We show that for positive semidefinite
A and
B the relative entropy can be written as
D(A∥B)=2∫alog(a/b)dμA,B(a,b), where
μA,B denotes Heinävaara's tracial joint spectral measure. This allows us to obtain a unified derivation of several known integral representations of relative entropy from scalar equalities. Scalar inequalities can be used in the same way to derive Pinsker-type bounds. We further show that the testing curve
t↦tr[A−tB]+ is piecewise affine exactly when
A and
B commute, which is equivalent to their testing region being a polygon. This gives a characterization of noncommutativity through the curvature. As further applications, we derive inequalities for relative entropy variance and the loss of relative entropy under positive trace-preserving maps.