arXiv subjects

Fabio Benatti

Publications and source records attributed to Fabio Benatti.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Sparse positive maps on qutrits with exact nondecomposability thresholds and PPT-entanglement transitions

We study a family of sparse positive maps on qutrits for which positivity, decomposability, and PPT entanglement can all be analysed explicitly. The block structure of the associated Choi matrices reduces positivity to a Hermitian biquadratic form and leads to exact positivity boundaries for three representative parametric families. For the same families we determine the exact transition between decomposable and non-decomposable maps and construct associated PPT states of two classes. The first consists of witness-adapted deformations naturally tied to the non-decomposability analysis. The second consists of analytically tractable families whose full PPT-entangled branch is detected by fixed positive maps, yielding exact thresholds between separability and bound entanglement. For the trace-preserving subclass, we further compare positivity with a recent eigenvalue bound for 2-positive maps, thereby making the gap between positivity and higher-order positivity fully explicit within this family.

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arXiv2026

Open quantum dynamics without Complete Positivity: a criticism

The requirement of complete positivity is very often regarded as a fundamental consistency condition for the description of open quantum dynamics. We critically examine this requirement and discuss both its physical motivations and its limitations. We analyze proposals based on restricting the domain of non-completely positive maps to subsets of compatible initial states. Using isotropic states as a concrete example, we show that such domain restrictions become increasingly severe with growing system dimension, revealing an intrinsic weakness of the compatibility-based approach.

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arXiv2026

Generating Non-Decomposable Maps with Differentiable Semidefinite Programming

Positive maps that are not decomposable are a key resource in entanglement theory because they can detect bound entangled states, yet systematic methods for constructing them remain limited. We introduce an optimization framework based on differentiable semidefinite programming (SDP) for generating positive non-decomposable maps under flexible structural constraints on their Choi matrices. The method combines SDP-based certificates of non-decomposability and positivity with gradient-based optimization, enabling a systematic search over maps with different input and output dimensions. Within this framework, we generate previously unknown numerical examples, identify a parametrized family of maps arising from masked Choi matrices, and construct real non-decomposable maps. We further show that the same approach can be adapted to explore open questions in quantum information theory, including the PPT square conjecture and recently proposed eigenvalue bounds for 2-positive trace-preserving maps.

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arXiv2026

Quantum Dynamical Entropy and non-Markovianity: a collisional model perspective

Accessing the physical mechanisms behind non-Markovian phenomena in open quantum dynamics requires the study of the statistical properties of the joint system-environment dynamics. This is impossible at the level of the reduced dynamics of the open system alone as the latter is obtained by suitably eliminating the environment. The task is instead made possible by considering multi-time correlation functions involving observables of the open system, only: the open system-environment interactions turn them into global ones thus building up correlations between the two systems. Multi-time correlations form the basis of both the theory of quantum stochastic processes and of the Alicki-Lindblad-Fannes dynamical entropy (ALF entropy for short). This latter quantity provides for quantum systems a measure of the dynamical entropy production as the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy does for classical systems. In the case of a collisional model whereby the dissipative dynamics of a finite-level system is obtained by its coupling to an infinite classical spin chain, the ALF entropy can be explicitly computed. It turns out to depend on the parameters characterizing the statistical properties of the environment and can be related to the activation and super-activation of memory effects in the open quantum system.

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arXiv2026

Quantum Dynamical Entropy and Dissipative Information Flows

The Alicki-Lindblad-Fannes dynamical (ALF) entropy measures the rate at which new information is gathered about a quantum system by inspecting its long-time evolution. We propose an extension of the ALF entropy to open quantum dynamics as a measure of back-flow of information from the environment. Such a proposal is stronger than the existing ones based only on the open system reduced dynamics. In the case of a qubit collisionally coupled to a classical spin chain, we obtain an exact expression for the $\textit{open-system ALF entropy}$ explicitly depending on the environment correlations. An extreme case shows how the information flow from environment to system corresponds to vanishing entropy production as for reversible finite quantum systems.

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arXiv2025

Pseudo quantum advantages in perceptron storage capacity

We investigate a generalized quantum perceptron architecture characterized by an oscillating activation function with a tunable frequency ranging from zero to infinity. Employing analytical techniques from statistical mechanics, we derive the optimal storage capacity and demonstrate that the classical result is recovered in the limit of vanishing frequency. As the frequency increases, however, the architecture exhibits enhanced quantum storage capabilities. Notably, this improvement stems solely from the specific form of the activation function and, in principle, could be emulated within a classical framework. Accordingly, we refer to this enhancement as a pseudo quantum advantage.

