Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2004

Department

Physics & Computer Science

Abstract

In an open system, the geometric phase should be described by a distribution. We show that a geometric phase distribution for open system dynamics is in general ambiguous, but the imposition of reasonable physical constraints on the environment and its coupling with the system yields a unique geometric phase distribution that applies even for mixed states, nonunitary dynamics, and noncyclic evolutions.

Comments

This article was origianlly published in Physical Review Letters, 93(26): 260402. © 2004 The American Physical Society

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