Symmetrizing Evolutions

Abstract

We introduce quantum procedures for making $\cal G$-invariant the dynamics of an arbitrary quantum system S, where $\cal G$ is a finite group acting on the space state of S. Several applications of this idea are discussed. In particular when S is a N-qubit quantum computer interacting with its environment and $\cal G$ the symmetric group of qubit permutations, the resulting effective dynamics admits noiseless subspaces. Moreover it is shown that the recently introduced iterated-pulses schemes for reducing decoherence in quantum computers fit in this general framework. The noise-inducing component of the Hamiltonian is filtered out by the symmetrization procedure just due to its transformation properties.