special type of convex cone - a Lie wedge. The Lie wedge associated to a given control system therefore consists of all generators of the quantum dynamical semigroup that are physically realisable as a result of the interplay between the coherent and incoherent processes the quantum system is subject to. For nnn-qubit open quantum systems, we provide a parametrisation of the largest physically relevant Lie algebra (the system algebra), in which these Lie wedges are contained: the Lindblad-Kossakowski Lie algebra. This parametrisation provides several useful benefits. First, it allows us to construct explicit forms of these system Lie wedges and their respective system Lie algebras. Second, we analyse which control scenarios yield Lie wedges that are closed under Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff (BCH) multiplication and therefore generate Markovian semigroups of time-independent quantum channels. Lie wedges of this form are called Lie semialgebras, and we completely solve this open problem by proving that Lie wedges specialise to this form only when the coherent controls have no effect on both the inherent drift Hamiltonian and the incoherent part of the dynamics. Finally, this parametrisation of the Lindblad-Kossakowski Lie algebra points to an intuitive separation between unital and non-unital dissipative dynamics, where the non-unital component of the dynamics is described by affine translation operations. These translation operators are then exploited to construct purely dissipative fixed-point engineering schemes to obtain either pure or mixed states as a system's unique fixed point.
These notes are a short introduction to the mathematical theory of open quantum systems. They are meant to serve as an entry point into a broad research area which has applications across the quantum sciences dealing with systems subjected to external noise. The guiding idea is to let the key structures of the theory emerge from a concrete model. By working through the dissipative Jaynes-Cummings model the reader will dis- cover explicitly how irreversible dynamics arises from a unitary system-reservoir evolution. The notions of the continuous mode limit, correlation functions, spectral density appear in a natural manner and lead to the evolution equation of the open system in form of a master equation. This sets the stage for the more general analysis of completely positive, trace preserving (CPTP) maps and the study of quantum dynamical semigroups. We motivate and prove the Kraus representation theorem, the dilation theorem and the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) theorem. Working through the exercises (for which full solutions are supplied) will reinforce the ideas introduced in the main text.
In quantum systems theory one of the fundamental problems boils down to: Given an initial state, which final states can be reached by the dynamic system in question? Formulated in the framework of bilinear control systems, the evolution shall be governed by an inevitable Hamiltonian drift term, finitely many control Hamiltonians allowing for (at least) piecewise constant control amplitudes, plus a (possibly bang-bang switchable) noise term in Kossakowski-Lindblad form. Now assuming switchable coupling of finite-dimensional systems to a thermal bath of arbitrary temperature, the core problem of reachability boils down to studying points in the standard simplex amenable to two types of controls that can be used interleaved: Permutations within the simplex, and contractions by a dissipative one-parameter semigroup. We illustrate how the solutions of the core problem pertain to the reachable set of the original controlled Markovian quantum system. This allows us to show that for global as well as local switchable coupling to a temperature-zero bath one can generate every quantum state from every initial state up to arbitrary precision. Moreover we present an inclusion for non-zero temperatures as a consequence of our results on d-majorization. Then we consider infinite-dimensional open quantum-dynamical systems following a unital Kossakowski-Lindblad master equation extended by controls. Here the drift Hamiltonian can be arbitrary, the finitely many control Hamiltonians are bounded, and the switchable noise term is generated by a single compact normal operator. Via new majorization results of ours, we show that such bilinear quantum control systems allow to approximately reach any target state majorized by the initial one, as up to now only has been known in finite-dimensional analogues.
A well established approach to describe open quantum system dynamics is the celebrated Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) master equation. In this article we aim to shed light on semigroup dynamics that are not of this form. Such dynamics may appear in real physical systems describing asymptotic long-time dynamics. Thus, they correspond to semigroup dynamics applicable to a restricted set of initial states only. As a way of motivating our studies, first we review known results about the single-mode Gaussian Quantum Brownian motion channel and corresponding master equations. Next we discuss a conceptually simpler family of qubit semigroup generators and identify parameter regions of completely positive, merely positive, and non-positive dynamics. We then focus on the latter case to which we will refer to as restricted-positive, as the semigroup generator may well be physically meaningful when applied to a restricted set of admissible initial states.
We extend standard Markovian open quantum systems (quantum channels) by allowing for Hamiltonian controls and elucidate their geometry in terms of Lie semigroups. For standard dissipative interactions with the environment and different coherent controls, we particularly specify the tangent cones (Lie wedges) of the respective Lie semigroups of quantum channels. These cones are the counterpart of the infinitesimal generator of a single one-parameter semigroup. They comprise all directions the underlying open quantum system can be steered to and thus give insight into the geometry of controlled open quantum dynamics. Such a differential characterization is highly valuable for approximating reachable sets of given initial quantum states in a plethora of experimental implementations.
These notes are a short introduction to the mathematical theory of open quantum systems. They are meant to serve as an entry point into a broad research area that has applications across the quantum sciences dealing with systems subjected to external noise. The idea is to let the key structures of the theory emerge from a concrete model. By working through the dissipative Jaynes–Cummings model the reader will discover explicitly how irreversible dynamics arises from a unitary system-reservoir evolution. The notions of the continuous mode limit, correlation functions, spectral density appear in a natural manner and lead to the evolution equation of the open system in form of a master equation. This sets the stage for the more general analysis of completely positive, trace preserving maps and the study of quantum dynamical semigroups. We motivate and prove the Kraus representation theorem, the dilation theorem and the Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan–Lindblad theorem. Working through the exercises (for which full solutions are supplied) will reinforce the ideas introduced in the main text.