Universal preparability of states and asymptotic completeness (Q521998)

The paper discusses the notions of ``asymptotic completeness'', ``universal preparability'', and ``topological transitivity'' for quantum Markov processes and applies the resulting theory to some physical systems of experimental interest. The Markov processes are obtained by tensoring the algebra of observables \(A\) of an initial system to an infinite tensor product of another algebra \(C\). The dynamics is defined as a product of the tensor shift on the infinite tensor product with a so-called ``coupling automorphism'' that acts non-trivially only on the tensor product of \(A\) with one copy of \(C\). Asymptotic completeness roughly means that observables in \(A\) asymptotically end up in the tensor products of \(S\); this notion was introduced in [the last author and \textit{H. Maassen}, Infin. Dimens. Anal. Quantum Probab. Relat. Top. 3, No. 1, 161--176 (2000; Zbl 1243.81104)]. The main two theorems of the paper give conditions that are equivalent to asymptotic completeness. In particular, if a certain tightness condition is satisfied, then universal preparability and topological transitivity are equivalent to asymptotic completeness. In the last section, the theory is applied to a class of quantum birth and death processes that contain the micromaser as a special case. It is shown that these processes are asymptotically complete, if they have no trapping states.