Reinhard F. Werner

Embezzlement of entanglement refers to the counterintuitive possibility of extracting entangled quantum states from a reference state of an auxiliary system (the "embezzler") via local quantum operations while hardly perturbing the latter. We uncover a deep connection between the operational task of embezzling entanglement and the mathematical classification of von Neumann algebras. Our result implies that relativistic quantum fields are universal embezzlers: any entangled state of any dimension can be embezzled from them with arbitrary precision. This provides an operational characterization of the infinite amount of entanglement present in the vacuum state of relativistic quantum field theories.

We consider the quantum dynamics of a particle on a lattice for large times. Assuming translation invariance, and either discrete or continuous time parameter, the distribution of the ballistically scaled position Q(t)/t converges weakly to a distribution that is compactly supported in velocity space, essentially the distribution of group velocity in the initial state. We show that the total probability of velocities strictly outside the support of the asymptotic measure goes to zero exponentially with t, and we provide a simple method to estimate the exponential rate uniformly in the initial state. Near the boundary of the allowed region the rate function goes to zero like the power 3/2 of the distance to the boundary. The method is illustrated in several examples.

In the case of a quantum-classical hybrid system with a finite number of degrees of freedom, the problem of characterizing the most general dynamical semigroup is solved, under the restriction of being quasi-free. This is a generalization of a Gaussian dynamics, and it is defined by the property of sending (hybrid) Weyl operators into Weyl operators in the Heisenberg description. The result is a quantum generalization of the Lévy–Khintchine formula; Gaussian and jump contributions are included. As a byproduct, the most general quasi-free quantum-dynamical semigroup is obtained; on the classical side the Liouville equation and the Kolmogorov–Fokker–Planck equation are included. As a classical subsystem can be observed, in principle, without perturbing it, information can be extracted from the quantum system, even in continuous time; indeed, the whole construction is related to the theory of quantum measurements in continuous time. While the dynamics is formulated to give the hybrid state at a generic time [ ], we show how to extract multi-time probabilities and how to connect them to the quantum notions of positive operator-valued measure and instrument. The structure of the generator of the dynamical semigroup is analyzed, in order to understand how to go on to non-quasi-free cases and to understand the possible classical-quantum interactions; in particular, all the interaction terms which allow to extract information from the quantum system necessarily vanish if no dissipation is present in the dynamics of the quantum component. A concrete example is given, showing how a classical component can input noise into a quantum one and how the classical system can extract information on the behavior of the quantum one.

Many features of physical systems, both qualitative and quantitative, become sharply defined or tractable only in some limiting situation. Examples are phase transitions in the thermodynamic limit, the emergence of classical mechanics from quantum theory at large action, and continuum quantum field theory arising from renormalization group fixed points. It would seem that few methods can be useful in such diverse applications. However, we here present a flexible modeling tool for the limit of theories, soft inductive limits, constituting a generalization of inductive limits of Banach spaces. In this context, general criteria for the convergence of dynamics will be formulated, and these criteria will be shown to apply in the situations mentioned and more.

Lauritz van Luijk, Reinhard F. Werner, and Henrik Wilming, Quantum 7, 1166 (2023). Catalysts are quantum systems that open up dynamical pathways between quantum states which are otherwise inaccessible under a given set of operational restrictions while, at the same time, t…

Catalysts are quantum systems that open up dynamical pathways between quantum states which are otherwise inaccessible under a given set of operational restrictions while, at the same time, they do not change their quantum state. We here consider the restrictions imposed by symmetries and conservation laws, where any quantum channel has to be covariant with respect to the unitary representation of a symmetry group, and present two results. First, for an exact catalyst to be useful, it has to build up correlations to either the system of interest or the degrees of freedom dilating the given process to covariant unitary dynamics. This explains why catalysts in pure states are useless. Second, if a quantum system ("reference frame") is used to simulate to high precision unitary dynamics (which possibly violates the conservation law) on another system via a global, covariant quantum channel, then this channel can be chosen so that the reference frame is approximately catalytic. In other words, a reference frame that simulates unitary dynamics to high precision degrades only very little.

We study continuous variable systems, in which quantum and classical degrees of freedom are combined and treated on the same footing. Thus all systems, including the inputs or outputs to a channel, may be quantum-classical hybrids. This allows a unified treatment of a large variety of quantum operations involving measurements or dependence on classical parameters. The basic variables are given by canonical operators with scalar commutators. Some variables may commute with all others and hence generate a classical subsystem. We systematically study the class of "quasifree" operations, which are characterized equivalently either by an intertwining condition for phase-space translations or by the requirement that, in the Heisenberg picture, Weyl operators are mapped to multiples of Weyl operators. This includes the well-known Gaussian operations, evolutions with quadratic Hamiltonians, and "linear Bosonic channels", but allows for much more general kinds of noise. For example, all states are quasifree. We sketch the analysis of quasifree preparation, measurement, repeated observation, cloning, teleportation, dense coding, the setup for the classical limit, and some aspects of irreversible dynamics, together with the precise salient tradeoffs of uncertainty, error, and disturbance. Although the spaces of observables and states are infinite dimensional for every non-trivial system that we consider, we treat the technicalities related to this in a uniform and conclusive way, providing a calculus that is both easy to use and fully rigorous.