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arXiv:1212.2214 · Physical Review Letters

Characterizing Nonclassical Correlations via Local Quantum Uncertainty

Davide Girolami, Tommaso Tufarelli, Gerardo Adesso

Published Jun 13, 2013• 515 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum mechanics predicts that measurements of incompatible observables carry a minimum uncertainty which is independent of technical deficiencies of the measurement apparatus or incomplete knowledge of the state of the system. Nothing yet seems to prevent a single physical quantity, such as one spin component, from being measured with arbitrary precision. Here, we show that an intrinsic quantum uncertainty on a single observable is ineludible in a number of physical situations. When revealed on local observables of a bipartite system, such uncertainty defines an entire class of bona fide measures of nonclassical correlations. For the case of 2 × d systems, we find that a unique measure is defined, which we evaluate in closed form. We then discuss the role that these correlations, which are of the "discord" type, can play in the context of quantum metrology. We show in particular that the amount of discord present in a bipartite mixed probe state guarantees a minimum precision, as quantified by the quantum Fisher information, in the optimal phase estimation protocol.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.110.240402

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Quantum mechanics predicts that measurements of incompatible observables carry a minimum uncertainty which is independent of technical deficiencies of the measurement apparatus or incomplete knowledge of the state of the system. Nothing yet seems to prevent a single physical quantity, such as one spin component, from being measured with arbitrary precision. Here, we show that an intrinsic quantum uncertainty on a single observable is ineludible in a number of physical situations. When revealed on local observables of a bipartite system, such uncertainty defines an entire class of bona fide measures of nonclassical correlations. For the case of 2 × d systems, we find that a unique measure is defined, which we evaluate in closed form. We then discuss the role that these correlations, which are of the "discord" type, can play in the context of quantum metrology. We show in particular that the amount of discord present in a bipartite mixed probe state guarantees a minimum precision, as quantified by the quantum Fisher information, in the optimal phase estimation protocol.
Nonclassical correlations beyond entanglement might provide a resource in quantum information tasks, such as quantum computation or quantum metrology. Quantum discord is a measure of nonclassical correlations to which entanglement belongs as a subset. Exploring the operational meaning of quantum discord as a resource in quantum information processing tasks, such as quantum metrology, is of essential importance to our understanding of nonclassical correlations. In our recent work [Phys. Rev. A 98, 012115 (2018)], we considered a protocol---which we call the greedy local thermometry protocol---for estimating the temperature of thermal equilibrium states from local measurements, elucidating the role of diagonal discord in enhancing the protocol sensitivity in the high-temperature limit. In this paper, we extend our results to a general greedy local parameter estimation scenario. In particular, we introduce a quantum discord---which we call discord for local metrology---to quantify the nonclassical correlations induced by the local optimal measurement on the subsystem. We demonstrate explicitly that discord for local metrology plays a role in sensitivity enhancement in the high-temperature limit by showing its relation to loss in quantum Fisher information. In particular, it coincides with diagonal discord for estimating a linear coupling parameter.
Multipartite quantum systems show properties which do not admit a classical explanation. In particular, even nonentangled states can enjoy a kind of quantum correlations called quantum discord. I discuss some recent results on the role of quantum discord in metrology. Given an interferometric phase estimation protocol where the Hamiltonian is initially unknown to the experimentalist, the quantum discord of the probe state quantifies the minimum precision of the estimation. This provides a physical interpretation to a widely investigated information-theoretic quantity.
The concept of quantum discord aims at unveiling quantum correlations that go beyond those described by entanglement. Its original formulation [L. Henderson and V. Vedral, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 34, 6899 (2001); H. Ollivier and W. H. Zurek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 017901 (2001)] is difficult to compute even for the simplest case of two-qubits systems. Alternative formulations have been developed to address this drawback, such as the geometric measure of quantum discord [L. Chang and S. Luo, Phys. Rev. A 87, 062303 (2013)] and the local quantum uncertainty [D. Girolami, T. Tufarelli, and G. Adesso, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 240402 (2013)] that can be evaluated in closed form for some quantum systems, such as two-qubit systems. We show here that these two measures of quantum discord are equivalent for $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}D$ dimensional bipartite quantum systems. By considering the relevant example of N00N states for phase estimation in lossy environments, we also show that both metrics of quantum discord quantify the decrease of quantum Fisher information of the phase estimation protocol. Given their ease of computation in $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}D$ bipartite systems, the geometric measure of quantum discord and the local quantum uncertainty demonstrate their relevance as computable measures of quantum discord.
We analyze the effects of quantum correlations on the parameter precision in an interferometric configuration. As probe states, we consider a class of two-qubit states for which the analytical expression of the quantum interferometric power, quantifying the quantum correlations, is explicitly derived. Also, we give and analyze the local quantum Fisher information, which evaluates the sensitivity of the probe state to the phase shift, for some relevant local Hamiltonians. The discord-like quantum correlations based on the notion of quantum interferometric power are compared with the original quantum discord based on von Neumann entropy. We also examine the significance of quantum correlations in enhancing the precision of the phase estimation. Our study corroborates the recent series of investigations focusing on the role of quantum correlations other than entanglement on the efficiency of quantum metrology protocols.
Quantum metrology exploits quantum mechanical laws to improve the precision in estimating technologically relevant parameters such as phase, frequency, or magnetic fields.Probe states are usually tailored to the particular dynamics whose parameters are being estimated.Here we consider a novel framework where quantum estimation is performed in an interferometric configuration, using bipartite probe states prepared when only the spectrum of the generating Hamiltonian is known.We introduce a figure of merit for the scheme, given by the worst-case precision over all suitable Hamiltonians, and prove that it amounts exactly to a computable measure of discord-type quantum correlations for the input probe.We complement our theoretical results with a metrology experiment, realized in a highly controllable room-temperature nuclear magnetic resonance setup, which provides a proof-of-concept demonstration for the usefulness of discord in sensing applications.Discordant probes are shown to guarantee a nonzero phase sensitivity for all the chosen generating Hamiltonians, while classically correlated probes are unable to accomplish the estimation in a worst-case setting.This work establishes a rigorous and direct operational interpretation for general quantum correlations, shedding light on their potential for quantum technology.
Local quantum uncertainty is defined as the minimum amount of uncertainty in measuring a local observable for a bipartite state. It provides a well-defined measure of pairwise quantum correlations in quantum systems and has operational significance in quantum metrology. In this work, we analytically derive the expression of local quantum uncertainty for two-qubit [Formula: see text] states which are of paramount importance in various fields of quantum information. As an illustration, we consider two-qubit states extracted from even and odd spin coherent states.