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arXiv:1008.0843 · Physical Review A

Minimum-error discrimination of entangled quantum states

Lu Yan, N. Coish, Rainer Kaltenbaek, Deny R. Hamel, Sarah Croke, Kevin J. Resch

Published Oct 29, 2010• 18 citations
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Abstract

Strategies to optimally discriminate between quantum states are critical in quantum technologies. We present an experimental demonstration of minimum-error discrimination between entangled states, encoded in the polarization of pairs of photons. Although the optimal measurement involves projection onto entangled states, we use a result of J. Walgate et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4972 (2000)] to design an optical implementation employing only local polarization measurements and feed-forward, which performs at the Helstrom bound. Our scheme can achieve perfect discrimination of orthogonal states and minimum-error discrimination of nonorthogonal states. Our experimental results show a definite advantage over schemes not using feed-forward.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.042340

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Strategies to optimally discriminate between quantum states are critical in quantum technologies. We present an experimental demonstration of minimum-error discrimination between entangled states, encoded in the polarization of pairs of photons. Although the optimal measurement involves projection onto entangled states, we use a result of J. Walgate et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4972 (2000)] to design an optical implementation employing only local polarization measurements and feed-forward, which performs at the Helstrom bound. Our scheme can achieve perfect discrimination of orthogonal states and minimum-error discrimination of nonorthogonal states. Our experimental results show a definite advantage over schemes not using feed-forward.
Quantum mechanics forbids perfect discrimination among nonorthogonal states through a single shot measurement. To optimize this task, many strategies were devised that later became fundamental tools for quantum information processing. Here, we address the pioneering minimum-error (ME) measurement and give the first experimental demonstration of its application for discriminating nonorthogonal states in high dimensions. Our scheme is designed to distinguish symmetric pure states encoded in the transverse spatial modes of an optical field; the optimal measurement is performed by a projection onto the Fourier transform basis of these modes. For dimensions ranging from D=2 to D=21 and nearly 14 000 states tested, the deviations of the experimental results from the theoretical values range from 0.3% to 3.6% (getting below 2% for the vast majority), thus showing the excellent performance of our scheme. This ME measurement is a building block for high-dimensional implementations of many quantum communication protocols, including probabilistic state discrimination, dense coding with nonmaximal entanglement, and cryptographic schemes.
We investigate optimal discrimination between two projective quantum measurements on a single qubit. We consider a scenario where the measurement that should be identified can be performed twice and we show that adaptive discrimination strategy, entangled probe states, and feed forward all help to increase the probability of correct identification of the measurement. We also experimentally demonstrate the studied discrimination strategies and test their performance. The employed experimental setup involves projective measurements on polarization states of single photons and preparation of required probe two-photon polarization states by the process of spontaneous parametric downconversion and passive linear optics.
We present the first experimental demonstration of the maximum confidence measurement strategy for quantum state discrimination. Applying this strategy to an arbitrary set of states assigns to each input state a measurement outcome which, when realized, gives the highest possible confidence that the state was indeed present. The theoretically optimal measurement for discriminating between three equiprobable symmetric qubit states is implemented in a polarization-based free-space interferometer. The maximum confidence in the measurement result is 2/3. This is the first explicit demonstration that an improvement in the confidence over the optimal minimum error measurement is possible for linearly dependent states.
Quantum state discrimination is a fundamental task in the field of quantum communication and quantum information theory. Unless the states to be discriminated are mutually orthogonal, there will be some error in any attempt to determine which state was sent. Several strategies to optimally discriminate between quantum states exist, each maximising some figure of merit. In this thesis we mainly investigate the minimum-error strategy, in which the probability of correctly guessing the signal state is maximised. We introduce a method for constructing the optimal Positive-Operator Valued Measure (POVM) for this figure of merit, which is applicable for arbitrary states and arbitrary prior probabilities. We then use this method to solve minimum-error state discrimination for the so-called trine states with arbitrary prior probabilities - the first such general solution for a set of quantum states since the two-state case was solved when the problem of state discrimination was first introduced. We also investigate the difference between local and global measurements for a bipartite ensemble of states, and find that in certain circumstances the local measurement is superior. We conclude by finding a bipartite analogue to the Helstrom conditions, which indicate when a POVM satisfies the minimum-error criteria.
We propose an experimental setup for discriminating four linearly independent nonorthogonal symmetric quantum states. The setup is based on linear optics only and can be configured to implement both optimal unambiguous state discrimination [Chefles and Barnett, Phys. Lett. A 250, 223 (1998)] and minimum error discrimination. In both cases, the setup is characterized by an optimal success probability. The experimental setup can be generalized to the case of discrimination among NNN linearly nonorthogonal symmetric quantum states. We also study the discrimination between two incoherent superpositions of symmetric states. In this case, the setup also achieves an optimal success probability in the case of unambiguous discrimination as well as minimum error discrimination.