Past exam of the introduction to quantum information course of the University of Oxford / 2015 / 2 / c

Let $a_{ij}$ be the coefficient of $|ij⟩$. The partial trace contracts the repeated index of the discarded qubit:For the first qubit, each diagonal entry is $1/3+1/6=1/2$ and the upper off-diagonal entry is $1/3-1/6=1/6$. For the second qubit, the diagonal entries are $2/3$ and $1/3$, while the upper off-diagonal entry is $-1/\sqrt{18}+1/\sqrt{18}=0$. Thus the two reduced density matrices, each in computational basis order $0,1$, areBoth have eigenvalues $2/3,1/3$ and trace one, so both are mixed states even though the joint quantum state is pure. Their different eigenvectors are visible in the useful rewriteAbsorbing the minus sign into one local basis vector makes this a Schmidt decomposition with nonnegative coefficients. It also checks both partial traces and exhibits the entanglement responsible for the mixed local descriptions.