Continuous phase-space methods on discrete phase spaces

Abstract

We show that discrete quasiprobability distributions defined via the discrete Heisenberg-Weyl group can be obtained as discretizations of the continuous $SU(N)$ quasiprobability distributions. This is done by identifying the phase-point operators with the continuous quantisation kernels evaluated at special points of the phase space. As an application we discuss the positive-P function and show that its discretization can be used to treat the problem of diverging trajectories. We study the dissipative long-range transverse-field Ising chain and show that the long-time dynamics of local observables is well described by a semiclassical approximation of the interactions.