An approach to p-adic qubits from irreducible representations of SO(3)p

We introduce the notion of a p-adic quantum bit (p-qubit) in the context of the p-adic quantum mechanics initiated and developed after the seminal paper of Volovich [Theor. Math. Phys. 71, 574 (1987)]. In this approach, physics takes place in a three-dimensional p-adic space rather than Euclidean space. Based on our prior work describing the p-adic special orthogonal group [Di Martino et al., arXiv:2104.06228 [math.NT] (2021)], we outline a program to classify its continuous unitary projective representations, which can be interpreted as a theory of p-adic angular momentum. The p-adic quantum bit arises from the irreducible representations of minimal nontrivial dimension two, of which we construct examples for all primes p. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.

Automated summary

This study introduces the concept of p-adic quantum bit (p-qubit) in the context of p-adic quantum mechanics and proposes a program to classify its continuous unitary projective representations.