This concise and readable book addresses primarily readers with a background in classical statistical physics and introduces quantum mechanical notions as required. Conceived as a primer to bridge the gap between statistical physics and quantum information, it emphasizes concepts and thorough discussions of the fundamental notions and prepares the reader for deeper studies, not least through a selection of well chosen exercises.

Matrices can be studied in different ways. They are a linear algebraic structure and have a topological/analytical aspect (for example, the normed space of matrices) and they also carry an order structure that is induced by positive semidefinite matrices. The interplay of these closely related structures is an essential feature of matrix analysis. This book explains these aspects of matrix analysis from a functional analysis point of view. After an introduction to matrices and functional analysis, it covers more advanced topics such as matrix monotone functions, matrix means, majorization...