1. Introduction
The basic example of a quantum statistical system starts with a self-adjoint operator
H on a finite-dimensional or separable Hilbert space
, with the property that the operator
is trace-class for all
in an open interval
D of the real line
. Then, for
, the quantum expectation value
of any bounded operator
A in
is given by
Note that the quantum expectation is well-defined because the product of a trace-class operator with a bounded operator is again a trace-class operator. The operator
H is the
Hamiltonian. It defines a one parameter family of quantum states via Equation (
1).
The quantum state (
1) is a simple example of a model belonging to the
quantum exponential family. In this case, the quantum states form a one-dimensional manifold. The goal of the present work is to search for a quantum exponential family formulated in a parameter-free way, similar to the formulation of Pistone and coworkers [
1,
2,
3,
4] in the non-quantum case, and to investigate a further generalization involving deformed exponential functions along the lines set out by the author in [
5,
6]. An alternative approach to parameter-free quantum information geometry is described in [
7]. Which approach eventually will lead to a fully developed theory is hard to predict. Such a theory is expected to affect several domains of research, including Quantum Information Theory, Statistical Physics, in particular the study of phase transitions, and Complexity Theory. For a recent review of Information Geometry applied to complexity, see [
8].
Early efforts to use geometric methods in the study of non-commutative information theory include the work by Ingarden and coworkers. See, for instance, [
9,
10]. The relation with Amari’s Information Geometry [
11,
12] was studied by Hasegawa [
13,
14,
15]. He introduced an alpha-family of divergences
where
and
are any pair of density operators on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space
. The approach relies strongly on the properties of the trace.
The metric on the manifold of density matrices is the scalar product introduced by Bogoliubov and used by Kubo and Mori in the context of linear response theory. The generalization to an inner product for vector states on a von Neumann algebra is given in [
16]. See also [
17].
A more recent account on quantum information geometry is found in Chapter 7 of [
12]. See also [
18,
19] and Example 3.8 of [
20].
The parameter-free approach of Pistone and coworkers was generalized to the quantum context by Grasselli and Streater [
21,
22,
23,
24], See also [
25]. Both the classical case and the quantum case need a regularizing condition on the allowed density functions, respectively density operators. Under this condition, they form a Banach manifold. Recently, Newton [
26,
27] proposed an alternative regularization based on a specific choice of a deformed logarithmic function. Part of the arguments in [
27] can be transposed to the quantum setting [
28].
The structure of the paper is as follows. In the next section, quantum states are labeled with operators belonging to the commutant of the GNS-representation rather than with density matrices.
Section 3 describes the plane tangent at the reference state. Next, an atlas is introduced which contains a multitude of charts, one for each element of the manifold. Theorem 4 proves that the manifold is a Banach manifold and that the cross-over maps are linear operators.
Section 5 introduces the inner product of Bogoliubov. The metric tensor is calculated. Next, alternative charts are introduced and their relation with the metric tensor is investigated.
Section 8 and
Section 9 discuss the mixture and the exponential connections. Proposition 4 proves that the alternative charts provide affine coordinates for the exponential connection.
Section 10 contains a short presentation of the additional structure provided in quantum information geometry by the existence of modular automorphism groups. The final section discusses the results obtained so far. An
Appendix about the GNS-representation and the modular operator is added for convenience of the reader.
2. Representation Theorems
In the present paper, the Hilbert space is assumed to be finite dimensional. This solves the question of choosing an appropriate topology on the manifold of quantum states. In addition, all operators under consideration are bounded continuous. In fact, they are finite-dimensional matrices. In this way, the technical difficulties of working with unbounded operators are avoided.
A density matrix is a self-adjoint operator with discrete spectrum consisting of non-negative eigenvalues which add up to one. This implies that the trace satisfies . The operator , mentioned in the Introduction, is a density matrix of the kind we have in mind.
Introduce the notation
for the
-algebra of bounded linear operators on the Hilbert space
. The notion of a quantum state coincides with the notion of a (mathematical) state
on
. The latter is defined as a linear functional
which satisfies the conditions of positivity and of normalization
where
is the identity operator and
is the adjoint of
A. In particular, any state
belongs to the dual space of
as a Banach space.
The state is said to be faithful if implies .
The Gelfand–Naimark–Segal (GNS) construction shows that given a state
on a
-algebra
there exists a *-representation
of
as bounded linear operators on a Hilbert space
, together with an element
of
such that
and
is dense in
. This representation is unique up to unitary equivalence. This representation is used here to make the transition from a situation where quantum states are described by a density matrix to the more general context of an arbitrary von Neumann algebra
of bounded operators on a separable Hilbert space
, together with a cyclic and separating vector
of norm one.
In the case of the algebra of all
N-by-
N matrices a simple and explicit realization of the GNS-representation is possible. See the
Appendix.
The relation between a density matrix
and the corresponding quantum state
, defined by
is a one-to-one relation. Indeed, if two density matrices
and
produce the same quantum expectations, then they coincide. Conversely, because the Hilbert space
is finite-dimensional, any quantum state
determines a density matrix
such that
. The state
is faithful if and only if the density matrix
is strictly positive.
For the sake of completeness, the proof of the following result is reproduced.
