English

Explicit construction of the density matrix in Gleason's theorem

Quantum Physics 2019-04-11 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Gleason's theorem is a fundamental 60 year old result in the foundations of quantum mechanix, setting up and laying out the surprisingly minimal assumptions required to deduce the existence of quantum density matrices and the Born rule. Now Gleason's theorem and its proof have been continuously analyzed, simplified, and revised over the last 60 years, and we will have very little to say about the theorem and proof themselves. Instead, we find it useful, (and hopefully interesting), to make some clarifying comments concerning the explicit construction of the quantum density matrix that Gleason's theorem proves exists, but that Gleason's theorem otherwise says relatively little about.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1904.00533,
  title  = {Explicit construction of the density matrix in Gleason's theorem},
  author = {Del Rajan and Matt Visser},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.00533},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

12 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:24:42.301Z