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arXiv2025

Open harmonic chain without secular approximation

We study particle and energy transport in an open quantum system consisting of a three harmonic oscillator chain coupled to thermal baths at different temperatures placed at the ends of the chain. We consider the exact dynamics of the open chain and its so-called local and global Markovian approximations. By comparing them, we show that, while all three yield a divergence-like continuity equation for the probability flow, the energy flow exhibits instead a distinct behavior. The exact dynamics and the local one preserve a standard divergence form for the energy transport, whereas the global open dynamics, due to the rotating wave approximation (RWA), introduces non-divergence sink/source terms. These terms also affect the continuity equation in the case of a master equation obtained through a time-coarse-graining method whereby RWA is avoided through a time-zoom parameter $\Delta t$. In such a scenario, sink and source contributions are always present for each $\Delta t>0$. While in the limit $\Delta t\to+\infty$ one recovers the global dissipative dynamics, sink and source terms instead vanish when $\Delta t\to 0$, restoring the divergence structure of the exact dynamics. Our results underscore how the choice of the dissipative Markovian approximation to an open system dynamics critically influences the energy transport descriptions, with implications for discriminating among them and thus, ultimately, for the correct modeling of the time-evolution of open quantum many-body systems.

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arXiv2025

An open harmonic chain: Exact vs global and local reduced dynamics

In the following, we study the dissipative time-evolution of a quantum chain consisting of three coupled harmonic oscillators, the first and third of which weakly interact quadratically with two independent thermal baths in equilibrium at different temperatures. Due to the quadratic form of the total Hamiltonian, the unitary dynamics of the compound system is formally analytically solvable and defines a one-parameter group of Gaussian maps which enables us to solve the exact dynamics of the chain numerically. Following the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) approach to open quantum systems, one can perform the rotating wave approximation with respect to the interacting, or non-interacting chain Hamiltonian and respectively derive the so-called global and local master equations. The solutions of the ensuing different master equations can then be compared with the exact one, possibly sorting out the two approaches in correspondence to different time-scales of the system. We derive the steady states of the open chain quantum dynamics in the two approaches and show that the behaviour of fidelity between them versus inter-oscillator coupling depends on the two bath temperatures, revealing the existence of a temperature-dependent critical inter-oscillator coupling strength that determines the domain of validity of each approach. When the newly found coupling is less than this critical value, the local approach outperforms the global approach, whereas for larger inter-oscillator coupling, the global approach is a better approximation of the exact evolution. This critical value of inter-oscillator coupling depends on the two bath temperatures, which then play a crucial role in deciding the best possible approximating open dynamics.

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arXiv2025

Superactivation of memory effects in a classical Markov environment

We investigate a phenomenon known as Superactivation of Backflow of Information (SBFI); namely, the fact that the tensor product of a non-Markovian dynamics with itself exhibits Backflow of Information (BFI) from environment to system even if the single dynamics does not. Such an effect is witnessed by the non-monotonic behaviour of the Helstrom norm and emerges in the open dynamics of two independent, but statistically coupled, parties. We physically interpret SBFI by means of the discrete-time non-Markovian dynamics of two open qubits collisionally coupled to an environment described by a classical Markov chain. In such a scenario SBFI can be ascribed to the decrease of the qubit-qubit-environment correlations in favour of those of the two qubits, only. We further prove that the same mechanism at the roots of SBFI also holds in a suitable continuous-time limit. We also show that SBFI does not require entanglement to be witnessed, but only the quantumness of the Helstrom ensemble.

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arXiv2024

Quantum versus classical $P$-divisibility

$P$-divisibility is a central concept in both classical and quantum non-Markovian processes; in particular, it is strictly related to the notion of information backflow. When restricted to a fixed commutative algebra generated by a complete set of orthogonal projections, any quantum dynamics naturally provides a classical stochastic process. It is indeed well known that a quantum generator gives rise to a $P$-divisible quantum dynamics if and only if all its possible classical reductions give rise to divisible classical stochastic processes. Yet, this property does not hold if one operates a classical reduction of the quantum dynamical maps instead of their generators: as an example, for a unitary dynamics, $P$-divisibility of its classical reduction is inevitably lost, which thus exhibits information backflow. Instead, for some important classes of purely dissipative qubit evolutions, quantum $P$-divisibility always implies classical $P$-divisibility and thus lack of information backflow both in the quantum and classical scenarios. On the contrary, for a wide class of orthogonally covariant qubit dynamics, we show that loss of classical $P$-divisibility can originate from the classical reduction of a purely dissipative $P$-divisible quantum dynamics as in the unitary case. Moreover, such an effect can be interpreted in terms of information backflow, the information coming in being stored in the coherences of the time-evolving quantum state.

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arXiv2024

Ultrafast pump-probe phase-randomized tomography

Measuring fluctuations in matter's low energy excitations is the key to unveil the nature of the nonequilibrium response of materials. A promising outlook in this respect is offered by spectroscopic methods that address matter fluctuations by exploiting the statistical nature of light-matter interactions with weak few-photon probes. Here we report the first implementation of ultrafast phase randomized tomography, combining pump-probe experiments with quantum optical state tomography, to measure the ultrafast non-equilibrium dynamics in complex materials. Our approach utilizes a time-resolved multimode heterodyne detection scheme with phase-randomized coherent ultrashort laser pulses, overcoming the limitations of phase-stable configurations and enabling a robust reconstruction of the statistical distribution of phase-averaged optical observables. This methodology is validated by measuring the coherent phonon response in $α$-quartz. By tracking the dynamics of the shot-noise limited photon number distribution of few-photon probes with ultrafast resolution, our results set an upper limit to the non-classical features of phononic state in $α$-quartz and provide a pathway to access nonequilibrium quantum fluctuations in more complex quantum materials.

