Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-laser-science-and-quantum-information-processing-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2008/5/1/solution

For a normalized pure state, expand in an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors of the measured Hermitian operator. The Born rule assigns outcome the probability . Under the ideal projective measurement update, a nondegenerate outcome leaves , up to a global phase. The sum of the outcome probabilities is one, and the expectation value is ; a single trial reports one eigenvalue, not that average.
If , then
since . A nonzero eigenvector has positive squared norm, so is real. For two eigenvectors,
Thus : distinct eigenvalues have orthogonal eigenvectors.

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