Let's say I have a particle in the quantum state $|+\rangle = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0\rangle + |1\rangle)$, represented as a density operator (1st matrix) that went through a depolarizing chanel (2nd matrix). Let's call the depolarized matrix $D_p$.
$$ \begin{bmatrix} .5 & .5 \\ .5 & .5 \end{bmatrix} \rightarrow \begin{bmatrix} .5 & .43 \\ .43 & .5 \end{bmatrix} $$ Now, I have two of these $D_p$, and their resulting product state is: $$ D_p^{\otimes 2} = \begin{bmatrix} .5 & .43 \\ .43 & .5 \end{bmatrix} \otimes \begin{bmatrix} .5 & .43 \\ .43 & .5 \end{bmatrix}. $$ Now, if I want want to calculate the probability of finding some state $|\psi\rangle = |0\rangle \otimes |0\rangle$ in the above mentioned product system, then this is what I do: $$ p(|\psi\rangle | D_p^{\otimes 2}) = trace(\psi\rangle\langle \psi | D_p^{\otimes 2}). $$ As you can see, calculating this trace is a $O(N^3)$ complexity operation and becomes very slow for even a small number of particles, i.e. for $D_p^{\otimes 10}$ or higher. Is there a principled way to calculate these probabilities? Without using any matrix multiplication?