A mathematical framework for quantum Hamiltonian simulation and duality

Abstract: Analogue Hamiltonian simulation is a promising near-term application of quantum computing and has recently been put on a theoretical footing. In Hamiltonian simulation, a physical Hamiltonian is engineered to have identical physics to another - often very different - Hamiltonian. This is qualitatively similar to the notion of duality in physics, whereby two superficially different theories are mathematically equivalent in some precise sense. However, existing characterisations of Hamiltonian simulations are not sufficiently general to extend to all dualities in physics. In particular, they cannot encompass the important cases of strong/weak and high-temperature/low-temperature dualities. In this work, we give three physically motivated axiomatisations of duality, formulated respectively in terms of observables, partition functions and entropies. We prove that these axiomatisations are equivalent, and characterise the mathematical form that any duality satisfying these axioms must take. A building block in one of our results is a strengthening of earlier results on entropy-preserving maps to maps that are entropy-preserving up to an additive constant, which we prove decompose as a direct sum of unitary and anti-unitary components, which may be of independent mathematical interest.