Subspace local quantum channels

A special class of quantum channels, named subspace local (SL), are defined and investigated. The proposed definition of subspace locality of quantum channels is an attempt to answer the question of what kind of restriction should be put on a channel, if it is to act ‘locally’ with respect to two ‘locations’, when these naturally correspond to a separation of the total Hilbert space in an orthogonal sum of subspaces H = H1 ⊕ H2, rather than a tensor product decomposition H = H1 ⊗ H2. It is shown that the set of SL channels decomposes into four disjoint families of channels. Explicit expressions to generate all channels in each family are presented. It is shown that one of these four families, the local subspace preserving (LSP) channels, is precisely the intersection between the set of subspace preserving channels and the SL channels. For a subclass of the LSP channels, a special type of unitary representation using ancilla systems is presented. PACS numbers: 03.65.-w, 03.67.-a