论文标题
量子过程的通用时间逆转的演示
Demonstration of universal time-reversal for quantum processes
论文作者
论文摘要
尽管经典物理的定律是确定性的,但热力学通过不可逆的过程产生了一大堆时间。在量子力学中,时间演化的统一性使其本质上可逆,但是如何恢复未知的时间演化的问题仍然存在。值得注意的是,最近有几次证明了在各种情况下,即使与目标系统的相互作用也未知的方案中恢复未知单位的协议。这些通用倒带方案的实际使用受其概率性质的限制,这提出了一个基本问题,即是否可以确定性地进行时间反转。在这里,我们表明,量子物理确实可以通过利用量子运算符的非交换性质来确定性的通用时间逆转,并为两级量子系统提供了具有任意成功可能性的两级量子系统的递归方案。使用光子平台,我们演示了我们的协议,从而恢复了平均状态保真度超过95%的极化状态的离散时间演变。我们的协议不需要对要重新解决的量子过程的了解,在其运行时间内是最佳的,并将量子倒入实际相关性的制度。
Although the laws of classical physics are deterministic, thermodynamics gives rise to an arrow of time through irreversible processes. In quantum mechanics the unitary nature of the time evolution makes it intrinsically reversible, however the question of how to revert an unknown time evolution nevertheless remains. Remarkably, there have been several recent demonstrations of protocols for reverting unknown unitaries in scenarios where even the interactions with the target system are unknown. The practical use of these universal rewinding protocols is limited by their probabilistic nature, raising the fundamental question of whether time-reversal could be performed deterministically. Here we show that quantum physics indeed allows for deterministic universal time-reversal by exploiting the non-commuting nature of quantum operators, and demonstrate a recursive protocol for two-level quantum systems with an arbitrarily high probability of success. Using a photonic platform we demonstrate our protocol, reverting the discrete time evolution of a polarization state with an average state fidelity of over 95%. Our protocol, requiring no knowledge of the quantum process to be rewound, is optimal in its running time, and brings quantum rewinding into a regime of practical relevance.