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arXiv2024

Decoherence Cancellation through Noise Interference

We propose a novel, feedback-free method to cancel the effects of decoherence in the dynamics of open quantum systems subject to dephasing. The protocol makes use of the coupling with an auxiliary system when they are both subject to the same noisy dynamics, in such a way that their interaction leads to cancellation of the noise on the system itself. This requires tuning the strength of the coupling between main and auxiliary systems as well as the ability to prepare the auxiliary system in a Fock state, which solely depends on the coupling strength. We investigate the protocol's efficiency to protect NOON states against dephasing in setups such as tweezers arrays of cold atoms. We show that the protocol's efficiency is robust against fluctuations of the optimal parameters and, remarkably, that it is independent of the temporal noise features. Therefore, it can be applied to cancel both Markovian and non-Markovian noise effects, in the regime where error-correction protocols become inefficient.

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arXiv2024

Open Quantum Dynamics: Memory Effects and Superactivation of Backflow of Information

We investigate the divisibility properties of the tensor products $Λ^{(1)}_t\otimesΛ^{(2)}_t$ of open quantum dynamics $Λ^{(1,2)}_t$ with time-dependent generators. These dynamical maps emerge from a compound open system $S_1+S_2$ that interacts with its own environment in such a way that memory effects remain when the environment is traced away. This study is motivated by the following intriguing effect: one can have Backflow of Information (BFI) from the environment to $S_1+S_2$ without the same phenomenon occurring for either $S_1$ and $S_2$. We shall refer to this effect as the Superactivation of BFI (SBFI).

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arXiv2023

Machine Learning Catalysis of Quantum Tunneling

Optimizing the probability of quantum tunneling between two states, while keeping the resources of the underlying physical system constant, is a task of key importance due to its critical role in various applications. We show that, by applying Machine Learning techniques when the system is coupled to an ancilla, one optimizes the parameters of both the ancillary component and the coupling, ultimately resulting in the maximization of the tunneling probability. We provide illustrative examples for the paradigmatic scenario involving a two-mode system and a two-mode ancilla in the presence of several interacting particles. Physically, the increase of the tunneling probability is rooted in the decrease of the two-well asymmetry due to the coherent oscillations induced by the coupling to the ancilla. We also argue that the enhancement of the tunneling probability is not hampered by weak coupling to noisy environments.

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arXiv2023

Catalysis of quantum tunneling by ancillary system learning

Given the key role that quantum tunneling plays in a wide range of applications, a crucial objective is to maximize the probability of tunneling from one quantum state/level to another, while keeping the resources of the underlying physical system fixed. In this work, we demonstrate that an effective solution to this challenge can be achieved by coupling the tunneling system with an ancillary system of the same kind. By utilizing machine learning techniques, the parameters of both the ancillary system and the coupling can be optimized, leading to the maximization of the tunneling probability. We provide illustrative examples for the paradigmatic scenario involving a two-mode system and a two-mode ancilla with arbitrary couplings and in the presence of several interacting particles. Importantly, the enhancement of the tunneling probability appears to be minimally affected by noise and decoherence in both the system and the ancilla.

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arXiv2023

Entanglement generation through Markovian feed-back in open two-qubit systems

We discuss the generation and the long-time persistence of entanglement in open two-qubit systems whose reduced dissipative dynamics is not apriori engineered but is instead subjected to filtering and Markovian feedback. In particular, we analytically study 1.) whether the latter operations may enhance the environment capability of generating entanglement at short times and 2.) whether the generated entaglement survives in the long-time regime. We show that, in the case of particularly symmetric Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) it is possible to fully control the convex set of stationary states of the two-qubit reduced dynamics, therefore the asymptotic behaviour of any initial two-qubit state. We then study the impact of a suitable class of feed-back operations on the considered dynamics.

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arXiv2023

On the capacity of a quantum perceptron for storing biased patterns

Although different architectures of quantum perceptrons have been recently put forward, the capabilities of such quantum devices versus their classical counterparts remain debated. Here, we consider random patterns and targets independently distributed with biased probabilities and investigate the storage capacity of a continuous quantum perceptron model that admits a classical limit, thus facilitating the comparison of performances. Such a more general context extends a previous study of the quantum storage capacity where using statistical mechanics techniques in the limit of a large number of inputs, it was proved that no quantum advantages are to be expected concerning the storage properties. This outcome is due to the fuzziness inevitably introduced by the intrinsic stochasticity of quantum devices. We strengthen such an indication by showing that the possibility of indefinitely enhancing the storage capacity for highly correlated patterns, as it occurs in a classical setting, is instead prevented at the quantum level.

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arXiv2021

Pattern capacity of a single quantum perceptron

Recent developments in Quantum Machine Learning have seen the introduction of several models to generalize the classical perceptron to the quantum regime. The capabilities of these quantum models need to be determined precisely in order to establish if a quantum advantage is achievable. Here we use a statistical physics approach to compute the pattern capacity of a particular model of quantum perceptron realized by means of a continuous variable quantum system.

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