Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 65 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The quantum relative entropy is when the support of a positive operator is contained in that of , and otherwise. Write spectral decompositions and , and set .
The weights sum to one. Concavity of the scalar logarithm gives the diagonal logarithm concavity boundFor , support inclusion removes overlaps with zero eigenvalues of ; alternatively take a positive regularization and pass to the limit. The two diagonal vectors and are probability distributions. ThereforeThis proves nonnegativity of quantum relative entropy without assuming the states commute. Equality in the strict logarithmic concavity condition makes each occupied an eigenvector of ; classical equality gives and no weight outside the support, hence equality occurs exactly for .