Theorem 1. Let ρ and σ be two strictly positive density matrices operating in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space . Let denote the von Neumann algebra of linear operators on . Let be the GNS-representation induced by ρ. Then, there exists a unique strictly positive operator X in the commutant such that Proof. Because
is finite-dimensional and
is cyclic and separating one has
. Hence, there exists
X in
such that
Then, one has for all
In particular, take
to obtain
with equality if and only if
. This implies that
X is a strictly positive operator.
is the unique element of
for which Equation (
6) holds. Because
is cyclic for
, it is separating for the commutant. Hence,
X is unique as well. ☐
Introduce the notation for the real Banach space formed by the self-adjoint elements K of satisfying .
Theorem 2. Let , and ρ be as in the previous Theorem. Let the GNS-representation induced by ρ. There is a one-to-one correspondence between faithful states ω on and elements of . It satisfieswith and the function given by Proof. Let
. The previous theorem guarantees the existence of a unique strictly positive operator
X in the commutant
. This operator
X can be exponentiated. Let
Then,
holds by construction and Equation (
8) is satisfied with
(remember that
).
Conversely, given
K, the r.h.s. of Equation (
8) defines a faithful state
of
. ☐
The map is a chart which makes the manifold of all faithful quantum states into a Banach manifold. The chart is said to be centered at . It satisfies .
All representations , , with strictly positive, are unitary equivalent and can be identified. Therefore, in what follows, the index of is dropped and the Hilbert space in which the representation works is denoted .
4. The Atlas
Following the approach of Pistone and collaborators [
1,
3,
4,
27], we build an atlas of charts
, one for each strictly positive density matrix
. The compatibility of the different charts requires the study of the cross-over map
, where
are arbitrary strictly positive density matrices.
Simplify notations by writing and instead of , respectively . Similarly, write and instead of , respectively , and instead of , respectively .
Continuity of the cross-over map follows from the continuity of the exponential and logarithmic functions and from the following result.
Proposition 1. Fix strictly positive density matrices and . There exists a linear operator Y such that for any strictly positive density matrix σ and corresponding positive operators , in the commutant one has .
Proof. Using the notations of the Appendix one has
Note that the isometry
J depends on the reference state with density matrix
. Therefore it carries an index
i. The above expression for
implies that
☐
Theorem 4. The set of faithful states on the algebra of square matrices, together with the atlas of charts , where is defined by Theorem 1, is a Banach manifold. For any pair of strictly positive density matrices and , the cross-over map is continuous.
Proof. The continuity of the map follows from the previous Proposition. The continuity of the maps and follows from the continuity of the exponential and logarithmic functions and the continuity of the function . ☐
5. The Bogoliubov Inner Product
Umegaki’s divergence/relative entropy
of a pair of strictly positive density matrices
and
is defined by [
29,
30,
31]
It can be used to define a metric tensor
, as explained below.
In the commutative context, Chentsov proved the uniqueness of the Fisher information matrix as a metric which is invariant under Markov morphisms. See, for instance, Theorem 2.1 of [
32]. In the quantum case, the additional requirement of the existence of a dually-flat geometry is needed [
21]. The notion of quantum relative entropy comes from Quantum Statistical Physics. In Quantum Information Theory, other quantities are being used as well. Alternatives include the trace distance, the Bures distance and the related fidelity function. See, for instance, Chapter 6 of [
20].
Introduce
and
given by
with
Both
and
are well-defined density matrices. The maps
and
describe two orbits in
, intersecting at
:
. For further use, note that
.
The metric tensor
is defined by
With the help of the identity
one obtains
so that
This is the inner product of Bogoliubov. Its positivity is shown in the next section. It is straightforward to check that .
10. Modular Automorphisms
The quantum manifold carries an additional structure, which is induced by the modular automorphism groups, one for each . In the commutative case, the automorphisms become trivial.
The Tomita–Takesaki theory [
33] associates with each state
in
a self-adjoint operator
on
, which is called the modular operator. The one-parameter group of unitary operators
defines a group of inner automorphisms of the algebra
. Indeed, for any
A in
, the operator
belongs again to
. In particular, it induces a group of transformations of the manifold
by mapping any state
onto the state
defined by
This group of transformations has
as a fixpoint because
.
A useful property of the group of modular automorphims is the so-called
KMS condition, named after Kubo, Martin and Schwinger. Given two elements
A and
B of
, the function
, defined by
has an analytic continuation in the complex plane such that
This property captures the essence of cyclic permutation under the trace and is helpful in the more general context when manipulating non-commuting pairs of operators.
11. Discussion
This paper reviews known and less known results of quantum information geometry. The Hilbert space is assumed to be finite-dimensional to avoid the technicalities coming with unbounded operators. They give rise to domain problems and require a specific choice of operator norm—see [
23,
28].
The present point of view differs from the usual one, which starts from the Hilbert space generated by the density matrices. Instead, the GNS-representation is used because it is more suited for later generalizations. The main goal of the present work is precisely to present those results for which one would like to find generalizations in the infinitely-dimensional case.
The manifold
of faithful quantum states can be parameterized in many ways. It is tradition to label each quantum state
by a corresponding density matrix
. Here, the parameter-free approach of Pistone and coworkers [
1,
3,
4,
27] is followed. In particular, with each element
of
is associated a chart centered at
. Two atlases are introduced. The atlas with the charts
, introduced in
Section 4, is technically less complicated. It turns
into a Banach manifold. However, it is not linked in a straightforward manner with the Riemannian metric induced by Bogoliubov’s inner product. Therefore, another set of charts, denoted
, is introduced in
Section 6. A link between the charts
and
is found in Proposition 3.
The dually affine connections are shortly mentioned in
Section 8 and
Section 9. In the case of the exponential connection, the charts
provide affine coordinates.