We review a recently developed theoretical approach to the experimental detection and quantification of bipartite quantum correlations (QCs) between a qubit and a d-dimensional system. Specifically, introducing a properly designed measure Q, the presented scheme allows us to quantify general QCs for arbitrary states of 2⊗d systems without the need to fully reconstruct them by tomographic techniques. We take in exam the specifics of the required experimental architecture in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and optical settings. Finally we extend this approach to models of open system dynamics and discuss possible advantages and limitations in such a context.
We review a recently developed theoretical approach to the experimental detection and quantification of bipartite quantum correlations (QCs) between a qubit and a d-dimensional system. Specifically, introducing a properly designed measure Q, the presented scheme allows us to quantify general QCs for arbitrary states of 2⊗d systems without the need to fully reconstruct them by tomographic techniques. We take in exam the specifics of the required experimental architecture in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and optical settings. Finally we extend this approach to models of open system dynamics and discuss possible advantages and limitations in such a context.
The project concerned the study of quantum correlations (QC) in compound systems, i.e. statistical correlations more general than entanglement which are predicted by quantum mechanics but not described in any classical scenario. I aimed to understand the technical and operational properties of the measures of QC, their interplay with entanglement quantifiers and the experimental accessibility.\nIn the first part of my research path, after having acquired the conceptual and technical rudiments of the project, I provided solutions for some computational issues: I developed analytical and numerical algorithms for calculating bipartite QC in finite dimensional systems. Then, I tackled the problem of the experimental detection of QC. There is no Hermitian operator associated with entanglement measures, nor with QC ones. However, the information encoded in a density matrix is redundant to quantify them, thus the full knowledge of the state is not required to accomplish the task. I reported the first protocol to measure the QC of an unknown state by means of a limited number of measurements, without performing the tomography of the state. My proposal has been implemented experimentally in a NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) setting.\nIn the final stage of the project, I explored the foundational and operational merits of QC. I showed that the QC shared by two subsystems yield a genuinely quantum kind of uncertainty on single local observables. The result is a promising evidence of the potential exploitability of separable (unentangled) states for quantum metrology in noisy conditions.
Correlations between different partitions of quantum systems play a central role in a variety of many-body quantum systems, and they have been studied exhaustively in experimental and theoretical research. Here, we investigate dynamical correlations in the time evolution of multiple parts of a composite quantum system. A rigorous measure to quantify correlations in quantum dynamics based on a full tomographic reconstruction of the quantum process has been introduced recently [Á. Rivas et al., New Journal of Physics, 17(6) 062001 (2015).]. In this work, we derive a lower bound for this correlation measure, which does not require full knowledge of the quantum dynamics. Furthermore we also extend the correlation measure to multipartite systems. We directly apply the developed methods to a trapped ion quantum information processor to experimentally characterize the correlations in quantum dynamics for two- and four-qubit systems. The method proposed and demonstrated in this work is scalable, platform-independent and applicable to other composite quantum systems and quantum information processing architectures. We apply the method to estimate spatial correlations in environmental noise processes, which are crucial for the performance of quantum error correction procedures.
Correlations between different partitions of quantum systems play a central role in a variety of many-body quantum systems, and they have been studied exhaustively in experimental and theoretical research. Here, we investigate dynamical correlations in the time evolution of multiple parts of a composite quantum system. A rigorous measure to quantify correlations in quantum dynamics based on a full tomographic reconstruction of the quantum process has been introduced recently [Á. Rivas et al., New Journal of Physics, 17(6) 062001 (2015).]. In this work, we derive a lower bound for this correlation measure, which does not require full knowledge of the quantum dynamics. Furthermore we also extend the correlation measure to multipartite systems. We directly apply the developed methods to a trapped ion quantum information processor to experimentally characterize the correlations in quantum dynamics for two- and four-qubit systems. The method proposed and demonstrated in this work is scalable, platform-independent and applicable to other composite quantum systems and quantum information processing architectures. We apply the method to estimate spatial correlations in environmental noise processes, which are crucial for the performance of quantum error correction procedures.
We introduce a measure Q of bipartite quantum correlations for arbitrary two-qubit states, expressed as a state-independent function of the density matrix elements. The amount of quantum correlations can be quantified experimentally by measuring the expectation value of a small set of observables on up to four copies of the state, without the need for a full tomography. We extend the measure to 2×d systems, providing its explicit form in terms of observables and applying it to the relevant class of multiqubit states employed in the deterministic quantum computation with one quantum bit model. The number of required measurements to determine Q in our scheme does not increase with d. Our results provide an experimentally friendly framework to estimate quantitatively the degree of general quantum correlations in composite systems.
Quantum correlations between parts of a composite system most clearly reveal themselves through entanglement. Designing, maintaining, and controlling entangled systems is very demanding, which raises the stakes for understanding the efficacy of entanglement-free, yet quantum correlations, exemplified by quantum discord. Discord is defined via conditional mutual entropies of parts of a composite system and its direct measurement is hardly possible even via full tomographic characterization of the system state. Here we design a simple protocol to detect and quantify quantum discord in an unentangled bipartite system. Our protocol relies on a characteristic of discord that can be extracted from repeated direct measurements of certain correlations between subsystems of the bipartite system. The proposed protocol opens a way of extending experimental studies of discord to electronic systems, but can also be implemented in quantum-optical systems.
Quantum correlations are key information about the structures and dynamics of quantum many-body systems. There are many types of high-order quantum correlations with different time orderings, but only a few of them are accessible to the existing detection methods. Recently, a quantum-sensing approach based on sequential weak measurement was proposed to selectively extract arbitrary types of correlations. However, its experimental implementation is still elusive. Here we demonstrate the extraction of arbitrary types of quantum correlations. We generalized the original weak measurement scheme to a protocol using synthesized quantum channels, which can be applied to more universal scenarios including both single and ensemble quantum systems. In this quantum channel method, various controls on the sensors are superimposed to select the sensor-target evolution along a specific path for measuring a desired quantum correlation. Using the versatility of nuclear magnetic resonance techniques, we successfully extract the second- and fourth-order correlations of a nuclear-spin target by another nuclear-spin sensor. The full characterization of quantum correlations provides a new tool for understanding quantum many-body systems, exploring fundamental quantum physics, and developing quantum technologies.