2019/05/31 by Pedro Figueroa-Romero, Kavan Modi, Felix A. Pollock · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.102.032144
published as Phys. Rev. E 102, 032144 (2020) · 6+5 pages, 3 figures. Substantial changes and improvements. Published version
arxiv created 2020/10/01 · arxiv updated 2020/10/02
We characterize the conditions under which a multi-time quantum process with a finite temporal resolution can be approximately described by an equilibrium one. By providing a generalization of the notion of equilibration on average, where a system remains closed to a fixed equilibrium for most times, to one which can be operationally assessed at multiple times, we place an upper-bound on a new observable distinguishability measure comparing a multi-time process with a finite temporal resolution against a fixed equilibrium one. While the same conditions on single-time equilibration, such as a large occupation of energy levels in the initial state remain necessary, we obtain genuine multi-time contributions depending on the temporal resolution of the process and the amount of disturbance of the observer's operations on it.