Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 50 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let and introduce an isomorphic reference system . Choose a basis and the maximally entangled stateComplete positivity makesa positive density operator. This is the normalized Choi matrix, with the reference placed first. Its spectral decomposition can be writtenThe number is at most .
Here an index state is a chosen basis vector in the reference. The corresponding relative state of is the generally unnormalized vectorThus . Define a linear map by its columns:Then , soExpand both sides in reference matrix units. The block with reference indices on the left is ; on the right it is . Since matrix units span all operators and is linear,This constructs the Kraus representation explicitly from the relative states, rather than assuming it.
Finally, trace preservation implies for every density operator thatTaking every rank-one orthogonal projection as forces the Hermitian operator in brackets to have the same quadratic form as the identity. ThereforeThe argument is finite-dimensional, as appropriate to the quantum-information setting; a channel with a different output dimension has the same construction with rectangular Kraus operators.