We develop a systematic coarse graining procedure for systems of $N$ qubits. We exploit the underlying geometrical structures of the associated discrete phase space to produce a coarse-grained version with reduced effective size. Our coarse-grained spaces inherit key properties of the original ones. In particular, our procedure naturally yields a subset of the original measurement operators, which can be used to construct a coarse discrete Wigner function. These operators also constitute a systematic choice of incomplete measurements for the tomographer wishing to probe an intractably large system.
Our everyday descriptions of the universe are highly coarse-grained, following only a tiny fraction of the variables necessary for a perfectly fine-grained description. Coarse graining in classical physics is made natural by our limited powers of observation and computation. But in the modern quantum mechanics of closed systems, some measure of coarse graining is inescapable because there are no non-trivial, probabilistic, fine-grained descriptions. This essay explores the consequences of that fact. Quantum theory allows for various coarse-grained descriptions some of which are mutually incompatible. For most purposes, however, we are interested in the small subset of ``quasiclassical descriptions defined by ranges of values of averages over small volumes of densities of conserved quantities such as energy and momentum and approximately conserved quantities such as baryon number. The near-conservation of these quasiclassical quantities results in approximate decoherence, predictability, and local equilibrium, leading to closed sets of equations of motion. In any description, information is sacrificed through the coarse graining that yields decoherence and gives rise to probabilities for histories. In quasiclassical descriptions, further information is sacrificed in exhibiting the emergent regularities summarized by classical equations of motion. An appropriate entropy measures the loss of information. For a ``quasiclassical realm this is connected with the usual thermodynamic entropy as obtained from statistical mechanics. It was low for the initial state of our universe and has been increasing since.
We analyze Lindblad-Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-type generators for selected periodically driven open quantum systems. All these generators can be obtained by temporal coarse-graining procedures, and we compare different coarse-graining schemes. Similar as for undriven systems, we find that a dynamically adapted coarse-graining time, effectively yielding non-Markovian dynamics by interpolating through a series of different but invididually Markovian solutions, gives the best results among the different coarse-graining schemes, albeit at highest computational cost.
We assess Coarse Graining by studying different partitions of the phase space of the Baker transformation and the periodic torus automorphisms. It turns out that the shape of autocorrelation functions for the Baker transformation is more or less reproduced. However, for certain partitions the decay rates turn out to be irrelevant, even decay may stop in a finite time. For the periodic torus automorphisms, Coarse Graining introduces artificial dumping.
The connection between coarse-graining of measurement and emergence of classicality has been investigated for some time, if not well understood. Recently in (PRL $textbf{112}$, 010402, (2014)) it was pointed out that coarse-graining measurements can lead to non-violation of Bell-type inequalities by a state which would violate it under sharp measurements. We study here the effects of coarse-grained measurements on bipartite cat states. We show that while it is true that coarse-graining does indeed lead to non-violation of a Bell-type inequality, this is not reflected at the state level. Under such measurements the post-measurement states can be non-classical (in the quantum optical sense) and in certain cases coarse-graning can lead to an increase in this non-classicality with respect to the coarse-graining parameter. While there is no universal way to quantify non-classicality, we do so using well understood notions in quantum optics such as the negativity of the Wigner function and the singular nature of the Gluaber-Sudharshan P distribution.
We study the coarse-graining approach to derive a generator for the evolution of an open quantum system over a finite time interval. The approach does not require a secular approximation but nevertheless generally leads to a Lindblad-Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan generator. By combining the formalism with Full Counting Statistics, we can demonstrate a consistent thermodynamic framework, once the switching work required for the coupling and decoupling with the reservoir is included. Particularly, we can write the second law in standard form, with the only difference that heat currents must be defined with respect to the reservoir. We exemplify our findings with simple but pedagogical examples.