Appearance of Gibbs states in quantum-state tomography

Abstract

I investigate the extent to which the description of quantum systems by Gibbs states can be justified purely on the basis of tomographic data, without recourse to theoretical concepts such as infinite ensembles, environments, information, or to the systems' dynamics. I show that the use of Gibbs states amounts to a relevance hypothesis, which I spell out in detail. This hypothesis can be subjected to statistical hypothesis testing and hence assessed on the basis of the experimental data.