Disorder-averaged Qudit Dynamics

Abstract: Understanding how physical systems are influenced by disorder is a fundamental challenge in quantum science. Addressing its effects often involves numerical averaging over a large number of samples, and it is not always easy to gain an analytical handle on exploring the effect of disorder. In this work, we derive exact solutions for disorder-averaged dynamics generated by any Hamiltonian that is a periodic matrix (potentially with non-trivial base, a property also called ($p,q$)-potency). Notably, this approach is independent of the initial state, exact for arbitrary evolution times, and it holds for Hermitian as well as non-Hermitian systems. The ensemble behavior resembles that of an open quantum system, whose decoherence function or rates are determined by the disorder distribution and the periodicity of the Hamiltonian. Depending on the underlying distribution, the dynamics can display non-Markovian characteristics detectable through non-Markovian witnesses. We illustrate the scheme for qubit and qudit systems described by (products of) spin $1/2$, spin $1$, and clock operators. Our methodology offers a framework to leverage disorder-averaged exact dynamics for a range of applications in quantum-information processing and beyond.