Random quantum operations

We define a natural ensemble of trace preserving, completely positive quantum maps and present algorithms to generate them at random. Spectral properties of the superoperator Phi associated with a given quantum map are investigated and a quantum analogue of the Frobenius-Perron theorem is proved. We derive a general formula for the density of eigenvalues of Phi and show the connection with the Ginibre ensemble of real non-symmetric random matrices. Numerical investigations of the spectral gap imply that a generic state of the system iterated several times by a fixed generic map converges exponentially to an invariant state. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.