Trapped Modes in Linear Quantum Stochastic Networks with Delays

Abstract: Networks of open quantum systems with feedback have become an active area of research for applications such as quantum control, quantum communication and coherent information processing. A canonical formalism for the interconnection of open quantum systems using quantum stochastic differential equations (QSDEs) has been developed by Gough, James and co-workers and has been used to develop practical modeling approaches for complex quantum optical, microwave and optomechanical circuits/networks. In this paper we fill a significant gap in existing methodology by showing how trapped modes resulting from feedback via coupled channels with finite propagation delays can be identified systematically in a given passive linear network. Our method is based on the Blaschke-Potapov multiplicative factorization theorem for inner matrix-valued functions, which has been applied in the past to analog electronic networks. Our results provide a basis for extending the Quantum Hardware Description Language (QHDL) framework for automated quantum network model construction (Tezak \textit{et al.} in Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A, Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 370(1979):5270-5290, to efficiently treat scenarios in which each interconnection of components has an associated signal propagation time delay.