We consider a scalar quantum field theory, in which the interaction takes the form of a field cutoff; the energy diverges to infinity whenever the value of the field at some point falls outside a finite interval. In a simple (1+1)-dimensional version of this theory, we may calculate the results of certain scattering processes exactly. The main feature of the nontrivial solutions is the appearance of shock fronts, whose time development is irreversible. The resulting nonunitarity implies that these theories are, at a minimum, radically different from conventional quantum field theories.
A quantum circuit is generalized to a nonunitary one whose constituents are nonunitary gates operated by quantum measurement. It is shown that a specific type of one-qubit nonunitary gates, the controlled-NOT gate, as well as all one-qubit unitary gates constitute a universal set of gates for the nonunitary quantum circuit, without the necessity of introducing ancilla qubits. A reversing measurement scheme is used to improve the probability of successful nonunitary gate operation. A quantum NAND gate and Abrams-Lloyd's nonlinear gate are analyzed as examples. Our nonunitary circuit can be used…
Simulation of quantum matters is a significant application of quantum computers. In contrast to the unitary operation which can be realized naturally on a quantum computer, the implementation of nonunitary operation, widely used in classical approaches, needs special designing. Here, by application of Grover's algorithm, we extend the probabilistic method of implementing nonunitary operation and show that it can promote success probability without fidelity decreasing. This method can be applied to problems of imaginary time evolution and contraction of tensor networks on a quantum computer.
Feynman, in 1982, proposed the idea of using a quantum simulator to perform quantum simulations. A quantum simulator is basically a controllable quantum system that can mimic the dynamics of other quantum systems we wish to study. In this thesis we investigate some aspects of quantum simulation using both unitary and nonunitary controls. In the unitary part, we experimentally simulated the phenomenon of quantum many-body freezing, and also developed a general protocol to decompose an arbitrary unitary operator. In the nonunitary part, we studied phase decoherence by artificially inducing it. W…
We show that the integrable Lindblad superoperators found recently can be used to build integrable nonunitary quantum circuits with two-site gates by demonstrating that the $\check{R}$-matrices are completely positive and trace preserving. Using the bond-site transformation, we obtain the corresponding integrable nonunitary quantum circuits with three-site gates. When restricted to the diagonals of the density matrix, these quantum models reduce to integrable classical cellular automata. This approach may pave the way for a systematic construction of integrable nonunitary quantum circuits.
Practical implementations of quantum computing are always done in the presence of decoherence. Geometric phase is useful in the context of quantum computing as a tool to achieve fault tolerance. Recent experimental progresses on coherent control of single electron have suggested that electron in quantum dot systems is a promising candidate of qubit in future quantum information processing devices. In this paper, by considering a feasible quantum dot model, we calculate the geometric phase of the quantum dot system in nonunitary evolution and investigate the effect of environment parameters on …
We propose and analyze a nonunitary variant of the continuous time Grover search algorithm based on frequent Zeno-type measurements. We show that the algorithm scales similarly to the pure quantum version by deriving tight analytical lower bounds on its efficiency for arbitrary database sizes and measurement parameters. We also study the behavior of the algorithm subject to noise, and find that under certain oracle and operational errors our measurement-based algorithm outperforms the standard algorithm, showing robustness against these noises. Our analysis is based on deriving a non-hermitian…
Irreversible logic is at odds with unitary quantum evolution. Emulating such operations by classical measurements can result in disturbances and high resource demands. To overcome these limitations, we propose protocols that harness dissipation to realize the nonunitary evolution required for irreversible gate operations. Using additional excited states subject to decay, we engineer effective decay processes that perform the desired gate operations on the smallest stable Hilbert space. These operate deterministically and in an autonomous fashion, without the need for measurements. We exemplify…
An indirect quantum state measurement process is under investigation. Common evolution of detector's microscopic part (pointer) and measured system (target) is considered to be nonunitary due to the interaction between pointer and environment. System of differential equations for superoperators, which map initial target state to it's conditional final state is obtained. Developed formalism is applied to the problem of cavity quantum mode photodetection to investigate basic information characteristics of this measurement process.
