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arXiv:2509.11785

Understanding Quantum Instruments Through the Analysis of $C^*$-Convexity and Their Marginals

B. V. Rajarama Bhat, Chongdar, Arghya, Sruthymurali

Published Sep 15, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

Quantum instruments are mathematical devices introduced to describe the conditional state change during a quantum process. They are completely positive map valued measures on measurable spaces. We may also view them as non-commutative analogues of joint probability measures. We analyze the $C^*$-convexity structure of spaces of quantum instruments. A complete description of the $C^*$-extreme instruments in finite dimensions has been established. Further, the implications of $C^*$-extremity between quantum instruments and their marginals has been explored.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2509.11785

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Understanding Quantum Instruments Through the Analysis of C∗C^*C∗-Convexity and Their Marginals
Quantum instruments are mathematical devices introduced to describe the conditional state change during a quantum process. They are completely positive map valued measures on measurable spaces. We may also view them as non-commutative analogues of joint probability measures. We analyze the C∗C^*C∗-convexity structure of spaces of quantum instruments. A complete description of the C∗C^*C∗-extreme instruments in finite dimensions has been established. Further, the implications of C∗C^*C∗-extremity between quantum instruments and their marginals has been explored.
Until recently, a quantum instrument was defined to be a completely positive operation-valued measure from the set of states on a Hilbert space to itself. In the last few years, this definition has been generalized to such measures between sets of states from different Hilbert spaces called the input and output Hilbert spaces. This article presents a theory of such instruments. Ways that instruments can be combined such as convex combinations, post-processing, sequential products, tensor products and conditioning are studied. We also consider marginal, reduced instruments and how these are used to define coexistence (compatibility) of instruments. Finally, we present a brief introduction to quantum measurement models where the generalization of instruments is essential. Many of the concepts of the theory are illustrated by examples. In particular, we discuss Holevo and Kraus instruments. Quanta 2023; 12: 27–40.
Generalized quantum instruments correspond to measurements where the input and output are either states or more generally quantum circuits. These measurements describe any quantum protocol including games, communications, and algorithms. The set of generalized quantum instruments with a given input and output structure is a convex set. Here, we investigate the extremal points of this set for the case of finite dimensional quantum systems and generalized instruments with finitely many outcomes. We derive algebraic necessary and sufficient conditions for extremality.
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.
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.
We will consider completely positive maps defined on tensor products of von Neumann algebras and taking values in the algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space and particularly certain convex subsets of the set of such maps. We show that when one of the marginal maps of such a map is an extreme point, then the marginals uniquely determine the map. We will further prove that when both of the marginals are extreme, then the whole map is extreme. We show that this general result is the common source of several well-known results dealing with, e.g., jointly measurable observables. We also obtain new insight especially in the realm of quantum instruments and their marginal observables and channels.