Identifying quantum change points for Hamiltonians

Abstract

The identification of environmental changes is crucial in many fields. The present research is aimed at investigating the optimal performance for detecting change points in a quantum system when its Hamiltonian suddenly changes at a specific time. Assume that the Hamiltonians before and after the change are known and that the prior probability of each prospective change point is identical. These Hamiltonians can be time-dependent. The problem considered in this study is an extension of the problem of discriminating multiple quantum processes that consist of sequences of quantum channels. Although it is often extremely difficult to find an analytical solution to such a problem, we demonstrate that the maximum success probability for the Hamiltonian change point problem can be determined analytically and has a simple form.