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arXiv:1009.3127 · Physical Review A

Purification of noisy quantum measurements

Michele Dall’Arno, Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano, Massimiliano Federico Sacchi

Published Oct 18, 2010• 17 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We consider the problem of improving noisy quantum measurements by suitable preprocessing strategies making many noisy detectors equivalent to a single ideal detector. For observables pertaining to finite-dimensional systems (e.g., qubits or spins) we consider preprocessing strategies that are reminiscent of quantum error correction procedures and allow one to perfectly measure an observable on a single quantum system for increasing number of inefficient detectors. For measurements of observables with an unbounded spectrum (e.g., photon number and homodyne and heterodyne detection), the purification of noisy quantum measurements can be achieved by preamplification as suggested by Yuen [Opt. Lett. 12, 789 (1987)].

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.042315

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We consider the problem of improving noisy quantum measurements by suitable preprocessing strategies making many noisy detectors equivalent to a single ideal detector. For observables pertaining to finite-dimensional systems (e.g., qubits or spins) we consider preprocessing strategies that are reminiscent of quantum error correction procedures and allow one to perfectly measure an observable on a single quantum system for increasing number of inefficient detectors. For measurements of observables with an unbounded spectrum (e.g., photon number and homodyne and heterodyne detection), the purification of noisy quantum measurements can be achieved by preamplification as suggested by Yuen [Opt. Lett. 12, 789 (1987)].
We investigate schemes for conversion between qubits encoded into superpositions of vacuum and single-photon states and qubits encoded into states of single photons. The analyzed schemes combine linear optics, homodyne or heterodyne detection, single-photon detection, and electro-optical feedforward, and are designed to be suitable for signals with arbitrary temporal profiles. To achieve perfect conversion, quantum filtering is utilized based on conditioning on no-clicks of single-photon detectors, which makes the conversion probabilistic. High-quality conditional conversion is nevertheless possible even without single-photon detectors, by conditioning on outcomes of a homodyne or heterodyne detector. Deterministic high-quality conversion of dual-rail qubits to single-rail qubits is possible with an array of homodyne detectors where the phases of the measured quadratures are controlled by a feedforward scheme, which represents an alternative to conversion via homodyne detection with a real-time continuous feedback [T. C. Ralph, A. P. Lund, and H. M. Wiseman, J. Opt. B 7, S245 (2005)].
State preparation that initializes quantum systems in a fiducial state and measurements to read outcomes after the evolution of quantum states, both essential elements in quantum information processing in general, may contain noise from which errors, in particular, referred to as static errors, may appear even with noise-free evolution. In this work, we consider noisy resources such as faulty manufacturing and improper maintenance of systems by which static errors in state preparation and measurement are inevitable. We show how to suppress static errors and purify noiseless SPAM by repeatedly applying noisy resources. We present the purification protocol for noisy initialization and noisy measurements and verify that a few qubits are immediately cost-effective to suppress error rates up to 10−310^{-3}10−3. We also demonstrate the purification protocol in a realistic scenario. The results are readily feasible with current quantum technologies.
A simulated photon-number detection via homodyne detectors is considered as a way to improve the efficiency near the single-photon level of communication. Current photon-number detectors at infrared wavelengths are typically characterized by their low detection efficiencies, which significantly reduce the mutual information of a bosonic communication channel. In order to avoid the inefficiency inherent in such direct photon-number detection, we evaluate an alternative set-up based on efficient dual homodyne detection. We show that replacing inefficient direct detectors with homodyne-based simulated direct detectors can yield significant improvements, even near the single-photon level of operation. However we argue that there is a fundamental limit on the ability of homodyne detection to simulate ideal photon number detection, considering the exponential gap between quantum and classical computers. This applies to arbitrarily complicated simulation strategies based on homodyne detection.
