Dissertation defence (Physics): MSc Federico Settimo
MSc Federico Settimo defends the dissertation in Physics titled “Quantum non-Markovianity in the Heisenberg picture” at the University of Turku on 28 November 2026 at 12.00 (University of Turku, Quantum, Auditorium, Vesilinnantie 5, Turku).
Opponent: Professor Ángel Rivas (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)
Custos: Professor Jyrki Piilo (University of Turku)
Summary of the Doctoral Dissertation:
Quantum computers could tackle problems beyond today’s computers, from simulating quantum materials to developing new medicines. Yet they are delicate and highly sensitive to unwanted interactions with their surroundings, which can affect how they work. Understanding these interactions is the focus of open quantum systems. Sometimes, the environment’s influence depends on the system’s past, giving rise to memory effects known as non-Markovianity.
In my thesis, I study these memory effects using two ways of describing quantum dynamics: the Schrödinger picture, which follows the state of the system, and the Heisenberg picture, which follows its measurable properties. Although these pictures are equivalent ways to describe quantum mechanics, they can tell different stories about memory: a process may look memoryless in one picture but show memory in the other.
These distinctions matter for quantum technologies because a system’s memory can influence how reliably it performs a task and how its behaviour can be simulated. Some tasks depend on memory effects appearing in both pictures. By clarifying how memory is described in each picture, my results help connect the theory of open quantum systems to the design and simulation of quantum technologies.
