All Moments of the Uniform Ensemble of Quantum Density Matrices

Abstract

Given a uniform ensemble of quantum density matrices $\rho$, it is useful to calculate the mean value over this ensemble of a product of entries of $\rho$. We show how to calculate such moments in this paper. The answer involves well known results from Group Representation Theory and Random Matrix Theory. This quantum problem has a well known classical counterpart: given a uniform ensemble of probability distributions $P=(P_1, P_2, ..., P_N)$ where the $P_j$ are non-negative reals that sum to one, calculate the mean value over this probability simplex of products of $P$ components. The answer to the classical problem follows from an integral formula due to Dirichlet.