Abstract Quantum measurements are crucial for extracting information from quantum systems, but they are error-prone due to hardware imperfections in near-term devices. Measurement errors can be mitigated through classical post-processing, based on the assumption of a classical noise model. However, the coherence of quantum measurements leads to unavoidable quantum noise that defies this assumption. In this work, we introduce a two-stage procedure to systematically tackle such quantum noise in measurements. The idea is intuitive: we first detect and then eliminate quantum noise. In the first stage, inspired by coherence witness in the resource theory of quantum coherence, we design an efficient method to detect quantum noise. It works by fitting the difference between two measurement statistics to the Fourier series, where the statistics are obtained using maximally coherent states with relative phase and maximally mixed states as inputs. The fitting coefficients quantitatively benchmark quantum noise. In the second stage, we design various methods to eliminate quantum noise, inspired by the Pauli twirling technique. They work by executing randomly sampled Pauli gates before the measurement device and conditionally flipping the measurement outcomes in such a way that the effective measurement device contains only classical noise. We numerically demonstrate the two-stage procedure’s feasibility on the Baidu Quantum Platform. Notably, the results reveal significant suppression of quantum noise in measurement devices and substantial enhancement in quantum computation accuracy. We highlight that the two-stage procedure complements existing measurement error mitigation techniques, and they together form a standard toolbox for manipulating measurement errors in near-term quantum devices.
Quantum measurement and control science provides a toolkit for implementing quantum information protocols, overcoming noisy operation and minimizing the use of costly quantum resources. The importance of finding optimal measurement and control strategies is revealed in the task of quantum state discrimination, a characteristic feature of quantum mechanics and a primitive for quantum information science and technology. When a quantum system is prepared in one of two known nonorthogonal quantum states, no measurement can deterministically tell which state the system is in. Two strategies can be applied to discriminate non-orthogonal states efficiently. Unambiguous state discrimination (USD) is strategy that provides a guess which is either correct, or inconclusive [1]. Alternatively, minimum error discrimination (MED) strategy will always provide a conclusive answer, which can sometimes be incorrect [2]. Perfect nonorthogonal state discrimination is still impossible even when multiple copies of the system are available, although different strategies increase the chance of having conclusive (for USD), or correct (for MED) result. Multiple-copy measurement strategies can be either collective, when a single measurement involves all the copies of the system, or local, when each copy of the system is measured separately. The latter can be further divided into fixed, where the measurement applied to each copy is the same, or adaptive, where the measurement on each subsequent copy depends on the outcomes of the previous measurements [3,4]. A multiple-copy MED strategy is defined by its goal of minimizing the average error for fixed resources, i.e. the number of copies of the system. An alternative approach we consider, is to minimize the average resources required, while keeping errors below a given bound [5]. This approach is central for fault-tolerant quantum computing and has been applied to a number of quantum control strategies [6,7]. We call the corresponding state discrimination task the guaranteed bounded error discrimination (GBED) task. Intuitively, one may assume that the multiple-copy strategies optimal for MED would be also optimal for GBED. We experimentally apply two known local non-adaptive strategies, previously considered for the MED task, to the two-state GBED problem [5]. We then derive and experimentally demonstrate a new local strategy, designed specifically for the GBED task that outperforms other strategies. Moreover, it performs usually better than, and in the regime of small error, scales better than, the theoretical performance of the optimal adaptive strategy for the MED task. The discovered reversal in the performance of schemes when swapping the task definition from performance-maximization to resource-minimization, is similar to that previously observed in state purification [6], suggesting that this phenomenon is a generic one. [1] I. D. Ivanovic, Phys. Lett. A 123, 257 (1987). [2] C. W. Helstrom, Quantum detection and estimation theory (1976). [3] A. Acín, et al., Phys. Rev. A 71, 032338 (2005). [4] B. L. Higgins, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 220503 (2009). [5] S. Slussarenko, et al., PRL 118, 030502 (2017). [6] H. M. Wiseman and J. F. Ralph. New J. Phys. 8, 90 (2006). [7] J. Combes, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 160503 (2008).
The key realization that led to the emergence of the new field of quantum information processing is that quantum mechanics, the theory that describes microscopic particles, allows the processing of information in fundamentally new ways. But just as in classical information processing, errors occur in quantum information processing, and these have to be corrected. A fundamental breakthrough was the realization that quantum error correction is in fact possible. However, most work so far has not been concerned with technological feasibility, but rather with proving that quantum error correction is possible in principle. Here we describe a method for filtering out errors and entanglement purification which is particularly suitable for quantum communication. Our method is conceptually new, and, crucially, it is easy to implement in a wide variety of physical systems with present-day technology and should therefore be of wide applicability.