Sharp Quantum Entropy Mixing Rates and the Operator Layer Cake Theorem
Abstract
At what rate does the von Neumann entropy of an ensemble of quantum states change under Hamiltonian evolution of its constituents? Bravyi proposed the small incremental mixing conjecture controlling the mixing rate of a binary ensemble {(1 − p,ρ1),(p,ρ2)} by c |H|h2(p) (with the binary entropy h2). The proof of Bravyi's conjecture was subsequently reduced to the matrix inequality |[A,log B]|1 ≤ c h2(p) for positive trace-class operators A ≤ B with Tr A = p and Tr B = 1 on separable Hilbert spaces by Mariën, Audenaert, Van Acoleyen, and Verstraete, and they conjectured the optimal constant to be c = 1. Here, I prove the latter conjecture using an exact integral representation of the commutator [A,log B] obtained from the operator layer cake theorem, due to Cheng and Liu. The result gives a sharp dimension-independent limit on how rapidly unitary evolution of one component can change the entropy of a binary quantum ensemble. It follows that mixing rates satisfy small incremental mixing with the optimal constant, and entangling rates of bipartite Hamiltonians are bounded by (2log d + 1)|H|. Moreover, the result corrects a conjecture by Lieb and Vershynina for mixing rates of general ensembles.
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BibTeX
@misc{stottmeister2026sharp,
title = {{Sharp Quantum Entropy Mixing Rates and the Operator Layer Cake Theorem}},
author = {Alexander Stottmeister},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.39814},
eprint = {2609.39814},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39814},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Sharp Quantum Entropy Mixing Rates and the Operator Layer Cake Theorem
AU - Alexander Stottmeister
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.39814
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39814
AB - At what rate does the von Neumann entropy of an ensemble of quantum states change under Hamiltonian evolution of its constituents? Bravyi proposed the small incremental mixing conjecture controlling the mixing rate of a binary ensemble {(1 − p,ρ_1),(p,ρ_2)} by c |H|h_2(p) (with the binary entropy h_2). The proof of Bravyi's conjecture was subsequently reduced to the matrix inequality |[A,log B]|_1 ≤ c h_2(p) for positive trace-class operators A ≤ B with Tr A = p and Tr B = 1 on separable Hilbert spaces by Mariën, Audenaert, Van Acoleyen, and Verstraete, and they conjectured the optimal constant to be c = 1. Here, I prove the latter conjecture using an exact integral representation of the commutator [A,log B] obtained from the operator layer cake theorem, due to Cheng and Liu. The result gives a sharp dimension-independent limit on how rapidly unitary evolution of one component can change the entropy of a binary quantum ensemble. It follows that mixing rates satisfy small incremental mixing with the optimal constant, and entangling rates of bipartite Hamiltonians are bounded by (2log d + 1)|H|. Moreover, the result corrects a conjecture by Lieb and Vershynina for mixing rates of general ensembles.
ER -