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arXiv:1611.00613

Comment on "Gleason-Type Theorem for Projective Measurements, Including Qubits" by F. De Zela

Michael J. W. Hall

Published Nov 2, 2016• 3 citations
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Abstract

It has recently been claimed by De Zela that Gleason's theorem, for probability measures on the lattice of projection operators, can be extended to qubits by adding assumptions related to continuity and the existence of 'eigenstates'. This amounts to a claim of the derivation of Born's rule for Hermitian qubit observables. I point out a simple counterexample, and the flaw in De Zela's derivation (these are equally applicable to the repetition of the derivation given in a recent Reply). I also briefly discuss a valid extension to qubits given by Busch.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1611.00613

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Reply to "Comment on `Gleason-type theorem including qubits and projective measurements: the Born rule beyond quantum physics' ", by Michael J. W. Hall

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We present a reply to the objections raised by M. J. W. Hall against our extension of Gleason's theorem.

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It has recently been claimed by De Zela that Gleason's theorem, for probability measures on the lattice of projection operators, can be extended to qubits by adding assumptions related to continuity and the existence of 'eigenstates'. This amounts to a claim of the derivation of Born's rule for Hermitian qubit observables. I point out a simple counterexample, and the flaw in De Zela's derivation (these are equally applicable to the repetition of the derivation given in a recent Reply). I also briefly discuss a valid extension to qubits given by Busch.
We extend Gleason's theorem to the two-dimensional Hilbert space of a qubit by invoking the standard axiom that describes composite quantum systems. The tensor-product structure allows us to derive density matrices and Born's rule for d=2d=2d=2 from a simple requirement: the probabilities assigned to measurement outcomes must not depend on whether a system is considered on its own or as a subsystem of a larger one. In line with Gleason's original theorem, our approach assigns probabilities only to projection-valued measures, while other known extensions rely on considering more general classes of measurements. This extension of Gleason's theorem to two-dimensional systems is shown to remain valid for some foil theories of quantum theory.
Gleason's theorem is often cited as establishing the Born rule from the structure of Hilbert space, yet its original proof is mathematically sophisticated and rarely accessible to physicists. In this article we present a simple route to the dimensional distinction at the heart of Gleason's result, using the generalized Bloch representation of quantum states. More precisely, we consider a restricted but instructive class of probability assignments obtained by replacing the linear dependence of the Born expression on a Bloch-space scalar product with a real function f. For qubits, infinitely many continuous non-Born assignments of this form satisfy normalization for every projective measurement. In dimension greater than 3, by contrast, the geometry of the measurement simplex imposes additional relations among the relevant scalar products. Requiring normalization for arbitrary states then leads to a Cauchy-type functional equation, which, together with boundedness, forces f to be linear. Our argument provides a complementary geometric illustration of why the freedom present in dimension two disappears in higher dimensions, reaching this conclusion directly from the geometry of the measurement simplices and normalization, without explicitly invoking the intertwining of projectors across different orthogonal resolutions of the identity.
Gleason's theorem is a statement that, given some reasonable assumptions, the Born rule used to calculate probabilities in quantum mechanics is essentially unique [A. M. Gleason, Indiana Univ. Math. J. 6, 885 (1957)]. We show that Gleason's theorem contains within it also the structure of sequential measurements, and along with this the state update rule. We give a small set of axioms, which are physically motivated and analogous to those in Busch's proof of Gleason's theorem [P. Busch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 120403 (2003)], from which the familiar Kraus operator form follows. An axiomatic approach has practical relevance as well as fundamental interest, in making clear those assumptions which underlie the security of quantum communication protocols. Interestingly, the two-time formalism is seen to arise naturally in this approach.