All time-dependent Hamiltonian operators are multiples of the same fixed operator, so they commute and their time-ordered exponential reduces to an ordinary exponential. Let . With and the given unit coupling integral,
Since ,
Thus
It is exactly the CNOT gate with controlling , with no residual relative phase. Acting on correlates the system basis label with the apparatus label, producing as required.
For an ideal single transit, let the oscillatory magnetic field occupy a region of length , take the longitudinal speed constant, and neglect edge fields. Each molecule then experiences one square pulse of duration . This is one contiguous interaction region, distinct from the two separated pulses of Ramsey interferometry. The static magnetic field sets the selected transition gap; the transverse drive sets Rabi angular frequency. A change of RF frequency or static magnetic field changes Rabi detuning.
For an original ideal detector model, suppose every successful transition removes an otherwise accepted molecule and the incident beam occupies the lower state of the selected pair. With accepted no-transition signal , constant background , and effective loss contrast , write
For identical trajectories , giving an intensity dip where transfer is largest. For real trajectory variation, a normalized joint probability density gives the static-offset model
Here is the trajectory's transition-frequency offset and its drive strength, each in angular-frequency units. The weighting is for molecules accepted by the apparatus, rather than an assumed unfiltered oven distribution. In particular, designing does not produce a Rabi pi pulse for every speed: at and the resonant transfer probabilities are respectively and .
Spread in transit times, static magnetic fields and drive amplitudes can reduce or smear oscillations without quantum decoherence on any individual trajectory. Even the single-transit square pulse has finite spectral width of order in angular frequency. If the magnetic field varies substantially along one path, its Hamiltonian operator changes during the passage and the constant-offset average above must be replaced by a time-ordered exponential. Actual molecules may also have several coupled energy levels; the isolated pair and perfect loss discriminator are explicit idealizations of this model.
Time-evolution operator Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-18
The time-evolution operator maps an initial quantum state to its state at a later time. For a time-independent Hamiltonian operator , it is the unitary operator .
More generally, write . The time-evolution operator obeys
For a constant self-adjoint Hamiltonian operator, . With zero as the initial time, this gives the group law . Successive evolution is reversible; a measurement followed by conditioning on an outcome is a separate operation described by projective measurement.
For a time-dependent Hamiltonian operator, the defining equation is . In finite dimension, a continuous Hermitian still gives unitary time evolution, since
The solution is a time-ordered exponential, with later factors acting on the left. One may replace it by when at all times; independently changing pulse axes generally requires time ordering.[ref]