English

Characterizing mixing and measurement in quantum mechanics

Quantum Physics 2009-11-06 v1

Abstract

What fundamental constraints characterize the relationship between a mixture ρ=ipiρi\rho = \sum_i p_i \rho_i of quantum states, the states ρi\rho_i being mixed, and the probabilities pip_i? What fundamental constraints characterize the relationship between prior and posterior states in a quantum measurement? In this paper we show that there are many surprisingly strong constraints on these mixing and measurement processes that can be expressed simply in terms of the eigenvalues of the quantum states involved. These constraints capture in a succinct fashion what it means to say that a quantum measurement acquires information about the system being measured, and considerably simplify the proofs of many results about entanglement transformation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0008073,
  title  = {Characterizing mixing and measurement in quantum mechanics},
  author = {M. A. Nielsen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0008073},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

12 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T19:28:37.656Z