We report the experimental detection of bulk topological invariants in nonunitary discrete-time quantum walks with single photons. The nonunitarity of the quantum dynamics is enforced by periodically performing partial measurements on the polarization of the walker photon, which effectively introduces loss to the dynamics. The topological invariant of the nonunitary quantum walk is manifested in the quantized average displacement of the walker, which is probed by monitoring the photon loss. We confirm the topological properties of the system by observing localized edge states at the boundary o…
We discuss a class of quantum speed limits (QSLs) based on unified quantum ($α,μ$)-entropy for nonunitary physical processes. The bounds depend on both the Schatten speed and the smallest eigenvalue of the evolved state, and the two-parametric unified entropy. We specialize these results to quantum channels and non-Hermitian evolutions. In the first case, the QSL depends on the Kraus operators related to the quantum channel, while in the second case the speed limit is recast in terms of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. To illustrate these findings, we consider a single-qubit state evolving under…
Geometric phases, arising from cyclic evolutions in a curved parameter space, appear in a wealth of physical settings. Recently, and largely motivated by the need of an experimentally realistic definition for quantum computing applications, the quantum geometric phase was generalized to open systems. The definition takes a kinematical approach, with an initial state that is evolved cyclically but coupled to an environment --- leading to a correction of the geometric phase with respect to the uncoupled case. We obtain this correction by measuring the nonunitary evolution of the reduced density …
Observation of Criticality-Enhanced Quantum Sensing in Nonunitary Quantum Walks
Southeast University（东南大学）；University of Electronic Science and Technology of China（电子科技大学）；Anhui University（安徽大学）；Tianfu Jiangxi Laboratory（天府江西实验室）；Beijing Computational Science Research Center（北京计算科学研究中心）
We explore the nonunitary dynamics of $(2+1)$-dimensional free fermions and show that the obtained steady state is critical regardless the strength of the nonunitary evolution. Numerical results indicate that the entanglement entropy has a logarithmic violation of the area-law and the mutual information between two distant regions decays as a power-law function. In particular, we provide an interpretation of these scaling behaviors in terms of a simple quasiparticle pair picture. In addition, we study the dynamics of the correlation function and demonstrate that this system has dynamical expon…
We consider a collapsing relativistic spherical shell for a free quantum field. Once the center of the wavefunction of the shell passes a certain radius R, the degrees of freedom inside R are traced over. We show that an observer outside this region will determine that the evolution of the system is nonunitary. We argue that this phenomenon is generic to entangled systems, and discuss a possible relation to black hole physics.
The localization of a quantum state is numerically exhibited in a nonunitary Newtonian model for gravity. It is shown that an unlocalized state of a ball of mass just above the expected threshold of 10^11 proton masses evolves into a mixed state with vanishing coherences above some localization lengths.
The Yang-Lee edge singularity is a quintessential nonunitary critical phenomenon accompanied by anomalous scaling laws. However, an imaginary magnetic field involved in this critical phenomenon makes its physical implementation difficult. By invoking the quantum-classical correspondence to embed the Yang-Lee edge singularity in a quantum system with an ancilla qubit, we demonstrate a physical realization of the nonunitary quantum criticality in an open quantum system. Here the nonunitary criticality is identified with the singularity at an exceptional point caused by postselection of quantum m…
We first discuss the geometrical construction and the main mathematical features of the maximum-entropy-production/steepest-entropy-ascent nonlinear evolution equation proposed long ago by this author in the framework of a fully quantum theory of irreversibility and thermodynamics for a single isolated or adiabatic particle, qubit, or qudit, and recently rediscovered by other authors. The nonlinear equation generates a dynamical group, not just a semigroup, providing a deterministic description of irreversible conservative relaxation towards equilibrium from any non-equilibrium density operato…
