Exact Law of Quantum Reversibility under Gaussian Pure Loss

TL;DR

This paper establishes an exact law governing quantum reversibility under Gaussian pure-loss dynamics, revealing a sharp phase boundary that determines when reverse processes are feasible or infeasible, with implications for quantum information and sensing.

Contribution

It introduces a precise phase boundary law for quantum reversibility in Gaussian pure-loss channels, linking physical constraints to reversibility feasibility and optimal noise minimization.

Findings

Minimum reverse cost vanishes at a critical squeezing-to-thermal ratio.

Below the phase boundary, reverse processes are feasible with mild cost.

Above the boundary, reverse processes become infeasible, with costs diverging for pure states.

Abstract

Classical reverse diffusion is generated by changing the drift at fixed noise. We show that the quantum version of this principle obeys an exact law with a sharp phase boundary. For Gaussian pure-loss dynamics -- the canonical model of continuous-variable decoherence in optical attenuation channels, squeezed-light interferometric sensing, and superconducting bosonic architectures -- complete positivity, the requirement that the dynamics remain physical even for systems entangled with an ancilla, creates an exact phase boundary at which the minimum reverse cost vanishes, fixes the reverse-noise budget on both sides, and makes pure nonclassical targets dynamically singular. The minimum reverse cost vanishes exactly at a critical squeezing-to-thermal ratio and is strictly positive away from it, with a sharp asymmetry: below the boundary, standard reverse prescriptions such as the fixed-diffusion Bayes reverse remain feasible at mild cost; above it, these prescriptions become infeasible, the covariance-aligned generator remains CP-feasible and uniquely optimal, and the cost can be severe. The optimal reverse noise is locked to the state's own fluctuation geometry and simultaneously minimizes the geometric, metrological, and thermodynamic price of reversal. For multimode trajectories, the exact cost is additive in a canonical set of mode-resolved data, and a globally continuous protocol attains this optimum on every mixed-state interval. If a pure nonclassical endpoint is included, the same pointwise law holds for every $t>0$, but the optimum diverges as $2/t$: exact reversal of a pure quantum state is dynamically unattainable. These results establish an exact law of quantum reversibility in the canonical pure-loss setting and provide a sharp benchmark for broader theories of quantum reverse diffusion.