Efficiency-Induced Freezing in Quantum-State Purification

Abstract

Any nonzero detection loss qualitatively changes feedback-controlled purification under diffusive monitoring. In every finite dimension, we prove a sharp, dimension-independent ceiling on the decay of trajectory-averaged impurity moments, uniformly over admissible predictable feedback protocols.Below unit efficiency, this ceiling becomes independent of moment order above a critical value and is attained on extremal rank-two quantum-nondemolition (QND) faces. For generic observable spectra, a determinant-root law precludes every full-rank state from attaining this boundary rate over an explicit moment-order interval. For qubits at $0<\hat{I}\cdot <1$, the frozen rate is the exact optimum, set by rare, persistently mixed trajectories. Parameter-free finite-action scaling functions resolve both the rounded QND moment-order transition and the near-unit QND--always-unbiased crossover.

28 pages, 12 figures