We show that quantum subdynamics of an open quantum system can always be described by a Hermitian map, irrespective of the form of the initial total system state. Since the theory of quantum error correction was developed based on the assumption of completely positive (CP) maps, we present a generalized theory of linear quantum error correction, which applies to any linear map describing the open system evolution. In the physically relevant setting of Hermitian maps, we show that the CP-map based version of quantum error correction theory applies without modifications. However, we show that a more general scenario is also possible, where the recovery map is Hermitian but not CP. Since non-CP maps have non-positive matrices in their range, we provide a geometric characterization of the positivity domain of general linear maps. In particular, we show that this domain is convex, and that this implies a simple algorithm for finding its boundary.
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