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arXiv:1009.1115 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Information geometry of density matrices and state estimation

Dorje C. Brody

Published May 19, 2011• 32 citations
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Abstract

Given a pure state vector | x ⟩ and a density matrix , the function defines a probability density on the space of pure states parameterised by density matrices. The associated Fisher–Rao information measure is used to define a unitary invariant Riemannian metric on the space of density matrices. An alternative derivation of the metric, based on square-root density matrices and trace norms, is provided. This is applied to the problem of quantum-state estimation. In the simplest case of unitary parameter estimation, new higher-order corrections to the uncertainty relations, applicable to general mixed states, are derived.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/44/25/252002

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Given a pure state vector | x ⟩ and a density matrix , the function defines a probability density on the space of pure states parameterised by density matrices. The associated Fisher–Rao information measure is used to define a unitary invariant Riemannian metric on the space of density matrices. An alternative derivation of the metric, based on square-root density matrices and trace norms, is provided. This is applied to the problem of quantum-state estimation. In the simplest case of unitary parameter estimation, new higher-order corrections to the uncertainty relations, applicable to general mixed states, are derived.
A statistical model M is specified by a family of probability distributions, characterised by a set of continuous parameters known as the parameter space. This possesses natural geometrical properties induced by the embedding of the family of probability distributions into the space of all square-integrable functions. More precisely, by consideration of the square-root density function we can regard M as a submanifold of the unit sphere S in a real Hilbert space H. Therefore, H effectively embodies the `state space' of the probability distributions, and the geometry of the given statistical model can be described in terms of the embedding of M in S. The geometry in question is characterised by a natural Riemannian metric (the Fisher-Rao metric), and as a consequence various aspects of classical statistical inference can be formulated in a natural geometric setting. In particular, we focus attention on the variance lower bounds for statistical estimation, and establish generalisations of the classical Cramér-Rao and Bhattacharyya bounds, described in terms of the geometry of the underlying real Hilbert space. The statistical model M can then be specialised to the case of a submanifold of the state space of a quantum mechanical system. This can be pursued by introducing a compatible complex structure on the underlying real Hilbert space, thus allowing the operations of ordinary quantum mechanics to be reinterpreted in the language of real Hilbert space geometry. The application of generalised variance bounds to quantum statistical estimation is shown to lead to higher order corrections to the Heisenberg uncertainty relations.
The quantum analog of the Fisher information metric of a probability simplex is searched and several Riemannian metrics on the set of positive definite density matrices are studied. Some of them appeared in the literature in connection with Cramér–Rao-type inequalities or the generalization of the Berry phase to mixed states. They are shown to be stochastically monotone here. All stochastically monotone Riemannian metrics are characterized by means of operator monotone functions and it is proven that there exist a maximal and a minimal among them. A class of metrics can be extended to pure states and a constant multiple of the Fubini–Study metric appears in the extension.
A statistical model M is a family of probability distributions, characterised by a set of continuous parameters known as the parameter space. This possesses natural geometrical properties induced by the embedding of the family of probability distributions into the space of all square–integrable functions. More precisely, by consideration of the square–root density function we can regard M as a submanifold of the unit sphere S in a real Hilbert space H. Therefore, H embodies the ‘state space’ of the probability distributions, and the geometry of the given statistical model can be described in terms of the embedding of M in S. The geometry in question is characterised by a natural Riemannian metric (the Fisher–Rao metric), thus allowing us to formulate the principles of classical statistical inference in a natural geometric setting. In particular, we focus attention on the variance lower bounds for statistical estimation, and establish generalisations of the classical Cramér–Rao and Bhattacharyya inequalities, described in terms of the geometry of the underlying real Hilbert space. As a comprehensive illustration of the utility of the geometric framework, the statistical model M is then specialised to the case of a submanifold of the state space of a quantum mechanical system. This is pursued by introducing a compatible complex structure on the underlying real Hilbert space, which allows the operations of ordinary quantum mechanics to be reinterpreted in the language of real Hilbert space geometry. The application of generalised variance bounds in the case of quantum statistical estimation leads to a set of higher order corrections to the Heisenberg uncertainty relations for canonically conjugate observables.
A statistical model M is a family of probability distributions, characterised by a set of continuous parameters known as the parameter space. This possesses natural geometrical properties induced by the embedding of the family of probability distributions into the space of all square–integrable functions. More precisely, by consideration of the square–root density function we can regard M as a submanifold of the unit sphere S in a real Hilbert space H. Therefore, H embodies the ‘state space’ of the probability distributions, and the geometry of the given statistical model can be described in terms of the embedding of M in S. The geometry in question is characterised by a natural Riemannian metric (the Fisher–Rao metric), thus allowing us to formulate the principles of classical statistical inference in a natural geometric setting. In particular, we focus attention on the variance lower bounds for statistical estimation, and establish generalisations of the classical Cramér–Rao and Bhattacharyya inequalities, described in terms of the geometry of the underlying real Hilbert space. As a comprehensive illustration of the utility of the geometric framework, the statistical model M is then specialised to the case of a submanifold of the state space of a quantum mechanical system. This is pursued by introducing a compatible complex structure on the underlying real Hilbert space, which allows the operations of ordinary quantum mechanics to be reinterpreted in the language of real Hilbert space geometry. The application of generalised variance bounds in the case of quantum statistical estimation leads to a set of higher order corrections to the Heisenberg uncertainty relations for canonically conjugate observables.
A Riemannian metric is defined on the state space of a finite quantum system by the canonical correlation (or Kubo–Mori/Bogoliubov scalar product). This metric is infinitesimally induced by the (nonsymmetric) relative entropy functional or the von Neumann entropy of density matrices. Hence its geometry expresses maximal uncertainty. It is proven that the metric is monotone under stochastic mappings, however, an example shows that it is not the only such Riemannian metric. This fact is remarkable because in the probabilistic case, the Markovian monotonicity property characterizes the Fisher information metric. The essential difference appears in the curvatures of a classical state space and a quantum one. A conjecture is made that the scalar curvature is monotone with respect to the ‘‘more mixed’’ (statistical) partial order of density matrices. Furthermore, an information inequality resembling the Cramér–Rao inequality of classical statistics is established. The inequality provides a lower bound for the canonical correlation matrix (of an unbiased observable) and it is saturated when a (partial) observation level and the corresponding family of coarse-grained states are considered.
The (Fisher) information matrix (I2p) for a p×p density matrix (ρ) is taken to be the (2p2+p)-dimensional information matrix of a 2p-variate real normal distribution with an a priori zero mean vector and a covariance matrix (Σ2p), the two diagonal blocks of which are formed from the symmetric (real) component of ρ, and the two off-diagonal blocks from the skew-symmetric (imaginary) part of ρ. The inverse square root ‖nI2p‖−1/2 (where n is the number of observations) serves as a unitary invariant prior distribution over (the precision matrices) Σ2p−1 and ‖nI2p‖1/2 over Σ2p—and consequently over the p×p (mixed and pure) density matrices. The availability of these priors should facilitate the process of state determination. An uncertainty principle for the estimation of ρ is formulated. The determinant of Σ2p proves for integral p≥1 to equal (2−p‖ρ‖)2.