Composition of quantum states and dynamical subadditivity

Abstract

We introduce a composition of quantum states of a bipartite system which is based on the reshuffling of density matrices. This non-Abelian product is associative and stems from the composition of quantum maps acting on a simple quantum system. It induces a semi-group in the subset of states with maximally mixed partial traces. Subadditivity of the von Neumann entropy with respect to this product is proved. It is equivalent to subadditivity of the entropy of bistochastic maps with respect to their composition, where the entropy of a map is the entropy of the corresponding state under the Jamiołkowski isomorphism. Strong dynamical subadditivity of a concatenation of three bistochastic maps is established. Analogous bounds for the entropy of a composition are derived for general stochastic maps. In the classical case they lead to new bounds for the entropy of a product of two stochastic matrices.