arXiv:quant-ph/0701143 · Journal of Mathematical Physics
Subnormalized states and trace-nonincreasing maps
Valerio Cappellini, Hans-Jürgen Sommers, Karol Życzkowski
Abstract
We investigate the set of completely positive, trace-nonincreasing linear maps acting on the set MN of mixed quantum states of size N. Extremal point of this set of maps are characterized and its volume with respect to the Hilbert-Schmidt (HS) (Euclidean) measure is computed explicitly for an arbitrary N. The spectra of partially reduced rescaled dynamical matrices associated with trace-nonincreasing completely positive maps belong to the N cube inscribed in the set of subnormalized states of size N. As a by-product we derive the measure in MN induced by partial trace of mixed quantum states distributed uniformly with respect to the HS measure in MN2.