A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Divisibility of Dynamical Maps: Schrödinger Versus Heisenberg Picture
Authors: Settimo, Federico; Smirne, Andrea; Luoma, Kimmo; Vacchini, Bassano; Piilo, Jyrki; Chruscinski, Dariusz
Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
Publication year: 2026
Journal: PRX Quantum
Article number: 010340
Volume: 7
Issue: 1
eISSN: 2691-3399
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6dt2-sq44
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1103/6dt2-sq44
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/523517956
Self-archived copy's licence: CC BY
Self-archived copy's version: Publisher`s PDF
Divisibility of dynamical maps is a central notion in the study of quantum non-Markovianity, providing a natural framework to characterize memory effects via time-local master equations. In this work, we generalize the notion of divisibility of quantum dynamical maps from the Schrödinger to the Heisenberg picture. While the two pictures are equivalent at the level of physical predictions, we show that the divisibility properties of the corresponding dual maps are, in general, not equivalent. This inequivalence originates from the distinction between left and right generators of time-local master equations, which interchange roles under duality. We demonstrate that Schrödinger and Heisenberg divisibility are distinct concepts by constructing explicit dynamics divisible only in one picture. Furthermore, we introduce a quantifier for the violation of Heisenberg P-divisibility, analogous to the trace-distance-based measure of non-Markovianity, and provide it with an operational interpretation in terms of the guessing probability between effects. Our results show that Heisenberg divisibility is an independent witness of memory effects and highlight the need to consider both pictures when characterizing non-Markovian quantum dynamics.
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Funding information in the publication:
A.S. and B.V. acknowledge support from MUR and Next Generation EU via the NQSTI-Spoke1-BaC project QSynKrono (Contract No. PE00000023-QuSynKrono) and the PRIN 2022 project Quantum Reservoir Computing (QuReCo) (Contract No. 2022FEXLYB). F.S. acknowledges support from Magnus Ehrnroothin Säätiö. D.C. was supported by the Polish National Science Center under Project No. 2018/30/A/ST2/00837.