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Physical Review A

Path distance of a quantum unitary evolution

Jie‐Hui Huang, Shan-Shan Dong, Guang-Long Chen, Nanrun Zhou, Fu-Yao Liu, Li‐Guo Qin

Published Aug 7, 2023• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The Hamiltonian and evolution time of a quantum unitary system completely determine a unitary operator, which turns an initial state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ into its time-evolved state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{t}$ and may also turn another state ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{0}$ into its time-evolved state ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{t}$. Although the two pairs of states $({\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0},{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{t})$ and $({\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{0},{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{t})$ are governed by the same Hamiltonian and experience equal evolution periods, their state distances are not necessarily equal to each other. Specifically, the evolution operator contains information about the evolution other than that reflected by two specific states connected through it. As a matter of fact, two pairs of states with different state distances may have equal path distances. Here we propose a geometric measure for the path distance contained in a quantum unitary evolution, which depends only on the unitary operator itself and is independent of any pair of states connected through it. This path distance meets the basic requirements for a good measure of distance and is valid during the whole evolution process, no matter how long the evolution time is. This path distance is bounded by the path length of the evolution from above and by the Bures angle between the two states connected through it from below. It has potential applications in quantum information processing, such as providing another way to study the optimal control between two quantum states. We finally present the form of Hamiltonian to realize a unitary operator on demand.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.108.022204

