Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T07:48:50.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Further results on the relative entropy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Matthew J. Donald
Affiliation:
The Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge CB3 OHE

Extract

Given any subset ℬ, containing the identity (1), of ℬ (ℋ) (the bounded operators on some Hilbert space ℋ), and given two states σ and ρ on ℬ(ℋ), a definition was given in [3] of ent (σℬ|ρ|ℬ) - ‘the entropy of σ relative to ρ given the information in ℬ’. It was shown that, for ℬ an injective von Neumann algebra, the resulting relative entropy agreed with those of Umegaki, Araki, Pusz and Woronowicz, and Uhlmann. The purpose of this paper is to explore this definition further. After some technical preliminaries in Section 2, in Section 3 a new characterization of ent() (σ|ρ) for σ and ρ normal states will be given. In Section 4 it will be shown that under fairly general circumstances the relative entropy on algebras can be used for statistical inference. This is important for applications of the relative entropy. I shall given the briefest sketches of how I see these applications being made in the measurement problem in quantum theory and in a ‘many worlds’ interpretation. The vigilant reader will notice that the scheme proposed in Section 4 for modelling measurements subject to given compatibility requirements differs slightly from that proposed in the introduction to [3]. The reason for this is outlined in Section 5, where an explicit computation is made of the relative entropy for the simplest non-trivial case in which ℬ is not an algebra; when ℬ = {1, P, Q} for P and Q projections subject to certain conditions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1]Bratteli, O. and Robinson, D. W.. Operator Algebras and Quantum Statistical Mechanics, vol. I (Springer-Verlag, 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2]Bratteli, O. and Robinson, D. W.. Operator Algebras and Quantum Statistical Mechanics, vol. II (Springer-Verlag, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3]Donald, M. J.. On the relative entropy. Commun. Math. Phys. 105 (1986), 1334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4]Lindblad, G.. Expectations and entropy inequalities for finite quantum systems. Commun. Math. Phys. 39 (1974), 111119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5]Takesaki, M.. Theory of Operator Algebras, vol. I (Springer-Verlag, 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar