Subsystem trace-distances of two random states

Abstract

We study two-state discrimination in chaotic quantum systems. Assuming that one of two N-qubit pure states has been randomly selected, the probability to correctly identify the selected state from an optimally chosen experiment involving a subset of N − N_B qubits is given by the trace-distance of the states, with N_B qubits partially traced out. In the thermodynamic limit N →∞, the average subsystem trace-distance for random pure states makes a sharp, first order transition from unity to zero at f = 1/2, as the fraction f = N_B/N of unmeasured qubits is increased. We analytically calculate the corresponding crossover for finite numbers N of qubits, study how it is affected by the presence of local conservation laws, and test our predictions against exact diagonalization of models for many-body chaos.