Quantum Circuit Confusion On Time Evolution

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
1 reply · 1K views
thatboi
Messages
130
Reaction score
20
Hi all,
When working in the Heisenberg picture, we can represent implementing time evolution on an operator via a Hamiltonian H through a quantum circuit type picture like the following:
1686890731927.png

where time is on the vertical axis and increases going up and the block represents the unitary gate ##e^{-iHt}##. However, I am struggling to picture how this would look on a circuit if instead, we wanted to conjugate some operator ##O## via the unitaries ##e^{-iH_{1}t},e^{-iH_{2}t}## where ##[H_{1},H_{2}] \neq 0##. That is, ##O(t) = e^{-iH_{2}t}e^{-iH_{1}t}Oe^{iH_{1}t}e^{iH_{2}t}##. Vertically stacking the gates on top of each other doesn't seem to make much sense to me since it would then seem to imply that we have elapsed a time ##2t## through this time evolution.
Any thoughts?
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: gentzen
Physics news on Phys.org
Is it really important how much time was spent? If not, then vertically stacking gates is OK. If yes, then you need to find an operator ##H## such that
$$e^{iH_1t}e^{iH_2t}=e^{iHt}$$
For that purpose, you need to use some version of Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula.