Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) play a key role in many protocols in quantum science, such as quantum key distribution. However, defining MUBs for arbitrary high-dimensional systems is theoretically difficult, and measurements in such bases can be hard to implement. We show experimentally that efficient quantum state reconstruction of a high-dimensional multipartite quantum system can be performed by considering only the MUBs of the individual parts. The state spaces of the individual subsystems are always smaller than the state space of the composite system. Thus, the benefit of this method is that MUBs need to be defined for the small Hilbert spaces of the subsystems rather than for the large space of the overall system. This becomes especially relevant where the definition or measurement of MUBs for the overall system is challenging. We illustrate this approach by implementing measurements for a high-dimensional system consisting of two photons entangled in the orbital angular momentum degree of freedom, and we reconstruct the state of this system for dimensions of the individual photons from d = 2 to 5.
Measurements in mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) are integral to quantum science. An underlying principle of a set of MUBs is that a measurement in one such basis provides no information about a measurement in one of the others. This feature is especially relevant for quantum key distribution. We perform a complete set of mutually unbiased measurements for high-dimensional orbital angular momentum (OAM) states of light. For a two-photon entangled state we show that specific joint measurements provide the minimum number of experimental settings required to characterize the quantum state. From these measurements we reconstruct the density matrix describing the high-dimensional two-photon entangled state. The experimental procedure that we outline can be applied to many different multipartite and high-dimensional systems.
Certifying entanglement is an important step in the development of many quantum technologies, especially for higher-dimensional systems, where entanglement promises increased capabilities for quantum communication and computation. A key feature distinguishing entanglement from classical correlations is the occurrence of correlations for complementary measurement bases. In particular, mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) are a paradigmatic example that is well-understood and routinely employed for entanglement certification. However, implementing unbiased measurements exactly is challenging and not generically possible for all physical platforms. Here, we extend the entanglement-certification toolbox from correlations in MUBs to arbitrary bases. This practically significant simplification paves the way for efficient characterizations of high-dimensional entanglement in a wide range of physical systems. Furthermore, we introduce a simple three-MUBs construction for all dimensions without using the Wootters-Fields construction, potentially simplifying experimental requirements when measurements in more than two MUBs are needed, especially in high-dimensional settings.
Mutually unbiased measurements (MUMs) are generalized from the concept of mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) and include the complete set of MUBs as a special case, but they are superior to MUBs as they do not need to be rank one projectors. We investigate entanglement detection using sets of MUMs and derive separability criteria for multipartite qudit systems, arbitrary high-dimensional bipartite systems of a d1-dimensional subsystem and a d2-dimensional subsystem, and multipartite systems of multi-level subsystems. These criteria are of the advantages of more effective and wider application range than previous criteria. They provide experimental implementation in detecting entanglement of unknown quantum states.
Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) play a crucial role in numerous applications within quantum information science, such as quantum state tomography, error correction, entanglement detection, and quantum cryptography. Utilizing
2n+1 MUB circuits provides a minimal and optimal measurement strategy for reconstructing all
n-qubit unknown states. It significantly reduces the number of measurements compared to the traditional
4n Pauli observables, also enhancing the robustness of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols. Previous circuit designs that rely on a single generator can result in exponential gate costs for some MUB circuits. In this work, we present an efficient algorithm to generate each of the
2n+1 quantum MUB circuits on
n-qubit systems within
O(n3) time. The algorithm features a three-stage structure, and we have calculated the average number of different gates for random sampling. Additionally, we have identified two linear properties: the entanglement part can be directly defined into
2n−3 fixed sub-parts, and the knowledge of
n special MUB circuits is sufficient to construct all
2n+1 MUB circuits. This new efficient and simple circuit construction paves the way for the implementation of a complete set of MUBs in diverse quantum information processing tasks on high-dimensional quantum systems.