Narrow Results

Given any separable complex Hilbert space, any trace-class operator $B$ which does not have purely imaginary trace, and any generator $L$ of a norm-continuous one-parameter semigroup of completely positive maps we prove that there exists a unique bounded operator $K$ and a unique completely positive map $\mathrm{\Phi }$ such that (i) $L=K(\cdot )+(\cdot )K^{\ast }+\mathrm{\Phi }$, (ii) the superoperator $\mathrm{\Phi }(B^{\ast }(\cdot )B)$ is trace class and has vanishing trace, and (iii) $\mathrm{\text{tr}}(B^{\ast }K)$ is a real number. Central to our proof is a modified version of the Choi formalism which relates completely positive maps to positive semi-definite operators. We characterize when this correspondence is injective and surjective, respectively, which in turn explains why the proof idea of our main result cannot extend to non-separable Hilbert spaces. In particular, we find examples of positive semi-definite operators which have empty pre-image under the Choi formalism as soon as the underlying Hilbert space is infinite-dimensional.

In this paper, we introduce EPOSIC channels, a class of SU(2)-covariant quantum channels. For each of them, we give a Kraus representation, its Choi matrix, a complementary channel, and its dual map. We show that they are the extreme points of all SU(2)-irreducibly covariant channels. As an application of these channels, we get an example of a positive map that is not completely positive.