Recurrence for discrete time unitary evolutions

We consider quantum dynamical systems specified by a unitary operator U and an initial state vector \phi. In each step the unitary is followed by a projective measurement checking whether the system has returned to the initial state. We call the system recurrent if this eventually happens with probability one. We show that recurrence is equivalent to the absence of an absolutely continuous part from the spectral measure of U with respect to \phi. We also show that in the recurrent case the expected first return time is an integer or infinite, for which we give a topological interpretation. A key role in our theory is played by the first arrival amplitudes, which turn out to be the (complex conjugated) Taylor coefficients of the Schur function of the spectral measure. On the one hand, this provides a direct dynamical interpretation of these coefficients; on the other hand it links our definition of first return times to a large body of mathematical literature.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, typos correcte

Veneziano Amplitudes, Spin Chains and String Models

In a series of recently published papers we reanalyzed the existing treatments of Veneziano and Veneziano-like amplitudes and the models associated with these amplitudes. In this work we demonstrate that the already obtained new partition function for these amplitudes can be exactly mapped into that for the Polychronakos-Frahm (P-F) spin chain model. This observation allows us to recover many of the existing string-theoretic models, including the most recent ones.Comment: 38 page

Quantum Query Algorithms are Completely Bounded Forms

We prove a characterization of $t$-query quantum algorithms in terms of the unit ball of a space of degree-$2t$ polynomials. Based on this, we obtain a refined notion of approximate polynomial degree that equals the quantum query complexity, answering a question of Aaronson et al. (CCC'16). Our proof is based on a fundamental result of Christensen and Sinclair (J. Funct. Anal., 1987) that generalizes the well-known Stinespring representation for quantum channels to multilinear forms. Using our characterization, we show that many polynomials of degree four are far from those coming from two-query quantum algorithms. We also give a simple and short proof of one of the results of Aaronson et al. showing an equivalence between one-query quantum algorithms and bounded quadratic polynomials.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures. v2: 27 pages, minor changes in response to referee comment