Procedures for Converting among Lindblad, Kraus and Matrix Representations of Quantum Dynamical Semigroups

Timothy F. Havel

Published 2002-01-28, updated 2002-08-09Version 4

Given an quantum dynamical semigroup expressed as an exponential superoperator acting on a space of N-dimensional density operators, eigenvalue methods are presented by which canonical Kraus and Lindblad operator sum representations can be computed. These methods provide a mathematical basis on which to develop novel algorithms for quantum process tomography, the statistical estimation of superoperators and their generators, from a wide variety of experimental data. Theoretical arguments and numerical simulations are presented which imply that these algorithms will be quite robust in the presence of random errors in the data.