Fingerprints of classical memory in quantum hysteresis
Quantum Physics
2026-01-29 v1 Other Condensed Matter
Abstract
We present a simple framework for classical and quantum ``memory'' in which the Hamiltonian at time depends on past values of a control Hamiltonian through a causal kernel. This structure naturally describes finite-bandwidth or filtered control channels and provides a clean way to distinguish between memory in the control and genuine non-Markovian dynamics of the state. We focus on models where , and illustrate the framework on single-qubit examples such as with . We derive basic properties of such dynamics, discuss conditions for unitarity, give an equivalent time-local description for exponential kernels, and show explicitly how hysteresis arises in the response of a driven qubit.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.20287,
title = {Fingerprints of classical memory in quantum hysteresis},
author = {Francesco Caravelli},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.20287},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
22 pages double column; 26 pages appendix