Non-Hermitian and Zeno limit of quantum systems under rapid measurements

We investigate in depth the relation between the first detection time of an isolated quantum system that is repeatedly perturbed by strong local measurements with a large fixed frequency $1/τ$, determining whether it is in some given state $| ψ_\text{d} \rangle$, and the time of absorption to the same state of the same system with the added imaginary potential $2i\hbar | ψ_\text{d} \rangle \langle ψ_\text{d} | / τ$. As opposed to previous works, we compare directly the solutions of both problems in the small $τ$, i.e., Zeno, limit. We find a scaling collapse in $F(t)$ with respect to $τ$ and compute the total detection probability as well as the moments of the first detection time probability density $F(t)$ in the Zeno limit. We show that both solutions approach the same result in this small $τ$ limit, as long as the initial state $| ψ_\text{in} \rangle$ is not parallel to the detection state, i.e. as long as $| \langle ψ_\text{d} | ψ_\text{in} \rangle | < 1$. However, when this condition is violated, the small probability density to detect the state on time scales much larger than $τ$ is precisely a factor of four different for all such times. We express the solution of the Zeno limit of both problems formally in terms of an electrostatic analogy. Our results are corroborated with numerical simulations.

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