From the classical Frenet–Serret apparatus to the curvature and torsion of quantum-mechanical evolutions. Part I. Stationary Hamiltonians

Abstract

It is known that the Frenet–Serret apparatus of a space curve in three-dimensional Euclidean space determines the local geometry of curves. In particular, the Frenet–Serret apparatus specifies important geometric invariants, including the curvature and the torsion of a curve. It is also acknowledged in quantum information science that low complexity and high efficiency are essential features to achieve when cleverly manipulating quantum states that encode quantum information about a physical system. In this paper, we propose a geometric perspective on how to quantify the bending and the twisting of quantum curves traced by dynamically evolving state vectors. Specifically, we propose a quantum version of the Frenet–Serret apparatus for a quantum trajectory in projective Hilbert space traced by a parallel-transported pure quantum state evolving unitarily under a stationary Hamiltonian specifying the Schrödinger equation. Our proposed constant curvature coefficient is given by the magnitude squared of the covariant derivative of the tangent vector [Formula: see text] to the state vector [Formula: see text] and represents a useful measure of the bending of the quantum curve. Our proposed constant torsion coefficient, instead, is defined in terms of the magnitude squared of the projection of the covariant derivative of the tangent vector [Formula: see text], orthogonal to both [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. The torsion coefficient provides a convenient measure of the twisting of the quantum curve. Remarkably, we show that our proposed curvature and torsion coefficients coincide with those existing in the literature, although introduced in a completely different manner. Interestingly, not only we establish that zero curvature corresponds to unit geodesic efficiency during the quantum transportation in projective Hilbert space, but we also find that the concepts of curvature and torsion help enlighten the statistical structure of quantum theory. Indeed, while the former concept can be essentially defined in terms of the concept of kurtosis, the positivity of the latter can be regarded as a restatement of the well-known Pearson inequality that involves both the concepts of kurtosis and skewness in mathematical statistics. Finally, not only do we present illustrative examples with nonzero curvature for single-qubit time-independent Hamiltonian evolutions for which it is impossible to generate torsion, but we also discuss physical applications extended to two-qubit stationary Hamiltonians that generate curves with both nonzero curvature and nonvanishing torsion traced by quantum states with different degrees of entanglement, ranging from separable states to maximally entangled Bell states. In the Appendix C, we examine the different curvature and torsion characteristics of the three qubit [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] states under evolution by a quantum Heisenberg Hamiltonian.