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We formally extend the notion of Markov order to open quantum processes by accounting for the instruments used to probe the system of interest at different times. Our description recovers the classical Markov order property in the appropriate limit: when the stochastic process is classical and the instruments are non-invasive, emph{i.e.}, restricted to orthogonal, projective measurements. We then prove that there do not exist non-Markovian quantum processes that have finite Markov order with respect to all possible instruments; the same process exhibits distinct memory effects with respect to different probing instruments. This naturally leads to a relaxed definition of quantum Markov order with respect to specified sequences of instruments. The memory effects captured by different choices of instruments vary dramatically, providing a rich landscape for future exploration.
Non-Markovian quantum processes exhibit different memory effects when measured in different ways; an unambiguous characterization of memory length requires accounting for the sequence of instruments applied to probe the system dynamics. This instrument-specific notion of quantum Markov order displays stark differences to its classical counterpart. Here, we explore the structure of quantum stochastic processes with finite length memory in detail. We begin by examining a generalized collision model with memory, before framing this instance within the general theory. We detail the constraints that are placed on the underlying system-environment dynamics for a process to exhibit finite Markov order with respect to natural classes of probing instruments, including deterministic (unitary) operations and sequences of generalized quantum measurements with informationally-complete preparations. Lastly, we show how processes with vanishing quantum conditional mutual information form a special case of the theory. Throughout, we provide a number of representative, pedagogical examples to display the salient features of memory effects in quantum processes.
We provide a large class of quantum evolution governed by the memory kernel master equation. This class defines quantum analog of so called semi-Markov classical stochastic evolution. In this Letter for the first time we provide a proper definition of quantum semi-Markov evolution and using the appropriate gauge freedom we propose a suitable generalization which contains majority of examples considered so far in the literature. The key concepts are quantum counterparts of classical waiting time distribution and survival probability -- quantum waiting time operator and quantum survival operator, respectively. In particular collision models and its generalizations considered recently are special examples of generalized semi-Markov evolution. This approach allows for an interesting generalization of trajectory description of the quantum dynamics in terms of POVM densities.
We prove that any one-dimensional (1D) quantum state with small quantum conditional mutual information in all certain tripartite splits of the system, which we call a quantum approximate Markov chain, can be well-approximated by a Gibbs state of a short-range quantum Hamiltonian. Conversely, we also derive an upper bound on the (quantum) conditional mutual information of Gibbs states of 1D short-range quantum Hamiltonians. We show that the conditional mutual information between two regions A and C conditioned on the middle region B decays exponentially with the square root of the length of B. These two results constitute a variant of the Hammersley-Clifford theorem (which characterizes Markov networks, i.e. probability distributions which have vanishing conditional mutual information, as Gibbs states of classical short-range Hamiltonians) for 1D quantum systems. The result can be seen as a strengthening - for 1D systems - of the mutual information area law for thermal states. It directly implies an efficient preparation of any 1D Gibbs state at finite temperature by a constant-depth quantum circuit.
Markovianity lies at the heart of classical communication problems. This in turn makes the information-theoretic characterization of Markovian processes worthwhile. Data processing inequalities are ubiquitous in this sense, assigning necessary conditions for all Markovian processes. We address here the problem of the information-theoretic analysis of constraints on Markovian processes in the quantum regime. Firstly, we show the existence of a novel class of quantum data processing inequalities called here quantum Markov monogamy inequalities. This new class of necessary conditions on quantum Markovian processes is inspired by its counterpart for classical Markovian processes, and thus providing a strong link between classical and quantum constraints on Markovianity. Secondly, we show the relevance of such inequalities by considering an example of non-Markovian behaviour witnessed by a monogamy inequality, nevertheless, do not violating any of the remaining data processing inequalities. Lastly, we show how this inequalities can be used to witness non-Markovianity at the level of the process tensor formalism.
We revisit the task of quantum state redistribution in the one-shot setting, and design a protocol for this task with communication cost in terms of a measure of distance from quantum Markov chains. More precisely, the distance is defined in terms of quantum max-relative entropy and quantum hypothesis testing entropy. Our result is the first to operationally connect quantum state redistribution and quantum Markov chains, and can be interpreted as an operational interpretation for a possible one-shot analogue of quantum conditional mutual information. The communication cost of our protocol is lower than all previously known ones and asymptotically achieves the well-known rate of quantum conditional mutual information. Thus, our work takes a step towards the important open question of near-optimal characterization of the one-shot quantum state redistribution.