The Bloch vectors formalism for a finite-dimensional quantum system

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive Bloch vectors formalism for finite-dimensional quantum systems, enabling a unified geometric description of states, observables, and their evolution, with applications in quantum control and entanglement analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a unified Bloch vectors framework for all finite dimensions, deriving new expressions and equations for state evolution, and quantifying entanglement via reduced state Bloch vectors.

Findings

Explicit characterization of Bloch vectors for qudit states and observables.

General equations for Bloch vector evolution in open and closed systems.

Quantification of bipartite entanglement using reduced state Bloch vectors.

Abstract

In the present article, we consistently develop the main issues of the Bloch vectors formalism for an arbitrary finite-dimensional quantum system. In the frame of this formalism, qudit states and their evolution in time, qudit observables and their expectations, entanglement and nonlocality, etc. are expressed in terms of the Bloch vectors -- the vectors in the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^{d^{2}-1}$ arising under decompositions of observables and states in different operator bases. Within this formalism, we specify for all $d\geq2$ the set of Bloch vectors of traceless qudit observables and describe its properties; also, find for the sets of the Bloch vectors of qudit states, pure and mixed, the new compact expressions in terms of the operator norms that explicitly reveal the general properties of these sets and have the unified form for all $d\geq2$. For the sets of the Bloch vectors of qudit states under the generalized Gell-Mann representation, these general properties cannot be analytically extracted from the known equivalent specifications of these sets via the system of algebraic equations. We derive the general equations describing the time evolution of the Bloch vector of a qudit state if a qudit system is isolated and if it is open and find for both cases the main properties of the Bloch vector evolution in time. For a pure bipartite state of a dimension $d_{1}\times d_{2}$, we quantify its entanglement in terms of the Bloch vectors for its reduced states. The introduced general formalism is important both for the theoretical analysis of quantum system properties and for quantum applications, in particular, for optimal quantum control, since, for systems where states are described by vectors in the Euclidean space, the methods of optimal control, analytical and numerical, are well developed.