Efficiently Compressible Density Operators via Entropy Maximization^†

We address the problem of efficiently and effectively compress density operators (DOs), by providing an efficient procedure for learning the most likely DO, given a chosen set of partial information. We explore, in the context of quantum information theory, the generalisation of the maximum entropy estimator for DOs, when the direct dependencies between the subsystems are provided. As a preliminary analysis, we restrict the problem to tripartite systems when two marginals are known. When the marginals are compatible with the existence of a quantum Markov chain (QMC) we show that there exists a recovery procedure for the maximum entropy estimator, and moreover, that for these states many well-known classical results follow. Furthermore, we notice that, contrary to the classical case, two marginals, compatible with some tripartite state, might not be compatible with a QMC. Finally, we provide a new characterisation of quantum conditional independence in light of maximum entropy updating. At this level, all the Hilbert spaces are considered finite dimensional.