Time Evolving States

Lev Vaidman A

The basic concept of the two-state vector formalism, which is the time symmetric approach to quantum mechanics, is the backward evolving quantum state. However, due to the time asymmetry of the memory's arrow of time, the possible ways to manipulate a backward evolving quantum state differ from those for a standard, forward evolving quantum state. The similarities and the differences between forward and backward evolving quantum states regarding the no-cloning theorem, nonlocal measurements and teleportation are discussed. The results are relevant not only in the framework of the two-state vector formalism, but also in the framework of retrodictive quantum theory.

Arno Böhm, Mark E. Loewe

Harsh Anand

Let us have a Hamiltonian H and 2 states which can time evolve into each other via this Hamiltonian. In this particular situation, say one of the states evolves into the other in time t. Now let us fix these two states ; then we may have infinite Hamiltonians (other than H, and one of them is say H') that can time evolve one of them into the other. But the time taken for this evolution varies from t and is say t' (that is, t' is the time Hamiltonian H' takes to time evolve one of the fixed states into the other). From now on, we shall consider only those Hamiltonians that can time evolve one of the states into the other. The question is given any small positive number a, will there exist a Hamiltonian H such that t' = a? Answer: Yes , the Hamiltonian Ht/a (obtained by rescaling the original Hamiltonian) will work. But, there are bounds that show that as long as the average energy and its fluctuations are bounded (thus, no rescaling allowed), you cannot go arbitrarily fast from one state to another orthogonal state. This discussion falls under the study of quantum speed limits. This document looks into this field of active research. We shall study with care how the question of a speed limit arises: from varying the Hamiltonians between two fixed states ; and hence produce an accurate speed limit between any two fixed states. The process and results shall develop as concretely and smoothly as the problem which is produced.

Arno Böhm

Anna Napoli, M. Guccione, Antonio Messina +1 more

We show that two interacting physical systems may admit entangled pure or nonseparable mixed states evolving in time as if the mutual interaction Hamiltonian were absent. In this paper we define these interaction-free evolving (IFE) states and characterize their existence for a generic binary system described by a time-independent Hamiltonian. A comparison between IFE subspace and the decoherence-free subspace is reported. The set of all pure IFE states is explicitly constructed for a nonhomogeneous spin-star-system model