A Straightforward Introduction to Continuous Quantum Measurement

Small quantum systems can now be continuously monitored experimentally which allows for the reconstruction of quantum trajectories. A peculiar feature of these trajectories is the emergence of jumps between the eigenstates of the observable which is measured. Using the Stochastic Master Equation (SME) formalism for continuous quantum measurements, we show that the density matrix of a system indeed shows a jumpy behavior when it is subjected to a tight measurement (even if the...

The Gaussian state description of continuous variables is adapted to describe the quantum interaction between macroscopic atomic samples and continuous-wave light beams. The formalism is very efficient: a non-linear differential equation for the covariance matrix of the atomic system explicitly accounts for both the unitary evolution, the dissipation and noise due to the atom-light interaction, and the back-action due to homodyne optical detection on the beam after its intera...

We propose a self-contained and accessible derivation of an exact formula for the $n$-point correlation functions of the signal measured when continuously observing a quantum system. The expression depends on the initial quantum state and on the Stochastic Master Equation (SME) governing the dynamics. This derivation applies to both jump and diffusive evolutions and takes into account common imperfections of realistic measurement devices. We show how these correlations can be...

The stochastic Schr\"odinger equation, of classical or quantum type, allows to describe open quantum systems under measurement in continuous time. In this paper we review the link between these two descriptions and we study the properties of the output of the measurement. For simplicity we deal only with the diffusive case. Firstly, we discuss the quantum stochastic Schr\"odinger equation, which is based on quantum stochastic calculus, and we show how to transform it into the...

In this article we reconsider a version of quantum trajectory theory based on the stochastic Schr\"odinger equation with stochastic coefficients, which was mathematically introduced in the '90s, and we develop it in order to describe the non Markovian evolution of a quantum system continuously measured and controlled thanks to a measurement based feedback. Indeed, realistic descriptions of a feedback loop have to include delay and thus need a non Markovian theory. The theory ...

The paper studies a class of quantum stochastic differential equations, modeling an interaction of a system with its environment in the quantum noise approximation. The space representing quantum noise is the symmetric Fock space over L^2(R_+). Using the isomorphism of this space with the space of square-integrable functionals of the Poisson process, the equations can be represented as classical stochastic differential equations, driven by Poisson processes. This leads to a d...

In the present paper we consider the problem of description of an arbitrary generalized quantum measurement with outcomes in a measurable space. Analyzing the unitary invariants of a measuring process, we present the most general form of a possible integral representation of an instrument, which differs from the representations of an instrument available in the mathematical and physical literature. We introduce the notion of a quantum stochastic representation of an instrumen...

This paper provides a stabilizing preparation method for quantum Gaussian states by utilizing continuous measurement. The stochastic evolution of the open quantum system is described in terms of the quantum stochastic master equation. We present necessary and sufficient conditions for the system to have a unique stabilizing steady Gaussian state. The conditions are much weaker than those existing results presented in the approach of preparing Gaussian states through environme...

One of the broadest concepts of measurement in quantum theory is the generalized measurement. Another paradigm of measurement--arising naturally in quantum optics, among other fields--is that of continuous-time measurements, which can be seen as the limit of a consecutive sequence of weak measurements. They are naturally described in terms of stochastic processes, or time-dependent random variables. We show that any generalized measurement can be decomposed as a sequence of w...

This article provides an exact formula for the signal n-point correlation functions of detectors continuously measuring an arbitrary quantum system, in the presence of detection imperfections. The derivation uses only continuous stochastic calculus techniques, but the final result is easily understood from a discrete picture of repeated interactions with qubits or from a parallel with continuous matrix product states. This result provides a crude yet efficient a way to estima...