Markovian Marignals

Abstract

We introduce a class of so called Markovian marginals, which gives a natural framework for constructing solutions to the quantum marginal problem. We consider a set of marginals that possess a certain internal quantum Markov chain structure. If they are equipped with such a structure and are locally consistent on their overlapping supports, there exists a global state that is consistent with all the marginals. The proof is constructive, and relies on a reduction of the marginal problem to a certain combinatorial problem. By employing an entanglement entropy scaling law, we give a physical argument that the requisite structure exists in any states with finite correlation lengths. This includes topologically ordered states as well as finite temperature Gibbs states.