Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 34 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The unread measurement is the pinching map , a nonselective projective measurement. Its output is block diagonal and commutes with each , so also commutes with the projectors on its support.
First the quantum relative entropy is finite. If lies in the kernel of , positivity givesEvery summand is zero; summing gives . Thus , equivalently .
The block-diagonal logarithm obeys on this support. Cyclicity of the trace therefore givesConsequently the relative entropy of a pinched state is exactly the entropy increase:By the proved nonnegativity of quantum relative entropy and its equality condition,Equivalently, equality holds exactly when all off-diagonal blocks for already vanish, or when commutes with every measurement projector. This argument proves the equality condition even when the projectors are degenerate and the states singular.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 50 3 c Solution 2026-10-14
Let be the pinching map determined by the projectors, and put . This is a nonselective projective measurement; its projectors are its Kraus operators. We will prove the exact relative entropy of a pinched state identity.
First the support of is contained in that of . Indeed, if lies in the kernel of , positivity givesEvery summand is zero. Since , also , and thus is in the kernel of . Therefore the logarithm of may be used on its support without an infinite relative-entropy term.
The operator is block diagonal, so each commutes with on that support. Cyclicity of the trace givesExpand the quantum relative entropy:Its nonnegativity now proves the entropy increase under nonselective projective measurement:The equality case in nonnegativity of quantum relative entropy says equality holds exactly when . Equivalently,Thus equality means the state already has no coherence between distinct measurement blocks. It need not be diagonal inside a block of rank greater than one.