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arXiv:2605.19453

The Markov Marginal Problem for Density Operators

Steffen Lauritzen, Piotr Zwiernik

quant-phmath-phmath.PRSubmitted May 19, 2026• Announced May 20, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Oct 1, 2026 (v3)
v1 · May 19, 2026v2 · Jun 30, 2026v3 · Oct 1, 2026
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Abstract

We study when local reduced density operators, viewed as quantum marginals, can be assembled into a global quantum state with a prescribed Markov structure. The starting point is a canonical logarithmic construction $T(\mathcal R)$, the noncommutative analogue of the junction-tree formula for decomposable graphical models. Unlike in the classical case, this formal construction may fail: noncommutativity can prevent it from being a normalized state with the prescribed marginals. We prove that this obstruction is captured exactly by a trace condition. For two overlapping marginals, and for clique marginals on a chordal graph, the condition ${\rm Tr}(T(\mathcal R))=1$ is equivalent to the existence of a quantum Markov completion. When it exists, the completion is unique, equal to $T(\mathcal R)$, and selected by the maximum entropy principle. In the two-clique case, we also give an equivalent conditional reconstruction characterization: the two natural one-sided sandwich reconstructions agree if and only if the trace condition holds. We introduce the global quantum information $g{\rm I}(\mathcal{G})_ρ$ associated with a chordal graph $\mathcal{G}$ and show that it is a relative-entropy discrepancy from $ρ$ to the logarithmic candidate, with a trace correction when the candidate is not normalized. We also prove an intersection property for strictly positive quantum conditional independence. Three-qubit Pauli examples illustrate how the quantum obstructions are real: local consistency, feasibility, Markov feasibility, and maximum entropy can all separate.

