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arXiv:0804.2193 · Physical Review A

Mutually unbiased bases, orthogonal Latin squares, and hidden-variable models

Tomasz Paterek, Borivoje Dakić, Časlav Brukner

Published Jan 16, 2009• 47 citations
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Abstract

Mutually unbiased bases encapsulate the concept of complementarity---the impossibility of simultaneous knowledge of certain observables---in the formalism of quantum theory. Although this concept is at the heart of quantum mechanics, the number of these bases is unknown except for systems of dimension being a power of a prime. We develop the relation between this physical problem and the mathematical problem of finding the number of mutually orthogonal Latin squares. We derive in a simple way all known results about the unbiased bases, find their lower number, and disprove the existence of certain forms of the bases in dimensions different than power of a prime. Using the Latin squares, we construct hidden-variable models which efficiently simulate results of complementary quantum measurements.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.012109

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Comment on “Mutually unbiased bases, orthogonal Latin squares, and hidden-variable models”

Joanne L. Hall, Asha Rao

In a recent article Paterek, Daki\ifmmode \acute{c}\else \'{c}\fi{}, and Brukner [Phys. Rev. A 79, 012109 (2009)] show an algorithm for generating mutually unbiased bases from sets of orthogonal Latin squares. They claim that this algorithm works for every set of orthogonal Latin squares. We show that the algorithm only works for particular sets of orthogonal Latin squares. Furthermore, the algorithm is a more readable version of work previously published [Phys. Rev. A 70, 062101 (2004)].

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On the connection between mutually unbiased bases and orthogonal Latin squares

Tomasz Paterek, M Pawłowski, M Grassl +1 more

We offer a piece of evidence that the problems of finding the number of mutually unbiased bases (MUB) and mutually orthogonal Latin squares (MOLS) might not be equivalent. We study a particular procedure that has been shown to relate the two problems and generates complete sets of MUB in power-of-prime dimensions and three MUB in dimension six. For these cases, every square from an augmented set of MOLS has a corresponding MUB. We show that this no longer holds for certain composite dimensions.

arXiv:0910.1439•Physica Scripta•Sep 1, 2010•19 citations
Mutually unbiased bases encapsulate the concept of complementarity---the impossibility of simultaneous knowledge of certain observables---in the formalism of quantum theory. Although this concept is at the heart of quantum mechanics, the number of these bases is unknown except for systems of dimension being a power of a prime. We develop the relation between this physical problem and the mathematical problem of finding the number of mutually orthogonal Latin squares. We derive in a simple way all known results about the unbiased bases, find their lower number, and disprove the existence of certain forms of the bases in dimensions different than power of a prime. Using the Latin squares, we construct hidden-variable models which efficiently simulate results of complementary quantum measurements.
The principle of complementarity lies at the heart of quantum mechanics. In finite dimensional quantum systems this principle is captured by pairs of observables which are given by mutually unbiased bases (MUBs). Two orthonormal bases B and C of Cd are mutually unbiased if |<b|c>|2 = 1/d holds for all vectors b ∈ B and c ∈ C. This implies that whenever we are given a vector from one of these bases and perform a measurement with respect to any other of the bases, then there is no information gained from this measurement. A basic question about MUBs is how many of them can be found in a given dimension d. While constructions of maximal sets of d+1 such bases are known for system of prime power dimension d, it is unknown whether this bound can be achieved for any non-prime power dimension. We review the known constructions of MUBs and demonstrate that maximal sets of MUBs come with a rich combinatorial structure by showing that they actually are the same objects as the complex projective 2-designs with angle set {0,1/d}. Furthermore, we address the problem of constructing positive operator-valued measures (POVMs) in finite dimension d consisting of d2 operators of rank one which have an inner product equal to uniform or very close to uniform. This is motivated by the related question of constructing symmetric informationally complete POVMs (SIC-POVMs) for which the inner products are perfectly uniform. We also give a simple proof of the fact that symmetric informationally complete POVMs are complex projective 2-designs with angle set {1/(d+1)}. Moreover, we show that MUBs and SIC-POVMs form uniform tight frames in Cd.
We introduce orthogonal quantum Latin squares, which restrict to traditional orthogonal Latin squares, and investigate their application in quantum information science. We use quantum Latin squares to build maximally entangled bases, and show how a pair of mutually unbiased maximally entangled bases can be constructed in square dimension from orthogonal quantum Latin squares. We also compare our construction to an existing construction due to Beth and Wocjan and show that ours is strictly more general.
Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) are important in quantum information theory. While constructions of complete sets of d + 1 MUBs in are known when d is a prime power, it is unknown if such complete sets exist in non-prime power dimensions. It has been conjectured that complete sets of MUBs only exist in if a maximal set of mutually orthogonal Latin squares (MOLS) of side length d also exists. There are several constructions (Roy and Scott 2007 J. Math. Phys. 48 072110; Paterek, Dakić and Brukner 2009 Phys. Rev. A 79 012109) of complete sets of MUBs from specific types of MOLS, which use Galois fields to construct the vectors of the MUBs. In this paper, two known constructions of MUBs (Alltop 1980 IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 26 350–354; Wootters and Fields 1989 Ann. Phys. 191 363–381), both of which use polynomials over a Galois field, are used to construct complete sets of MOLS in the odd prime case. The MOLS come from the inner products of pairs of vectors in the MUBs.