Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 60 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The stated relation places every generator, and therefore the whole Dynamical Lie algebra, inside the standard compact symplectic Lie algebra . Indeed the relation is closed under linear combinations and commutators, and differentiating evolution givesThus it supplies a symplectic dynamical symmetry in quantum control, rather than a claim that commutes with every Quantum Hamiltonian.
For , b1 is false: even the full compact symplectic group does not act transitively on every mixed-state spectral orbit. Its algebra has dimension . An explicit obstruction is the symplectic invariant of a density operatorwhich is unchanged by a symplectic conjugation. For and the printed , let , , . The isospectral operators and have invariants and , respectively, and cannot be interconverted. For the exceptional case , , so b1 cannot be decided from inclusion alone; equality gives density-state controllability.
b2 is not implied by the displayed relation: more information is needed. It permits the full symplectic algebra but also a single commuting generator, or even zero generators. The full is pure-state controllable: identify with , extend any unit vector to a quaternionic orthonormal basis, and map one such basis to another. A one-axis diagonal subgroup, in contrast, cannot change level populations.
The required extra information is the generated algebra, obtained by computing its real span of iterated commutators. Within this specified symplectic inclusion, equality gives pure-state controllability; its dimension is . The mere inclusion does not establish equality. For , equality also answers b1 affirmatively. None of these strictly symplectic generators supplies arbitrary global phase.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 60 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The two density operators have the same eigenvalues , so a permutation of basis vectors makes them unitarily equivalent. A dynamical equivalence must additionally respect the symplectic dynamical symmetry in quantum control.
Define the symplectic dual . For a unitary preserving , both and hold. In particular , and thereforeIt follows by cyclicity of the trace that the symplectic invariant of a density operatoris unchanged by every reachable unitary conjugation. The given reverses the diagonal order, soConsequentlyHence the states are not dynamically equivalent, despite their identical ordinary spectra. This works for all the allowed values, including , and for any subgroup satisfying the symmetry in part (c).