Lower asymptotic semicontinuity of quantum relative entropy Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-11-05
Let be finite-dimensional density operators with . If , then
The finite-reference condition is essential to make the subtraction meaningful; one cannot subtract two infinite quantum relative entropies.
Put . Each one-site marginal has trace distance at most from , by contraction under partial trace. If lies outside the support of , its quantum relative entropy is infinite and the lower bound is automatic. Otherwise restrict to the support of a positive operator of . There is bounded, and entropy continuity from Jordan decomposition gives a uniform such that
Multipartite superadditivity of quantum relative entropy then yields
which proves the claim. Compactness alone does not make relative entropy continuous across a change of reference support.
Apply bipartite superadditivity of quantum relative entropy first to system and systems , and then repeat on the remaining joint state. Mathematical induction gives
This is multipartite superadditivity of quantum relative entropy. Repeated application of bipartite additivity similarly gives