Quantum operation ($\mathcal{E}(\rho )={\sum }_{\alpha }{K}_{\alpha }\rho K_{\alpha }^{†}$)

A completely positive map with ${\sum }_{\alpha }{K}_{\alpha }^{†}{K}_{\alpha }\le I$ is a trace-nonincreasing quantum operation, representing an outcome branch with its probability retained in the trace. A deterministic quantum channel has equality and is trace preserving. Dividing a branch output by its trace gives a conditional state but generally produces a nonlinear update; that normalization is not part of the linear quantum operation.