Belief Propagation algorithms acting on Graphical Models of classical
probability distributions, such as Markov Networks, Factor Graphs and Bayesian
Networks, are amongst the most powerful known methods for deriving
probabilistic inferences amongst large numbers of random variables. This paper
presents a generalization of these concepts and methods to the quantum case,
based on the idea that quantum theory can be thought of as a noncommutative,
operator-valued, generalization of classical probability theory. Some novel
characterizations of quantum conditional independence are derived, and
definitions of Quantum n-Bifactor Networks, Markov Networks, Factor Graphs and
Bayesian Networks are proposed. The structure of Quantum Markov Networks is
investigated and some partial characterization results are obtained, along the
lines of the Hammersely-Clifford theorem. A Quantum Belief Propagation
algorithm is presented and is shown to converge on 1-Bifactor Networks and
Markov Networks when the underlying graph is a tree. The use of Quantum Belief
Propagation as a heuristic algorithm in cases where it is not known to converge
is discussed. Applications to decoding quantum error correcting codes and to
the simulation of many-body quantum systems are described.

本文提出了一种将 Belief Propagation 算法扩展到量子网络的方法，并研究了量子 Markov Networks 的结构，探讨了使用量子 Belief Propagation 作为一种启发式算法的可能性。最后，描述了该方法在量子纠错编码和模拟多体量子系统中的应用。