The problem of unambiguously distinguishing among nonorthogonal but linearly independent quantum states can be solved by mapping the set of nonorthogonal quantum states onto a set of orthogonal ones, which can then be distinguished without error. Such nonunitary transformations can be performed conditionally on quantum systems; a unitary transformation is carried out on a larger system of which the system of interest is a subsytem, a measurement is performed, and if the proper result is obtained, the desired nonunitary transformation will have been performed on the subsystem. We show how to co…
Aim of this work is to calculate explicitly the result of the experiment of superposition of a mirror in the Michelson photon cavities interferometric device proposed by Marshall, Simon, Penrose and Bownmeester, as expected within a recently proposed model of non-unitary self-gravity inducing localization. As for other proposals of modifications of Quantum Mechanics in a non-unitary sense, aimed to account for both unitary evolution and irreversible collapse, like in the famous Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber and Pearle's models, it turns out that, for the experimental parameters proposed, no effect is …
We explicitly construct an integrable and strongly interacting dissipative quantum circuit via a trotterization of the Hubbard model with imaginary interaction strength. To prove integrability, we build an inhomogeneous transfer matrix, from which conserved superoperator charges can be derived, in particular, the circuit's dynamical generator. After showing the trace preservation and complete positivity of local maps, we reinterpret them as the Kraus representation of the local dynamics of free fermions with single-site dephasing. The integrability of the map is broken by adding interactions t…
We describe the decoherence process induced on a two-level quantum system in direct interaction with a non-equilibrium environment. The non-equilibrium feature is represented by a non-stationary random function corresponding to the fluctuating transition frequency between two quantum states coupled to the surroundings. In this framework, we compute the decoherence factors which have a characteristic "dip" related to the initial phases of the bath modes. We therefore study different types of environments, namely ohmic and supra-ohmic. These environments present different decoherence time-scales…
Unitary transformations are routinely modeled and implemented in the field of quantum optics. In contrast, nonunitary transformations that can involve loss and gain require a different approach. In this theory work, we present a universal method to deal with nonunitary networks. An input to the method is an arbitrary linear transformation matrix of optical modes that does not need to adhere to bosonic commutation relations. The method constructs a transformation that includes the network of interest and accounts for full quantum optical effects related to loss and gain. Furthermore, through a …
We calculate the geometric phase for an open system (spin-boson model) which interacts with an environment (ohmic or nonohmic) at arbitrary temperature. However there have been many assumptions about the time scale at which the geometric phase can be measured, there has been no reported observation yet for mixed states under nonunitary evolution. We study not only how they are corrected by the presence of the different type of environments but also estimate the corresponding times at which decoherence becomes effective. These estimations should be taken into account when planning experimental …
The variational method is a powerful approach to solve many-body quantum problems non perturbatively. However, in the context of relativistic quantum field theory (QFT), it needs to meet 3 seemingly incompatible requirements outlined by Feynman: extensivity, computability, and lack of UV sensitivity. In practice, variational methods break one of the 3, which translates into the need to have an IR or UV cutoff. In this letter, I introduce a relativistic modification of continuous matrix product states that satisfies the 3 requirements jointly in 1+1 dimensions. I apply it to the self-interactin…
A conceptually simple method for derivation of lower bounds on the error exponent of specific families of block codes used on classical-quantum channels with arbitrary signal states over a finite Hilbert space is presented. It is shown that families of binary block codes with appropriately rescaled binomial multiplicity enumerators used on binary classical-quantum channels and decoded by the suboptimal decision rule introduced by Holevo attain the expurgated and cutoff rate lower bounds on the error exponent.
