Abstract
By relying on the principle of indifference in a form suited to quantum mechanics, we prove that the density operator which should be assigned to a quantum system when only partial information is available has a generalized canonical form. This result provides an indirect justification of the quantal maximum entropy criterion, based on the use of von Neumann’s entropy with constraints on the known expectation values.
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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Balian, R. (1989). Justification of the Maximum Entropy Criterion in Quantum Mechanics. In: Skilling, J. (eds) Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7860-8_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7860-8_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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