R. Munoz-Tapia

Discriminating States: The Quantum Chernoff Bound

We consider the problem of discriminating two different quantum states in the setting of asymptotically many copies, and determine the minimal probability of error. This leads to the identification of the quantum Chernoff bound, thereby solving a long-standing open problem. The bound reduces to the classical Chernoff bound when the quantum states under consideration commute. The quantum Chernoff bound is the natural symmetric distance measure between quantum states because of its clear operational meaning and because it does not seem to share some of the undesirable features of other distance measures.

Optimal full estimation of qubit mixed states

We obtain the optimal scheme for estimating unknown qubit mixed states when an arbitrary number N of identically prepared copies is available. We discuss the case of states in the whole Bloch sphere as well as the restricted situation where these states are known to lie on the equatorial plane. For the former case we obtain that the optimal measurement does not depend on the prior probability distribution provided it is isotropic. Although the equatorial-plane case does not have this property for arbitrary N, we give a prior-independent scheme which becomes optimal in the asymptotic limit of large N. We compute the maximum mean fidelity in this asymptotic regime for the two cases. We show that within the pointwise estimation approach these limits can be obtained in a rather easy and rapid way. This derivation is based on heuristic arguments that are made rigorous by using van Trees inequalities. The interrelation between the estimation of the purity and the direction of the state is also discussed. In the general case we show that they correspond to independent estimations whereas for the equatorial-plane states this is only true asymptotically.

Quantum Chernoff bound as a measure of distinguishability between density matrices: Application to qubit and Gaussian states

Hypothesis testing is a fundamental issue in statistical inference and has been a crucial element in the development of information sciences. The Chernoff bound gives the minimal Bayesian error probability when discriminating two hypotheses given a large number of observations. Recently the combined work of Audenaert et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 160501 2007 and Nussbaum and Szkola e-print arXiv:quant-ph/0607216 has proved the quantum analog of this bound, which applies when the hypotheses correspond to two quantum states. Based on this quantum Chernoff bound, we define a physically meaningful distinguishability measure and its corresponding metric in the space of states; the latter is shown to coincide with the Wigner-Yanase metric. Along the same lines, we define a second, more easily implementable, distinguishability measure based on the error probability of discrimination when the same local measurement is performed on every copy. We study some general properties of these measures, including the probability distribution of density matrices, defined via the volume element induced by the metric. It is shown that the Bures and the local-measurement based metrics are always proportional. Finally, we illustrate their use in the paradigmatic cases of qubits and Gaussian infinite-dimensional states. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.77.032311

Quantum reverse engineering and reference-frame alignment without nonlocal correlations

The estimation of unknown qubit elementary gates and the alignment of reference frames are formally the same problem. Using quantum states made out of

Phase estimation for thermal Gaussian states

N

Aligning Reference Frames with Quantum States

qubits, we show that the theoretical precision limit for both problems, which behaves as

Optimal signal states for quantum detectors

1∕{N}^{2}

Separable measurement estimation of density matrices and its fidelity gap with collective protocols

, can be asymptotically attained with a covariant protocol that exploits the quantum correlation of internal degrees of freedom instead of the more fragile entanglement between distant parties. This cuts by half the number of qubits needed to achieve the precision of the dense covariant coding protocol.

Collective versus local measurements in a qubit mixed-state estimation

We give the optimal bounds on the phase-estimation precision for mixed Gaussian states in the single-copy and many-copy regimes. Specifically, we focus on displaced thermal and squeezed thermal states. We find that while for displaced thermal states an increase in temperature reduces the estimation fidelity, for squeezed thermal states a larger temperature can enhance the estimation fidelity. The many-copy optimal bounds are compared with the minimum variance achieved by three important single-shot measurement strategies. We show that the single-copy canonical phase measurement does not always attain the optimal bounds in the many-copy scenario. Adaptive homodyning schemes do attain the bounds for displaced thermal states, but for squeezed states they yield fidelities that are insensitive to temperature variations and are, therefore, suboptimal. Finally, we find that heterodyne measurements perform very poorly for pure states but can attain the optimal bounds for sufficiently mixed states. We apply our results to investigate the influence of losses in an optical metrology experiment. In the presence of losses squeezed states cease to provide the Heisenberg limited precision, and their performance is close to that of coherent states with the same mean photon number.

Optimal scheme for estimating a pure qubit state via local measurements.

We analyze the problem of sending, in a single transmission, the information required to specify an orthogonal trihedron or reference frame through a quantum channel made out of N elementary spins. We analytically obtain the optimal strategy, i.e., the best encoding state and the best measurement. For large N, we show that the average error goes to zero linearly in 1/N. Finally, we discuss the construction of finite optimal measurements.