# Optimal detection of dissipation in Lindbladian dynamics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17736 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17736/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 Mar 2026.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Provable learning separation for predicting time-evolution of quantum many-body systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06472/) (2026)
- [Characterizing Arbitrary Lindbladian Dynamics with a Few Pauli Measurements](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.23044/) (2026)
- [Hamiltonian locality testing and certification do not achieve the Heisenberg limit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.03205/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Experimental implementations of Hamiltonian dynamics are often affected by dissipative noise arising from interactions with the environment. This raises the question of whether one can detect the presence or absence of such dissipation using only access to the observed time evolution of the system. We consider the following decision problem: given black-box access to the time-evolution channels etL generated by an unknown time-independent Lindbladian L, determine whether the dynamics are purely Hamiltonian or contain dissipation of magnitude at least ε in normalized Frobenius norm. We give a randomized procedure that solves this task using total evolution time O(ε-1), which is information-theoretically optimal. This guarantee holds under the assumptions that the Lindblad generator has bounded strength and its dissipative part is of constant locality with bounded degree. Our work provides a practical method for detecting dissipative noise in experimentally implemented quantum dynamics.