Structural decomposition for quantum two-level systems

Abstract

An input–output model of a two-level quantum system in the Heisenberg picture is of bilinear form with constant system matrices, which allows the introduction of the concepts of controllability and observability in analogy with those of quantum linear systems. By means of the notions of controllability and observability, coordinate transformations, which are rotation matrices, can be constructed explicitly that transform an input–output model to a new one. The new input–output model enables us to investigate many interesting properties of the two-level quantum system, such as steady-state solutions to the Lindblad master equation, quantum decoherence-free (DF) subspaces, quantum non-demolition (QND) variables, and the realization of quantum back-action evading (BAE) measurements. The physical system in Wang and Wiseman (2001) is re-studied to illustrate the results presented in this paper.