Distances between pure quantum states induced by a distance matrix

Abstract

With the help of a given distance matrix of size $n$, we construct an infinite family of distances $d_p$ (where $p \geq 2$) on the complex projective space $\mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}^n)$ modelling the space of pure states of an $n$-level quantum system. The construction can be seen as providing a natural way to isometrically embed any given finite metric space into the space of pure quantum states 'spanned' upon it. In order to show that the maps $d_p$ are indeed distance functions -- in particular, that they satisfy the triangle inequality -- we employ methods of analysis, multilinear algebra and convex geometry, obtaining a nontrivial auxiliary convexity result in the process. The paper significantly extends earlier work, resolving an important question about the geometry of quantum state space imposed by the quantum Wasserstein distances and solidifying the foundation for applications of distances $d_p$ in quantum information science.