Geometry of the Hilbert space and the quantum Zeno effect

Abstract

We show that the quadratic short time behavior of transition probability is a natural consequence of the inner product of the Hilbert space of the quantum system. We provide a relation between the survival probability and the underlying geometric structure such as the Fubini-Study metric defined on the projective Hilbert space of the quantum system. This predicts the quantum Zeno effect even for systems described by nonlinear and nonunitary evolution equations, within the collapse mechanism of the wave function during measurement process.