Sequential quantum measurements

A quantum effect is an operator A on a complex Hilbert space H that satisfies 0⩽A⩽I. We denote the set of quantum effects by E(H). The set of self-adjoint projection operators on H corresponds to sharp effects and is denoted by P(H). We define the sequential product of A,B∈E(H) by A∘B=A1/2BA1/2. The main purpose of this article is to study some of the algebraic properties of the sequential product. Many of our results show that algebraic conditions on A∘B imply that A and B commute for the usual operator product. For example, if A∘B satisfies certain distributive or associative laws, then AB=BA. Moreover, if A∘B∈P(H), then AB=BA and A∘B=B or B∘A=B if and only if AB=BA=B. A natural definition of stochastic independence is introduced and briefly studied.