Normal form decomposition for Gaussian-to-Gaussian superoperators
Abstract
In this paper we explore the set of linear maps sending the set of quantum Gaussian states into itself. These maps are in general not positive, a feature which can be exploited as a test to check whether a given quantum state belongs to the convex hull of Gaussian states (if one of the considered maps sends it into a non positive operator, the above state is certified not to belong to the set). Generalizing a result known to be valid under the assumption of complete positivity, we provide a characterization of these Gaussian-to-Gaussian (not necessarily positive) superoperators in terms of their action on the characteristic function of the inputs. For the special case of one-mode mappings we also show that any Gaussian-to-Gaussian superoperator can be expressed as a concatenation of a phase-space dilatation, followed by the action of a completely positive Gaussian channel, possibly composed with a transposition. While a similar decomposition is shown to fail in the multi-mode scenario, we prove that it still holds at least under the further hypothesis of homogeneous action on the covariance matrix.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1502.01870,
title = {Normal form decomposition for Gaussian-to-Gaussian superoperators},
author = {Giacomo De Palma and Andrea Mari and Vittorio Giovannetti and Alexander S. Holevo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.01870},
year = {2015}
}