Parameterizing qudit states

Quantum systems with a finite number of states at all times have been a primary element of many physical models in nuclear and elementary particle physics, as well as in condensed matter physics. Today, however, due to a practical demand in the area of developing quantum technologies, a whole set of novel tasks for improving our understanding of the structure of finite-dimensional quantum systems has appeared. In the present article we will concentrate on one aspect of such studies related to the problem of explicit parameterization of state space of an NN-level quantum system. More precisely, we will discuss the problem of a practical description of the unitary SU(N){SU(N)}-invariant counterpart of the NN-level state space BN{\mathcal{B}_N}, i.e., the unitary orbit space BN/SU(N){B_N/SU(N)}. It will be demonstrated that the combination of well-known methods of the polynomial invariant theory and convex geometry provides useful parameterization for the elements of BN/SU(N){B_N/SU(N)}. To illustrate the general situation, a detailed description ofBN/SU(N){B_N/SU(N)} for low-level systems: qubit (N=2{N= 2}), qutrit (N=3{N=3}), quatrit (N=4{N= 4}) - will be given.

On the distribution of the mean energy in the unitary orbit of quantum states

Given a closed quantum system, the states that can be reached with a cyclic process are those with the same spectrum as the initial state. Here we prove that, under a very general assumption on the Hamiltonian, the distribution of the mean extractable work is very close to a gaussian with respect to the Haar measure. We derive bounds for both the moments of the distribution of the mean energy of the state and for its characteristic function, showing that the discrepancy with the normal distribution is increasingly suppressed for large dimensions of the system Hilbert space.

Positive linear maps on normal matrices

For a positive linear map [Formula: see text] and a normal matrix [Formula: see text], we show that [Formula: see text] is bounded by some simple linear combinations in the unitary orbit of [Formula: see text]. Several elegant sharp inequalities are derived, for instance for the Schur product of two normal matrices [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] for some unitary [Formula: see text], where the constant [Formula: see text] is optimal.