量子相干

量子相干不仅是量子力学中的一个基本概念,同时也是重要的量子信息处理的物理资源.随着基于资源理论框架的量子相干度量方案的提出,量子相干度的量化研究成为近年来人们关注的一个热点问题.量子相干作为一种物理资源也十分脆弱,极容易受到环境噪声的影响而产生退相干,因此开放系统中的量子相干演化和保持也是人们广泛关注的课题.另外,量子相干在量子多体系统、量子热动力学、量子生物学等领域也有着潜在的应用价值.本文介绍量子相干度量的资源理论框架和基于该框架定义的相对熵相干性、l1范数相干性、基于量子纠缠的相干性、基于凸顶结构的相干性和相干鲁棒性等量子相干度量函数,概述开放系统中量子相干演化的动力学行为、典型信道的量子相干产生和破坏能力以及量子相干的冻结等现象,同时例举量子相干在Deutsch-Jozsa算法、Grover算法以及量子多体系统相变问题研究等方面的重要应用.量子相干研究仍处于快速发展之中,期望本综述能为该领域的发展带来启示.

Quantum coherence

Quantum coherence is not only a fundamental concept of quantum mechanics, but also an important physical resource for quantum information processing. Along with the formulation of the resource theoretic framework of quantum coherence, the quantification of coherence is still one of the recent research focuses. Quantum coherence is also very fragile, and the environmental noise usually induces a system to decohere. Hence it is also an important subject to make clear the dynamical behavior and to seek a flexible way of preserving quantum coherence of an open quantum system. Besides, there are many potential applications of quantum coherence in quantum many-body system, quantum thermodynamics, quantum biology and other related fields. We review in this paper the resource theoretic framework for quantifying coherence and the relevant quantum coherence measures defined within this framework which includes the relative entropy of coherence, the l₁ norm of coherence, the entanglement-based measure of coherence, the convex roof measure of coherence, and the robustness of coherence. We also review the dynamical behaviors of quantum coherence for certain open quantum systems, the coherence generating and breaking power of typical quantum channels, and the freezing phenomenon of quantum coherence. Moreover, we exemplify applications of quantum coherence in Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, Grover search algorithms, and the study of quantum phase transitions in multipartite systems. We hope that these results may provide not only an overview of the relevant field, but also an outlook of the future research direction of this exciting field.