Abstract
Noether’s theorem is one of the fundamental laws in physics, relating the symmetry of a physical system to its constant of motion and conservation law. On the other hand, there exist a variety of non-Hermitian parity-time (\({\cal P}{\cal T}\))-symmetric systems, which exhibit novel quantum properties and have attracted increasing interest. In this work, we extend Noether’s theorem to a class of significant \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry systems for which the eigenvalues of the \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry Hamiltonian \({{\hat H}_{{\cal P}{\cal T}}}\) change from purely real numbers to purely imaginary numbers, and introduce a generalized expectation value of an operator based on biorthogonal quantum mechanics. We find that the generalized expectation value of a time-independent operator is a constant of motion when the operator presents a standard symmetry in the \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry unbroken regime, or a chiral symmetry in the \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry broken regime. In addition, we experimentally investigate the extended Noether’s theorem in \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry single-qubit and two-qubit systems using an optical setup. Our experiment demonstrates the existence of the constant of motion and reveals how this constant of motion can be used to judge whether the \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry of a system is broken. Furthermore, a novel phenomenon of masking quantum information is first observed in a \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry two-qubit system. This study not only contributes to full understanding of the relation between symmetry and conservation law in \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry physics, but also has potential applications in quantum information theory and quantum communication protocols.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12264040, 12204311, 11804228, 11865013, and U21A20436), the Jiangxi Natural Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 20212BAB211018, 20192ACBL20051), the Project of Jiangxi Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (Grant Nos. GJJ190891, and GJJ211735), and the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2018B03-0326001). Franco Nori is supported in part by the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Corporation Research, the Japan Science and Technology (JST) Agency [via the Quantum Leap Flagship Program (Q-LEAP), and Moonshot R&D Grant Number JPMJMS2061], the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) [via the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) Grant No. JP20H00134], the Army Research Office (ARO) (Grant No. W911NF-18-1-0358), the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD) (Grant No. FA2386-20-1-4069), and the Foundational Questions Institute Fund (FQXi) (Grant No. FQXi-IAF19-06).
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Wu, QC., Zhao, JL., Fang, YL. et al. Extension of Noether’s theorem in \({\cal P}{\cal T}\)-symmetry systems and its experimental demonstration in an optical setup. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 66, 240312 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-022-2067-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-022-2067-x