Ergodic and mixing quantum channels: From two-qubit to many-body quantum systems

Abstract: The development of classical ergodic theory has had a significant impact in the areas of mathematics, physics, and, in general, applied sciences. The quantum ergodic theory of Hamiltonian dynamics has its motivations to understand thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Quantum channel, a completely positive trace-preserving map, represents a most general representation of quantum dynamics and is an essential aspect of quantum information theory and quantum computation. In this work, we study the ergodic theory of quantum channels by characterizing different levels of ergodic hierarchy from integrable to mixing. The quantum channels on single systems are constructed from the unitary operators acting on bipartite states and tracing out the environment. The interaction strength of these unitary operators measured in terms of operator entanglement provides sufficient conditions for the channel to be mixing. By using block diagonal unitary operators, we construct a set of non-ergodic channels. By using canonical form of two-qubit unitary operator, we analytically construct the channels on single qubit ranging from integrable to mixing. Moreover, we also study interacting many-body quantum systems that include the famous Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model and show that they display mixing within the framework of the quantum channel.