Closed-Form Hilbert Projection for Quantum State Observers

Designing an observer of an unknown quantum density operator is difficult because the operator must be Hermitian positive semidefinite with unit trace. In this paper, we derive a closed-form solution for projecting an arbitrary matrix onto the set of valid density operators. This allows us to design linear quantum state observers and retract the observer’s state back to this set while retaining the exponential convergence rate of the linear observer. The derived closed-form projection can be used alongside any quantum state estimation technique to produce a valid state estimate without increasing the state estimation error.