Quantum Bayes rule

Abstract

We state a quantum version of Bayes's rule for statistical inference and give a simple general derivation within the framework of generalized measurements. The rule can be applied to measurements on N copies of a system if the initial state of the N copies is exchangeable. As an illustration, we apply the rule to N qubits. Finally, we show that quantum state estimates derived via the principle of maximum entropy are fundamentally different from those obtained via the quantum Bayes rule.