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Concept
Density matrix
Summary
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 which is entangled with another, without describing their combined state.
Density matrices are thus crucial tools in areas of quantum mechanics that deal with mixed states, such as quantum statistical mechanics, open quantum systems, quantum decoherence, and quantum information.
The density matrix is a representation of a linear operator called the density operator. The density matrix is obtained from the density operator by choice of basis in the underlying space. In practice, the terms density matrix and density operator are often used interchangeably.
In operator language, a density operator for a system is a positive semi-definite, Hermitian operator of trace one acting on the Hilbert space of the system. This definition can be motivated by considering a situation where each pure state is prepared with probability , describing an ensemble of pure states. The probability of obtaining projective measurement result when using projectors is given by
which makes the density operator, defined as
a convenient representation for the state of this ensemble. It is easy to check that this operator is positive semi-definite, Hermitian, and has trace one. Conversely, it follows from the spectral theorem that every operator with these properties can be written as for some states and coefficients that are non-negative and add up to one.
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