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The Hamiltonian and evolution time of a quantum unitary system completely determine a unitary operator, which turns an initial state \ensuremathρ0{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}\ensuremathρ0​ into its time-evolved state \ensuremathρt{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{t}\ensuremathρt​ and may also turn another state \ensuremathσ0{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{0}\ensuremathσ0​ into its time-evolved state \ensuremathσt{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{t}\ensuremathσt​. Although the two pairs of states (\ensuremathρ0,\ensuremathρt)({\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0},{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{t})(\ensuremathρ0​,\ensuremathρt​) and (\ensuremathσ0,\ensuremathσt)({\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{0},{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{t})(\ensuremathσ0​,\ensuremathσt​) are governed by the same Hamiltonian and experience equal evolution periods, their state distances are not necessarily equal to each other. Specifically, the evolution operator contains information about the evolution other than that reflected by two specific states connected through it. As a matter of fact, two pairs of states with different state distances may have equal path distances. Here we propose a geometric measure for the path distance contained in a quantum unitary evolution, which depends only on the unitary operator itself and is independent of any pair of states connected through it. This path distance meets the basic requirements for a good measure of distance and is valid during the whole evolution process, no matter how long the evolution time is. This path distance is bounded by the path length of the evolution from above and by the Bures angle between the two states connected through it from below. It has potential applications in quantum information processing, such as providing another way to study the optimal control between two quantum states. We finally present the form of Hamiltonian to realize a unitary operator on demand.
In a quantum unitary system, an initial state may have different paths to evolve to a target state, and the only requirement is that the initial and target states share the same eigenvalue spectrum. We focus on the evolution between two nondegenerate mixed states in this paper, and investigate the shortest evolution path between them. By minimizing the path distance contained in the unitary operator connecting the initial and target states over a series of phases, the shortest evolution path could be figured out. This minimum path distance has an analytical form in the single-qubit dynamical system, and its solution in the three- or higher-dimensional dynamical system could be obtained numerically. Based on the unitary operator associated with the shortest evolution path, a general form for the Hamiltonian to realize it is presented. Here we present another way to study quantum optimal control, which is based on the path distance between the initial state and its evolution state, rather than the state distance between them.
The average energy and energy spread of a quantum system are two important factors that affect a system's evolution speed, which is usually defined as the changing rate of the distance between a quantum state and the state during its evolution. Alternatively, the evolution speed of a quantum system could also be studied based on its evolution path. It is found that if we define the evolution speed of a quantum unitary system as the changing rate of the path distance between a quantum state and the state during its evolution, the instantaneous evolution speed is determined by the Hamiltonian's eigenvalues, rather than its expectation value or variance imposed on any quantum state. More specifically, the range of the Hamiltonian's eigenvalues determines the evolution speed of a quantum system through the relation ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{H}=\frac{1}{2}({\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{max}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{min})$, which is independent of the quantum state. Given an initial state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ in a quantum unitary system, the minimum time required to evolve it to a target state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ is ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{min}=\frac{{\mathcal{L}}_{min}({\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0},{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}})}{{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{H}}$, where ${\mathcal{L}}_{min}({\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0},{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}})$ is the path distance contained in the shortest evolution from ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ to ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$. This lower bound of the evolution time is tight and achievable in a finite-energy system.
Geometric effects make evolution time vary for different evolution curves that connect the same two quantum states. Thus, it is important to be able to control along which path a quantum state evolve to achieve maximal speed in quantum calculations. In this paper we establish fundamental relations between Hamiltonian dynamics and Riemannian structures on the phase spaces of unitarily evolving finite-level quantum systems. In particular, we show that the Riemannian distance between two density operators equals the infimum of the energy dispersions of all possible evolution curves connecting the two density operators. This means, essentially, that the evolution time is a controllable quantity. The paper also contains two applied sections. First, we give a geometric derivation of the Mandelstam-Tamm estimate for the evolution time between two distinguishable mixed states. Secondly, we show how to equip the Hamiltonians acting on systems whose states are represented by invertible density operators with control parameters, and we formulate conditions for these that, when met, makes the Hamiltonians transport density operators along geodesics.
The problem of quantifying the difference between evolutions of an open quantum system (in particular, between the actual evolution of an open system and the ideal target operation on the corresponding closed system) is important in quantum control, especially in control of quantum information processing. Motivated by this problem, we develop a measure for evaluating the distance between unitary evolution operators of a composite quantum system that consists of a sub-system of interest (e.g. a quantum information processor) and environment. The main characteristic of this measure is the invariance with respect to the effect of the evolution operator on the environment, which follows from an equivalence relation that exists between unitary operators acting on the composite system, when the effect on only the sub-system of interest is considered. The invariance to the environment's transformation makes it possible to quantitatively compare the evolution of an open quantum system and its closed counterpart. The distance measure also determines the fidelity bounds of a general quantum channel (a completely positive and trace-preserving map acting on the sub-system of interest) with respect to a unitary target transformation. This measure is also independent of the initial state of the system and straightforward to numerically calculate. As an example, the measure is used in numerical simulations to evaluate fidelities of optimally controlled quantum gate operations (for one- and two-qubit systems), in the presence of a decohering environment. This example illustrates the utility of this measure for optimal control of quantum operations in the realistic case of open-system dynamics.
We introduce a metric in a geometric way for measuring the distance between two quantum states and derive the instantaneous angular velocity of a quantum state's dynamical evolution, which has two components: $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{E}_{t}/\ensuremath{\hbar}$ in the longitudinal direction and ${\overline{E}}_{t}/\ensuremath{\hbar}$ in the latitudinal direction. By applying the instantaneous angular velocities in the dynamical evolution governed by a time-independent Hamiltonian, the fastest way for a pure state to evolve to a target state is discussed. As a consequence, we generalize the Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin bounds without using the Heisenberg uncertainty relation and point out the conditions for saturating the two bounds. The fastest dynamical evolution of a quantum system with a particular time-dependent Hamiltonian is also briefly discussed. The quantum features in the dynamical evolution are revealed through phase change and lifetime of the initial state.
For any pair of quantum states, an initial state |I and a final quantum state |F , in a Hilbert space, there are many Hamiltonians H under which |I evolves into |F .Let us impose the constraint that the difference between the largest and smallest eigenvalues of H, E max and E min , is held fixed.We can then determine the Hamiltonian H that satisfies this constraint and achieves the transformation from the initial state to the final state in the least possible time τ .For Hermitian Hamiltonians, τ has a nonzero lower bound.However, among non-Hermitian PT -symmetric Hamiltonians satisfying the same energy constraint, τ can be made arbitrarily small without violating the time-energy uncertainty principle.The minimum value of τ can be made arbitrarily small because for PT -symmetric Hamiltonians the path from the vector |I to the vector |F , as measured using the Hilbert-space metric appropriate for this theory, can be made arbitrarily short.The mechanism described here is similar to that in general relativity in which the distance between two space-time points can be made small if they are connected by a wormhole.This result may have applications in quantum computing.