A dynamical point of view of Quantum Information: entropy, pressure and Wigner measures

Abstract

Quantum Information is a new area of research which has been growing rapidly since the last decade. This topic is very close to potential applications to the so called Quantum Computer. In our point of view it makes sense to develop a more "dynamical point of view" of this theory. We want to consider the concepts of entropy and pressure for "stationary systems" acting on density matrices which generalize the usual ones in Ergodic Theory (in the sense of the Thermodynamic Formalism of R. Bowen, Y. Sinai and D. Ruelle). We consider the operator $\mathcal{L}$ acting on density matrices $\rho\in \mathcal{M}_N$ over a finite $N$-dimensional complex Hilbert space $\mathcal{L}(\rho):=\sum_{i=1}^k tr(W_i\rho W_i^*)V_i\rho V_i^*,$ where $W_i$ and $V_i$, $i=1,2,... k$ are operators in this Hilbert space. $\mathcal{L}$ is not a linear operator. In some sense this operator is a version of an Iterated Function System (IFS). Namely, the $V_i (.) V_i^*=:F_i(.)$, $i=1,2,...,k$, play the role of the inverse branches (acting on the configuration space of density matrices $\rho$) and the $W_i$ play the role of the weights one can consider on the IFS. We also analyze the discrete Wigner function. We suppose that for all $\rho$ we have that $\sum_{i=1}^k tr(W_i\rho W_i^*)=1$. A family $W:=\{W_i\}_{i=1,..., k}$ determines a Quantum Iterated Function System (QIFS) $\mathcal{F}_{W}$, $\mathcal{F}_W=\{\mathcal{M}_N,F_i,W_i\}_{i=1,..., k}.$