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arXiv:2002.03969 · Russian Mathematical Surveys

Extreme points of the set of quantum states with bounded energy

Stephan Weis, Максим Евгеньевич Широков

Published Feb 1, 2021• 8 citations
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Abstract

We show that for any energy observable every extreme point of the set of quantum states with bounded energy is a pure state. This allows us to write every state with bounded energy in terms of a continuous convex combination of pure states of bounded energy. Furthermore, we prove that any quantum state with finite energy can be represented as a continuous convex combination of pure states with the same energy. We discuss examples from quantum information theory.

DOI
10.1070/rm9942

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We show that for any energy observable every extreme point of the set of quantum states with bounded energy is a pure state. This allows us to write every state with bounded energy in terms of a continuous convex combination of pure states of bounded energy. Furthermore, we prove that any quantum state with finite energy can be represented as a continuous convex combination of pure states with the same energy. We discuss examples from quantum information theory.
Convex sets of quantum states and processes play a central role in quantum theory and quantum information. Many important examples of convex sets in quantum theory are spectrahedra, that is, sets of positive operators satisfying affine constraints. These examples include sets of quantum states with given expectation values of a set of observables, sets of multipartite quantum states with given marginals, sets of quantum measurements, channels and multitime quantum processes, as well as sets of higher-order quantum maps and quantum causal structures. This contribution provides a characterization of the extreme points of general spectrahedra, and bounds on the ranks of the corresponding operators. The general results are applied to several special cases, and then used to retrieve classic results such as Choi’s characterization of the extreme quantum channels, Parthasarathy’s characterization of the extreme quantum states with given marginals and the quantum version of Birkhoff’s theorem for qubit unital channels. Finally, we propose a notion of positive operator valued measures (POVMs) with general affine constraints for their normalization, and we characterize the extremal POVMs.
Convex sets of quantum states and processes play a central role in quantum theory and quantum information. Many important examples of convex sets in quantum theory are spectrahedra, that is, sets of positive operators subject to affine constraints. These examples include sets of quantum states with given expectation values of some observables of interest, sets of multipartite quantum states with given marginals, sets of quantum measurements, channels, and multitime quantum processes, as well as sets of higher-order quantum maps and quantum causal structures. This contribution provides a characterisation of the extreme points of general spectrahedra, and bounds on the ranks of the corresponding operators. The general results are applied to several special cases, and are used to retrieve classic results such as Choi's characterisation of the extreme quantum channels, Parhasarathy's characterisation of the extreme quantum states with given marginals, and the quantum version of Birkhoff's theorem for qubit unital channels. Finally, we propose a notion of positive operator valued measures (POVMs) with general affine constraints for their normalisation, and we characterise the extremal POVMs.
It is well - known that the set of states of a given quantum mechanical system is to be closed from the point of view of the operational approach if we want to make mixed states or convex combinations. That is, s1s_1s1​ and s2s_2s2​ are states, then the same is to be true for λs1+(1−λ)s2,\lambda s_1 +(1-\lambda) s_2,λs1​+(1−λ)s2​, where 0<λ<1.0 < \lambda < 1.0<λ<1. We can define a convex combination of elements in a linear space, but unfortunately, in the general case the linear space is artificial for the set of states and has no physical meaning, but the procedure of forming the mixtures of states has a natural meaning. This is why we provide an abstract definition of the mixtures, which is independent of the linearity notion. We call this space a convex structure. In the work we consider state spaces, generalized state spaces, in which we select pure states, define operations and effects associated with the operations. We also consider ultraproducts of the sequences of these structures, operations and effects.
In standard quantum theory, the ideas of information-entropy and of pure states are closely linked. States are represented by density matrices ρρρ on a Hilbert space and the information-entropy −tr(ρlog⁡ρ)-tr(ρ\logρ)−tr(ρlogρ) is minimised on pure states (pure states are the vertices of the boundary of the convex set of states). The space of decoherence functions in the consistent histories approach to generalised quantum theory is also a convex set. However, by showing that every decoherence function can be written as a convex combination of two other decoherence functions we demonstrate that there are no `pure' decoherence functions. The main content of the paper is a new notion of information-entropy in generalised quantum mechanics which is applicable in contexts in which there is no a priori notion of time. Information-entropy is defined first on consistent sets and then we show that it decreases upon refinement of the consistent set. This information-entropy suggests an intrinsic way of giving a consistent set selection criterion.
In standard quantum theory, the ideas of information entropy and of pure states are closely linked. States are represented by density matrices \ensuremath{\rho} on a Hilbert space and the information entropy - tr(\ensuremath{\rho} ln \ensuremath{\rho}) is minimized on pure states (pure states are the vertices of the boundary of the convex set of states). The space of decoherence functions in the consistent histories approach to generalized quantum theory is also a convex set. However, by showing that every decoherence function can be written as a convex combination of two other decoherence functions, we demonstrate that there are no ``pure'' decoherence functions. The main content of the paper is a notion of information entropy in generalized quantum mechanics which is applicable in contexts in which there is no a priori notion of time. Information entropy is defined first on consistent sets and then we show that it decreases upon refinement of the consistent set. This information entropy suggests an intrinsic way of giving a consistent set selection criterion.