Pure state in the context of Projection-valued measure

In mathematics, particularly in functional analysis, a projection-valued measure, or spectral measure, is a function defined on certain subsets of a fixed set and whose values are self-adjoint projections on a fixed Hilbert space. A projection-valued measure (PVM) is formally similar to a real-valued measure, except that its values are self-adjoint projections rather than real numbers. As in the case of ordinary measures, it is possible to integrate complex-valued functions with respect to a PVM; the result of such an integration is a linear operator on the given Hilbert space.

Projection-valued measures are used to express results in spectral theory, such as the important spectral theorem for self-adjoint operators, in which case the PVM is sometimes referred to as the spectral measure. The Borel functional calculus for self-adjoint operators is constructed using integrals with respect to PVMs. In quantum mechanics, PVMs are the mathematical description of projective measurements. They are generalized by positive operator valued measures (POVMs) in the same sense that a mixed state or density matrix generalizes the notion of a pure state.

In quantum mechanics, a density matrix (or density operator) is a matrix used in calculating the probabilities of the outcomes of measurements performed on physical systems. It is a generalization of the state vectors or wavefunctions: while those can only represent pure states, density matrices can also represent mixed ensembles of states. These arise in quantum mechanics in two different situations:

1. when the preparation of a system can randomly produce different pure states, and thus one must deal with the statistics of the ensemble of possible preparations; and
2. when one wants to describe a physical system that is entangled with another, without describing their combined state. This case is typical for a system interacting with some environment (e.g. decoherence). In this case, the density matrix of an entangled system differs from that of an ensemble of pure states that, combined, would give the same statistical results upon measurement.

Density matrices are thus crucial tools in areas of quantum mechanics that deal with mixed states (not to be confused with superposed states), such as quantum statistical mechanics, open quantum systems and quantum information.

In functional analysis and quantum information science, a positive operator-valued measure (POVM) is a measure whose values are positive semi-definite operators on a Hilbert space. POVMs are a generalization of projection-valued measures (PVM) and, correspondingly, quantum measurements described by POVMs are a generalization of quantum measurement described by PVMs (called projective measurements).

In rough analogy, a POVM is to a PVM what a mixed state is to a pure state. Mixed states are needed to specify the state of a subsystem of a larger system (see purification of quantum state); analogously, POVMs are necessary to describe the effect on a subsystem of a projective measurement performed on a larger system.