In this report, we study the reduced conditional dynamics of a quantum system in the case of indirect quantum measurement. The detectors microscopic part (pointer) interacts with the measured system (target) and the environment, which results in a nonunitary interaction between target and pointer. The quantum state evolution conditioned by the measurement result is under investigation. Particularly, we are interested in explicit analytical expressions for the conditional evolution superoperators and basic information characteristics of this measurement process, which is applied to the cavity m…
Quantum probing consists of suitably exploiting a simple, small, and controllable quantum system to characterize a larger and more complex system. Here, we address the estimation of the cutoff frequency of the Ohmic spectral density of a harmonic reservoir by quantum probes. To this aim, we address the use of single-qubit and two-qubit systems and different kinds of coupling with the bath of oscillators. We assess the estimation precision by the quantum Fisher information of the sole quantum probe as well as the corresponding quantum signal-to-noise ratio. We prove that, for most of the values…
Probabilistic Cutoffs in Homogeneous Quantum Repeater Chains
QuTech, Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学 QuTech）；Quantum Computer Science, EEMCS, Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学 EEMCS 量子计算机科学）；Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学 卡弗里纳米科学研究所）；College of Information and Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst（马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校 信息与计算机科学学院）
Quantum controls realize the unitary or nonunitary operations employed in quantum computers, quantum simulators, quantum communications, and other quantum information devices. They implement the desired quantum dynamics with the help of electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic control fields. Quantum optimal control (QOC) deals with designing an optimal control field modulation that most precisely implements a desired quantum operation with minimum energy consumption and maximum robustness against hardware imperfections as well as external noise. Over the last two decades, numerous QOC methods h…
In this paper, we introduce a new alternative quantum fidelity for quantum states which perfectly satisfies all Jozsas axioms and is zero for orthogonal states. By employing this fidelity, we derive an improved bound for quantum speed limit time in open quantum systems in which the initial states can be chosen as either pure or mixed. This bound leads to the well-known Mandelstamm-Tamm type bound for nonunitary dynamics in the case of initial pure states. However, in the case of initial mixed states, the bound provided by the introduced fidelity is tighter and sharper than the obtained bounds …
I introduce a modification of continuous matrix product states (CMPS) that makes them adapted to relativistic quantum field theories (QFT). These relativistic CMPS can be used to solve genuine 1+1 dimensional QFT without UV cutoff and directly in the thermodynamic limit. The main idea is to work directly in the basis that diagonalizes the free part of the model considered, which allows to fit its short distance behavior exactly. This makes computations slightly less trivial than with standard CMPS. However, they remain feasible and I present all the steps needed for the optimization. The asymp…
A strong analog classical simulation of general quantum evolution is proposed, which serves as a novel scheme in quantum computation and simulation. The scheme employs the approach of geometric quantum mechanics and quantum informational technique of quantum tomography, which applies broadly to cases of mixed states, nonunitary evolution, and infinite dimensional systems. The simulation provides an intriguing classical picture to probe quantum phenomena, namely, a coherent quantum dynamics can be viewed as a globally constrained classical Hamiltonian dynamics of a collection of coupled particl…
We propose that finite cutoff regions of holographic spacetimes represent quantum circuits that map between boundary states at different times and Wilsonian cutoffs, and that the complexity of those quantum circuits is given by the gravitational action. The optimal circuit minimizes the gravitational action. This is a generalization of both the "complexity equals volume" conjecture to unoptimized circuits, and path integral optimization to finite cutoffs. Using tools from holographic $T\bar T$, we find that surfaces of constant scalar curvature play a special role in optimizing quantum circuit…
We derive upper and lower bounds on the convergence behavior of certain classes of one-parameter quantum dynamical semigroups. The classes we consider consist of tensor product channels and of channels with commuting Liouvillians. We introduce the notion of Cutoff Phenomenon in the setting of quantum information theory, and show how it exemplifies the fact that the convergence of (quantum) stochastic processes is not solely governed by the spectral gap of the transition map. We apply the new methods to show that graph states can be prepared efficiently, albeit not in constant time, by dissipat…
Realistic dynamical theories of measurement based on the diffusion of quantum states are nonunitary, whereas quantum field theory and its generalizations are unitary. This problem in the quantum field theory of quantum state diffusion (QSD) appears already in the Lagrangian formulation of QSD as a classical equation of motion, where Liouville's theorem does not apply to the usual field theory formulation. This problem is resolved here by doubling the number of freedoms used to represent a quantum field. The space of quantum fields is then a classical configuration space, for which volume need …
We consider the nonunitary quantum dynamics of neutral massless scalar particles used to model photons around a massive gravitational lens. The gravitational interaction between the lensing mass and asymptotically free particles is described by their second-quantized scattering wavefunctions. Remarkably, the zero-point spacetime fluctuations can induce significant decoherence of the scattered states with spontaneous emission of gravitons, thereby reducing the particles' coherence as well as energy. This new effect suggests that, when photon polarizations are negligible, such quantum gravity ph…
Based on homodyne detection, we discuss how the presence of an event horizon affects quantum communication between an inertial partner, Alice, and a uniformly accelerated partner, Rob. We show that there exists a low frequency cutoff for Rob's homodyne detector that maximizes the signal to noise ratio and it approximately corresponds to the Unruh frequency. In addition, the low frequency cutoff which minimizes the conditional variance between Alice's input state and Rob's output state is also approximately equal to the Unruh frequency. Thus the Unruh frequency provides a natural low frequency …
