Unitary Operators and Quantum Dynamics

Jaroslav Novotný, G. Alber, Igor Jex

Abstract We analyze the asymptotic dynamics of quantum systems resulting from large numbers of iterations of random unitary operations. Although, in general, these quantum operations cannot be diagonalized it is shown that their resulting asymptotic dynamics is described by a diagonalizable superoperator. We prove that this asymptotic dynamics takes place in a typically low dimensional attractor space which is independent of the probability distribution of the unitary operations applied. This vector space is spanned by all eigenvectors of the unitary operations involved which are associated with eigenvalues of unit modulus. Implications for possible asymptotic dynamics of iterated random unitary operations are presented and exemplified in an example involving random controlled-not operations acting on two qubits.

János A. Bergou, Mark S. Hillery

Jaroslav Novotný, G. Alber, Igor Jex

We investigate the asymptotic dynamics of quantum networks under repeated applications of random unitary operations. It is shown that in the asymptotic limit of large numbers of iterations this dynamics is generally governed by a typically low dimensional attractor space. This space is determined completely by the unitary operations involved and it is independent of the probabilities with which these unitary operations are applied. Based on this general feature analytical results are presented for the asymptotic dynamics of arbitrarily large cyclic qubit networks whose nodes are coupled by randomly applied controlled-NOT operations.

Wojciech Słomczyński, Anna Szczepanek

We introduce two information-theoretical invariants for the projective unitary group acting on a finite-dimensional complex Hilbert space: PVM- and POVM-dynamical (quantum) entropies, which are analogues of the classical Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy rate. They quantify the maximal randomness of the successive quantum measurement results in the case where the evolution of the system between each two consecutive measurements is described by a given unitary operator. We study the class of chaotic unitaries, i.e., the ones of maximal entropy, or equivalently, such that they can be represented by suitably rescaled complex Hadamard matrices in some orthonormal bases. We provide necessary conditions for a unitary operator to be chaotic, which become also sufficient for qubits and qutrits. These conditions are expressed in terms of the relation between the trace and the determinant of the operator. We also compute the volume of the set of chaotic unitaries in dimensions two and three, and the average PVM-dynamical entropy over the unitary group in dimension two. We prove that this mean value behaves as the logarithm of the dimension of the Hilbert space, which implies that the probability that the dynamical entropy of a unitary is almost as large as possible approaches unity as the dimension tends to infinity.