paper

Geometry of the generalized Bloch sphere for qutrits

arXiv:1111.4427 · doi:10.1088/1751-8113/49/16/165203

Abstract

The geometry of the generalized Bloch sphere , the state space of a qutrit, is studied. Closed form expressions for , its boundary , and the set of extremals are obtained by use of an elementary observation. These expressions and analytic methods are used to classify the 28 two-sections and the 56 three-sections of into unitary equivalence classes, completing the works of earlier authors. It is shown, in particular, that there are families of two-sections and of three-sections which are equivalent geometrically but not unitarily, a feature that does not appear to have been appreciated earlier. A family of three-sections of obese-tetrahedral shape whose symmetry corresponds to the 24-element tetrahedral point group is examined in detail. This symmetry is traced to the natural reduction of the adjoint representation of , the symmetry underlying , into direct sum of the two-dimensional and the two (inequivalent) three-dimensional irreducible representations of .

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