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Purifying and reversible physical processes

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Abstract

Starting from the observation that reversible processes cannot increase the purity of any input state, we study deterministic physical processes, which map a set of states to a set of pure states. Such a process must map any state to the same pure output, if purity is demanded for the input set of all states. But otherwise, when the input set is restricted, it is possible to find non-trivial purifying processes. For the most restricted case of only two input states, we completely characterise the output of any such map. We furthermore consider maps, which combine the property of purity and reversibility on a set of states, and we derive necessary and sufficient conditions on sets, which permit such processes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany

    M. Kleinmann, H. Kampermann, T. Meyer & D. Bruß

Authors
  1. M. Kleinmann
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  2. H. Kampermann
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  3. T. Meyer
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  4. D. Bruß
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Kleinmann.

Additional information

PACS

03.67.-a; 03.65.-w

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Kleinmann, M., Kampermann, H., Meyer, T. et al. Purifying and reversible physical processes. Appl. Phys. B 86, 371–375 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-006-2515-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-006-2515-4

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