A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Divisibility of Dynamical Maps: Schrödinger Versus Heisenberg Picture




AuthorsSettimo, Federico; Smirne, Andrea; Luoma, Kimmo; Vacchini, Bassano; Piilo, Jyrki; Chruscinski, Dariusz

PublisherAmerican Physical Society (APS)

Publication year2026

Journal: PRX Quantum

Article number010340

Volume7

Issue1

eISSN2691-3399

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1103/6dt2-sq44

Publication's open availability at the time of reportingOpen Access

Publication channel's open availability Open Access publication channel

Web address https://doi.org/10.1103/6dt2-sq44

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/523517956

Self-archived copy's licenceCC BY

Self-archived copy's versionPublisher`s PDF


Abstract

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.


Last updated on 25/05/2026 09:32:45 AM