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arXiv:1205.0634 · Physical Review A

Unambiguously determining the orthogonality of multiple quantum states

Shengshi Pang, Shengjun Wu

Published Oct 14, 2010• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this article, we study an opposite problem of universal quantum state comparison, that is unambiguously determining whether multiple unknown quantum states from a Hilbert space are orthogonal or not. We show that no unambiguous quantum measurement can accomplish this task with a nonzero probability. Moreover, we extend the problem to a more general case, that is to compare how orthogonal multiple unknown quantum states are with a threshold, and it turns out that given any threshold this extended task is also impossible by any unambiguous quantum measurement except for a trivial case. It will be seen that the impossibility revealed in our problem is stronger than that in the universal quantum state comparison problem and distinct from those in the existing ``no-go'' theorems.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.042311

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In this article, we study an opposite problem of universal quantum state comparison, that is unambiguously determining whether multiple unknown quantum states from a Hilbert space are orthogonal or not. We show that no unambiguous quantum measurement can accomplish this task with a nonzero probability. Moreover, we extend the problem to a more general case, that is to compare how orthogonal multiple unknown quantum states are with a threshold, and it turns out that given any threshold this extended task is also impossible by any unambiguous quantum measurement except for a trivial case. It will be seen that the impossibility revealed in our problem is stronger than that in the universal quantum state comparison problem and distinct from those in the existing ``no-go'' theorems.
We consider N quantum systems initially prepared in pure states and address the problem of unambiguously comparing them. One may ask whether or not all N systems are in the same state. Alternatively, one may ask whether or not the states of all N systems are different. We investigate the possibility of unambiguously obtaining this kind of information. It is found that some unambiguous comparison tasks are possible only when certain linear independence conditions are satisfied. We also obtain measurement strategies for certain comparison tasks which are optimal under a broad range of circumstances, in particular when the states are completely unknown. Such strategies, which we call universal comparison strategies, are found to have intriguing connections with the problem of quantifying the distinguishability of a set of quantum states and also with unresolved conjectures in linear algebra. We finally investigate a potential generalization of unambiguous state comparison, which we term unambiguous overlap filtering.
In this work, we reveal a new type of impossibility discovered in our recent research which forbids comparing the closeness of multiple unknown quantum states with any non-trivial threshold in a perfect or an unambiguous way. This impossibility is distinct from the existing impossibilities in that it is a collective impossibility on multiple quantum states while most other no-go theorems concern with only one single state each time, i.e., it is an impossibility on a non-local quantum operation. This novel impossibility may provide a new insight into the nature of quantum mechanics and it implies more limitations on quantum information tasks than the existing no-go theorems.
In this work, we reveal a type of impossibility discovered in our recent research which forbids comparing the closeness of multiple unknown quantum states with any nontrivial threshold in a perfect or unambiguous way. This impossibility is distinct from the existing impossibilities in that it is a ``collective'' impossibility on multiple quantum states; most other ``no-go'' theorems are concerned with only one single state each time, i.e., it is an impossibility on a nonlocal quantum operation. This impossibility may provide new insight into the nature of quantum mechanics, and it implies more limitations on quantum information tasks than the existing no-go theorems.
In this article, we study the problem of comparing mixed quantum states: given nnn unknown mixed quantum states, can one determine whether they are identical or not with an unambiguous quantum measurement? We first study the universal comparison of mixed quantum states, and prove that this task is generally impossible to accomplish. Then, we focus on the unambiguous comparison of nnn mixed quantum states arbitrarily chosen from a set of kkk mixed quantum states. The condition for the existence of an unambiguous measurement operator which can produce a conclusive result when the unknown states are actually the same and the condition for the existence of an unambiguous measurement operator when the unknown states are actually different are studied independently. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the first measurement operator, and a necessary condition and two sufficient conditions for the second. Furthermore, we find that the sufficiency of the necessary condition for the second measurement operator has a simple and interesting dependence on nnn and kkk. At the end, a unified condition is obtained for the simultaneous existence of these two unambiguous measurement operators.
The goal of comparison is to reveal the difference of compared objects as fast and reliably as possible. In this paper we formulate and investigate the unambiguous comparison of unknown quantum measurements represented by nondegenerate sharp positive operator valued measures. We distinguish between measurement devices with a priori labeled and unlabeled outcomes. In both cases we can unambiguously conclude only that the measurements are different. For the labeled case it is sufficient to use each unknown measurement only once and the average conditional success probability decreases with the Hilbert space dimension as 1/d1/d1/d. If the outcomes of the apparatuses are not labeled, then the problem is more complicated. We analyze the case of two-dimensional Hilbert space. In this case single shot comparison is impossible and each measurement device must be used (at least) twice. The optimal test state in the two-shot scenario gives the average conditional success probability 4/9. Interestingly, the optimal experiment detects unambiguously the difference with nonvanishing probability for any pair of observables.
We address the following state comparison problem: is it possible to design an experiment enabling us to unambiguously decide (based on the observed outcome statistics) on the sameness or difference of two unknown state preparations without revealing complete information about the states? We find that the claim ``the same'' can never be concluded without any doubts unless the information is complete. Moreover, we prove that a universal comparison (that perfectly distinguishes all states) also requires complete information about the states. Nevertheless, for some measurements, the probability distribution of outcomes still allows one to make an unambiguous conclusion regarding the difference between the states even in the case of incomplete information. We analyze an efficiency of such a comparison of qudit states when it is based on the swap measurement. For qubit states, we consider in detail the performance of special families of two-valued measurements, enabling us to successfully compare at most half of the pairs of states. Finally, we introduce almost-universal comparison measurements which can distinguish almost all nonidentical states (up to a set of measure zero). The explicit form of such measurements with two and more outcomes is found in any dimension.