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We study when local reduced density operators, viewed as quantum marginals, can be assembled into a global quantum state with a prescribed Markov structure. The starting point is a canonical logarithmic construction T(R)T(\mathcal R)T(R), the noncommutative analogue of the junction-tree formula for decomposable graphical models. Unlike in the classical case, this formal construction may fail: noncommutativity can prevent it from being a normalized state with the prescribed marginals. We prove that this obstruction is captured exactly by a trace condition. For two overlapping marginals, and for clique marginals on a chordal graph, the condition Tr(T(R))=1{\rm Tr}(T(\mathcal R))=1Tr(T(R))=1 is equivalent to the existence of a quantum Markov completion. When it exists, the completion is unique, equal to T(R)T(\mathcal R)T(R), and selected by the maximum entropy principle. In the two-clique case, we also give an equivalent conditional reconstruction characterization: the two natural one-sided sandwich reconstructions agree if and only if the trace condition holds. We introduce the global quantum information gI(G)ρg{\rm I}(\mathcal{G})_ρgI(G)ρ​ associated with a chordal graph G\mathcal{G}G and show that it is a relative-entropy discrepancy from ρρρ to the logarithmic candidate, with a trace correction when the candidate is not normalized. We also prove an intersection property for strictly positive quantum conditional independence. Three-qubit Pauli examples illustrate how the quantum obstructions are real: local consistency, feasibility, Markov feasibility, and maximum entropy can all separate.
We study quantum analogues of Bayesian networks on a directed acyclic graph (DAG), distinguishing two constructions for positive definite density operators on finite-dimensional tensor-product Hilbert spaces. The intrinsic construction starts from a joint state and its conditional-independence properties. The extrinsic construction assembles a state sequentially from prescribed local quantum kernels, following an ordering compatible with the arrows of the DAG. For the intrinsic construction, we prove the equivalence of the ordered, local, and global directed Markov properties, together with entropy, recursive-factorization, and logarithmic characterizations. The extrinsic construction always gives a normalized state and recovers each kernel as a conditional on all preceding systems. The same kernel, however, need not be recovered from the marginal on the vertex and its parents; a three-qubit example exhibits this obstruction. We prove that independence of the chosen topological ordering is sufficient exactly for transitive DAGs: every order-invariant kernel family then yields an intrinsically directed Markov state. Finally, we associate a logarithmic candidate with every positive definite state and DAG, prove that it is subnormalized, and show that the trace-one candidate is a directed Markov state. Both the candidate and the excess global information are invariant under DAG Markov equivalence.
Herein we study the problem of recovering a density operator from a set of compatible marginals, motivated by limitations of physical observations. Given that the set of compatible density operators is not singular, we adopt Jaynes’ principle and wish to characterize a compatible density operator with maximum entropy. We first show that comparing the entropy of compatible density operators is complete for the quantum computational complexity class QSZK, even for the simplest case of 3-chains. Then, we focus on the particular case of quantum Markov chains and trees and establish that for these cases, there exists a procedure polynomial in the number of subsystems that constructs the maximum entropy compatible density operator. Moreover, we extend the Chow–Liu algorithm to the same subclass of quantum states.
Herein we study the problem of recovering a density operator from a set of compatible marginals, motivated by limitations of physical observations. Given that the set of compatible density operators is not singular, we adopt Jaynes’ principle and wish to characterize a compatible density operator with maximum entropy. We first show that comparing the entropy of compatible density operators is complete for the quantum computational complexity class QSZK, even for the simplest case of 3-chains. Then, we focus on the particular case of quantum Markov chains and trees and establish that for these cases, there exists a procedure polynomial in the number of subsystems that constructs the maximum entropy compatible density operator. Moreover, we extend the Chow–Liu algorithm to the same subclass of quantum states.
Different sets of local correlations are not equivalent: some fragments of reduced data uniquely determine a global quantum state, while others leave it ambiguous. The quantum marginal problem asks whether a collection of reduced density matrices uniquely determines a compatible global quantum state. Although generic quantum states are uniquely specified by suitable sets of marginals, different collections of marginals are not equally informative: some uniquely determine the global state, whereas others leave it ambiguous. Identifying when uniqueness holds, and reconstructing the global state from partial information, remains computationally demanding and experimentally challenging. We show that information about the multipartite entanglement class and reconstructability in four-qubit systems is compactly encoded in small sets of two- and three-qubit marginals. Using semidefinite programming, we chart the reconstructability landscape across 49 inequivalent SLOCC entanglement classes and show that uniqueness strongly depends on both entanglement structure and marginal order. Neural networks trained only on reduced density matrices learn this structure directly. They accurately classify marginal reconstructability and, when uniqueness holds, reconstruct the full four-qubit density matrix with high fidelity from two- and three-qubit marginals. We benchmark the approach on a four-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance quantum processor and demonstrate that reconstructions from experimentally measured marginals remain faithful despite phase damping and control imperfections. Our results show that neural networks can learn when local correlations uniquely specify a global quantum state, and reveal how global quantum structure is encoded in reduced data.
We introduce a class of so called Markovian marginals, which gives a natural framework for constructing solutions to the quantum marginal problem. We consider a set of marginals that possess a certain internal quantum Markov chain structure. If they are equipped with such a structure and are locally consistent on their overlapping supports, there exists a global state that is consistent with all the marginals. The proof is constructive, and relies on a reduction of the marginal problem to a certain combinatorial problem. By employing an entanglement entropy scaling law, we give a physical argument that the requisite structure exists in any states with finite correlation lengths. This includes topologically ordered states as well as finite temperature Gibbs states.
Quantum many-body Gibbs states satisfy an approximate local Markov property~\cite{chen2025GibbsMarkov}: local noise can be approximately recovered by a quasi-local recovery map, and the conditional mutual information decays for the corresponding tripartition. Recent work~\cite{bergamaschi2025structural} extends this property to approximate stationary states (metastable states) of certain master equations modeling system--bath dynamics, and proposes a strengthened post-selected recovery property requiring recovery to hold for each measurement outcome. In this note, we characterize this \textit{strong Markov property}: it holds if and only if the state additionally satisfies correlation decay for suitable pairs of observables. We further prove several structural and operational consequences of the strong Markov property in the presence of an underlying master equation. First, one can estimate multiple observables from a \textit{single copy} of the state via a repeated measurement--recovery protocol. Second, any two strongly Markov states must have local marginals that are either very close or well separated. Third, if a strongly Markov state can be expressed as a mixture of two strongly Markov states, then their local marginals must be nearly indistinguishable.