Asian Control Conference (ASCC)
Classical and quantum passive systems
Shan Ma
Abstract
The term "passive" is used in both the classical control community and the quantum physics community. In particular, classical passive systems focus on the relation between the output and the input of the systems while quantum passive systems require that the internal components do not produce energy and moreover, the systems dissipate energy to the outside environment. From this viewpoint, classical passive systems and quantum passive systems share some common feature. In this paper, we investigate if quantum passive systems are passive from the perspective of classical passive systems. We find that quantum passive systems satisfy a Riccati equation condition characterizing classical passive systems. The problem is that the Riccati equation condition has a real symmetric matrix solution for classical passive systems. However, for quantum passive systems, we find that the corresponding solution is iI which is symmetric but not real. This fact indicates that a direct generalization of classical passivity by admitting Hermitian solutions may not work for quantum passive systems.