Subnormalized states and trace-nonincreasing maps

Abstract

We investigate the set of completely positive, trace-nonincreasing linear maps acting on the set M_N of mixed quantum states of size N. Extremal point of this set of maps are characterized and its volume with respect to the Hilbert-Schmidt (Euclidean) measure is computed explicitly for an arbitrary N. The spectra of partially reduced rescaled dynamical matrices associated with trace-nonincreasing completely positive maps belong to the N-cube inscribed in the set of subnormalized states of size N. As a by-product we derive the measure in M_N induced by partial trace of mixed quantum states distributed uniformly with respect to HS-measure in $M_{N^2}$.