Matrix describing a quantum system in a pure or mixed state
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In quantum mechanics, a density matrix (or density operator) is a matrix that describes the quantum state of a physical system. It allows for the calculation of the probabilities of the outcomes of any measurement performed upon this system, using the Born rule. It is a generalization of the more usual state vectors or wavefunctions: while those can only represent pure states, density matrices can also represent mixed states. Mixed states arise in quantum mechanics in two different situations:
when the preparation of the system is not fully known, and thus one must deal with a statistical ensemble of possible preparations, and
when one wants to describe a physical system that is entangled with another, without describing their combined state; this case is typical for a system interacting with some environment (e.g. decoherence).
Density matrices are thus crucial tools in areas of quantum mechanics that deal with mixed states, such as quantum statistical mechanics, open quantum systems and quantum information.
In quantum mechanics, a densitymatrix (or density operator) is a matrix that describes the quantum state of a physical system. It allows for the calculation...
The densitymatrix renormalization group (DMRG) is a numerical variational technique devised to obtain the low-energy physics of quantum many-body systems...
agnostic about interpretation, focusing instead on specific problems of density-matrix dynamics. Zurek's interest in decoherence stemmed from furthering Bohr's...
Another instance of explicit time dependence may occur when AS(t) is a densitymatrix (see below). For the operator H 0 {\displaystyle H_{0}} itself, the...
statistical mechanics. For a quantum-mechanical system described by a densitymatrix ρ, the von Neumann entropy is S = − tr ( ρ ln ρ ) , {\displaystyle...
densitymatrix is normalized so that the trace of ρ is 1, as it is for the standard definition given in this section. Occasionally a densitymatrix will...
The densitymatrix embedding theory (DMET) is a numerical technique to solve strongly correlated electronic structure problems. By mapping the system to...
components ϱ k {\displaystyle \varrho _{k}} in any decomposition of the densitymatrix given as ϱ = ∑ k p k ϱ k . {\displaystyle \varrho =\sum _{k}p_{k}\varrho...
H_{A}\otimes H_{B}} of Hilbert spaces. A mixed state is described by a densitymatrix ρ, that is a non-negative trace-class operator of trace 1 on the tensor...
quantum-mechanical wavefunction ψ(x). Thus, it maps on the quantum densitymatrix in the map between real phase-space functions and Hermitian operators...
{\displaystyle 2^{2N}-1} real parameters are needed to describe the densitymatrix of a mixed state. Quantum state tomography is a method to determine...
quantum system with its environment. One of these is the use of the densitymatrix, and its associated master equation. While in principle this approach...
treatment except that it operates on the wave function rather than using a densitymatrix approach. The main component of this method is evolving the system's...
{\displaystyle \vert k\rangle } are the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the densitymatrix ϱ , {\displaystyle \varrho ,} respectively, and the summation goes over...
will have to be performed, many times each. To fully reconstruct the densitymatrix for a mixed state in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space, the following...
terms of the identity matrix and the Pauli matrices also leads to the Bloch sphere representation of 2 × 2 mixed states’ densitymatrix, (positive semidefinite...
is also called a probability matrix, transition matrix, substitution matrix, or Markov matrix.: 9–11 The stochastic matrix was first developed by Andrey...
s(t), or more explicitly with a time-ordered exponential integral. The densitymatrix can be shown to transform to the interaction picture in the same way...
is the densitymatrix, Tr {\displaystyle \operatorname {Tr} } is trace, and ln {\displaystyle \ln } is the matrix logarithm. This densitymatrix formulation...
Given a statistical ensemble of quantum mechanical systems with the densitymatrix ρ {\displaystyle \rho } , it is given by S ( ρ ) = − Tr ( ρ ln ρ...
This was first discussed as a general stochastic transformation for a densitymatrix by George Sudarshan. The quantum operation formalism describes not only...