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For a linear operator $H$ mapping transmitted signals to recorded signals, the positive operator $H^{\ast }H$ describes adjoint back-propagation after recording. In a reciprocal array, physical time reversal acoustics implements this operation up to a final complex conjugation and the chosen signal conventions.

For any unitary $U$, the unique positive square root of an operator obeys $\sqrt{UA{U}^{†}}=U\sqrt{A}{U}^{†}$. Conjugating the positive operators appearing in trace distance and quantum fidelity therefore conjugates their square roots. Cyclicity of the trace removes the unitary factors, proving invariance of both quantities under simultaneous unitary transformations of the states.

// Target: quantum-information-theory.bigb

The variational characterization of trace distance turns a matrix distance into the best possible binary experiment. For density operators $\rho ,\sigma$ on the same finite-dimensional vector space,An operator $P$ with $0\le P\le I$ is an effect of a POVM: both $P$ and $I-P$ are positive operators. The Born rule assigns the first outcome probabilities $\mathrm{Tr}(P\rho )$ and $\mathrm{Tr}(P\sigma )$. Their signed gap is $\mathrm{Tr}(P\Delta )$, where $\Delta =\rho -\sigma$. Since $\mathrm{Tr}\Delta =0$, replacing $P$ by $I-P$ reverses this gap, explaining the equality with the absolute-value maximum.

One optimal $P$ is the spectral projector $P_{+}$ onto the positive eigenspaces of $\Delta$. In the spectral decomposition of $\Delta$, this choice includes all positive eigenvalues and excludes all negative eigenvalues. Their positive sum equals the trace distance by the spectral-parts formula for trace distance. Any zero eigenspace can be assigned to either outcome without changing the gap. This is the effect selected by the equal-prior Holevo–Helstrom theorem. ^[ref]

The same optimum has a classical description. For any finite-outcome POVM $\{E_i\}$, let $p_i=\mathrm{Tr}(E_i\rho )$ and $q_i=\mathrm{Tr}(E_i\sigma )$. ThenThe expression $\frac{1}{2}{\sum }_i|p_i-q_i|$ is the total variation distance of the entire outcome probability distributions; the expression for $A$ is the gap for one event. Grouping outcomes in $A$ gives the single effect $P_A={\sum }_{i\in A}{E}_i$. Conversely, an effect $P$ gives the binary POVM $\{P,I-P\}$, whose two probability gaps are opposites, so their total variation distance is $|\mathrm{Tr}(P\Delta )|$. Thus the optimum over all POVMs is already attained by one binary projective measurement. ^[ref]

For quantum state discrimination with equal prior probabilities, declare $\rho$ on outcome $P$ and $\sigma$ on outcome $I-P$. Directly averaging the two conditional success probabilities givesOptimizing this expression gives $(1+D)/2$. For the diagonal example in trace distance, $P=|0⟩⟨0|$ gives a gap $0.8-0.3=0.5$. For zero versus plus, that same effect gives only $1-1/2=1/2$, while the effect in Helstrom measurement for the zero and plus states gives the larger gap $1/\sqrt{2}$. The trace-distance-preserving binary measurement depends on the pair of preparations; a fixed measurement basis does not generally attain the trace distance for every pair.