One of the four following states:
When unqualified as in "the Bell state", it generally just means .
The Bell states are entangled and non-separable. Intuitively, we can see that when we measure that state, the values of the first and second bit are strictly correlated. This is the hallmark of quantum computation: making up states where qubits are highly correlated to match a specific algorithmic answer, and opposed to uniformly random noise. For example, the Bell state circuit is a common hello world, e.g. it is used in the official Qiskit hello world.
A quantum circuit which when fed with input produces the Bell state.
Figure 1.
Quantum circuit that generates the Bell state
. Source.
The fundamental intuition for this circuit is as follows.
First the Hadamard gate makes the first qubit be in a 50/50 state.
Then, the CNOT gate gets controlled by that 50/50 value, and the controlled qubit also gets 50/50 chance as a result.
However, both qubits are now entangled: the result of the second qubit depends on the result of the first one. Because:
TODO clear example and application.

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Quantum state by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-20
A quantum state describes a preparation through its predicted measurement in quantum mechanics probabilities. In the Hilbert space formulation, a pure state is a quantum state ray: a normalized vector representative satisfies , and representatives differing by a global phase describe the same quantum state. [ref]
Both pure states and mixed states are represented by a density operator on the chosen complex Hilbert space:
Thus is Hermitian, positive semidefinite and of unit trace; in infinite dimension it must also be a trace-class operator. For a normalized pure state, is a rank-one orthogonal projection. A mixed state has no single such vector representative. Its density matrix is the matrix of in a chosen orthonormal basis. [ref] For a discrete POVM with effects and , the Born rule reads
These constraints and Born rule probabilities describe arbitrary finite-dimensional preparations. [ref]
Randomly choosing normalized pure states with probabilities and forgetting the label gives
This quantum state ensemble averages probabilities; a quantum superposition adds probability amplitudes. Several ensembles can give the same density operator. Quantum entanglement can make a reduced density matrix mixed while the joint quantum state is pure. [ref]
The preparation, the choice of basis, and the measurement are separate ingredients. A wavefunction is the position representation of a pure state; a general mixed state requires a density operator. For a closed quantum system, a unitary operator evolves it as , preserving its eigenvalues and purity of a density operator. [ref] The Bloch sphere and Bloch ball give the qubit geometry; quantum state tomography connects repeated preparations to an estimated density matrix; projective measurement treats the conditional state after an outcome.
A quantum state is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics that describes the state of a quantum system. It encapsulates all the information about the system and can be represented in several ways, such as: 1. **Wave Function**: In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, a quantum state can be represented by a wave function, usually denoted by the Greek letter psi (Ψ).