Electron transport in realistic physical and chemical systems often involves the non-trivial exchange of energy with a large environment, requiring the definition and treatment of open quantum systems. Because the time evolution of an open quantum system employs a non-unitary operator, the simulation of open quantum systems presents a challenge for universal quantum computers constructed from only unitary operators or gates. Here we present a general algorithm for implementing the action of any non-unitary operator on an arbitrary state on a quantum device. We show that any quantum operator can be exactly decomposed as a linear combination of at most four unitary operators. We demonstrate this method on a two-level system in both zero and finite temperature amplitude damping channels. The results are in agreement with classical calculations, showing promise in simulating non-unitary operations on intermediate-term and future quantum devices.
Extensive theoretical and experimental investigation has been conducted on fermion pair condensation and exciton condensation as distinct classes of Bose-Einstein-like condensation. In this work, the existence of a fermion-exciton condensate-a single quantum state in which character of both fermion pair and exciton condensates coexist-is established computationally in the low-particlenumber (N ) limit and theoretically in the large-N thermodynamic limit. The trade-off between the fermion pair and excitonic character of the fermion-exciton condensate is shown to be elliptic in nature. The possibility that the properties of fermion-exciton condensates could be a hybrid of the properties of fermion pair condensates and exciton condensates is discussed, and future experimental and computational exploration of this new class of condensate, which may potentially be realizable in a bilayer of superconductors, is anticipated.
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