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arXiv:1410.6008 · Physical Review Letters

Deterministic Superreplication of One-Parameter Unitary Transformations

Wolfgang Dür, Pavel Sekatski, Michalis Skotiniotis

Published Mar 25, 2015• 20 citations
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Abstract

We show that one can deterministically generate, out of N copies of an unknown unitary operation, up to N^{2} almost perfect copies. The result holds for all operations generated by a Hamiltonian with an unknown interaction strength. This generalizes a similar result in the context of phase-covariant cloning where, however, superreplication comes at the price of an exponentially reduced probability of success. We also show that multiple copies of unitary operations can be emulated by operations acting on a much smaller space, e.g., a magnetic field acting on a single n-level system allows one to emulate the action of the field on n^{2} qubits.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.114.120503

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We show that one can deterministically generate, out of N copies of an unknown unitary operation, up to N^{2} almost perfect copies. The result holds for all operations generated by a Hamiltonian with an unknown interaction strength. This generalizes a similar result in the context of phase-covariant cloning where, however, superreplication comes at the price of an exponentially reduced probability of success. We also show that multiple copies of unitary operations can be emulated by operations acting on a much smaller space, e.g., a magnetic field acting on a single n-level system allows one to emulate the action of the field on n^{2} qubits.
Quantum states obey an asymptotic no-cloning theorem, stating that no deterministic machine can reliably replicate generic sequences of identically prepared pure states. In stark contrast, we show that generic sequences of unitary gates can be replicated deterministically at nearly quadratic rates, with an error vanishing on most inputs except for an exponentially small fraction. The result is not in contradiction with the no-cloning theorem, since the impossibility of deterministically transforming pure states into unitary gates prevents the application of the gate replication protocol to states. In addition to gate replication, we show that N parallel uses of a completely unknown unitary gate can be compressed into a single gate acting on O(log_{2}N) qubits, leading to an exponential reduction of the amount of quantum communication needed to implement the gate remotely.
Although the no-cloning theorem forbids perfect replication of quantum information, it is sometimes possible to produce large numbers of replicas with vanishingly small error. This phenomenon, known as quantum superreplication, can occur for both quantum states and quantum gates. The aim of this paper is to review the central features of quantum superreplication and provide a unified view of existing results. The paper also includes new results. In particular, we show that when quantum superreplication can be achieved, it can be achieved through estimation up to an error of size O(M/N 2), where N and M are the number of input and output copies, respectively. Quantum strategies still offer an advantage for superreplication in that they allow for exponentially faster reduction of the error. Using the relation with estimation, we provide i) an alternative proof of the optimality of Heisenberg scaling in quantum metrology, ii) a strategy for estimating arbitrary unitary gates with a mean square error scaling as log N/N 2, and iii) a protocol that generates O(N 2) nearly perfect copies of a generic pure state U |0〉 while using the corresponding gate U only N times. Finally, we point out that superreplication can be achieved using interactions among k systems, provided that k is large compared to M 2/N 2.
We propose a quantum algorithm, termed the universal quantum emulator, that emulates the action of an unknown unitary transformation or its inverse on a given input state, using multiple copies of some unknown sample input states of the unitary and their corresponding output states. The algorithm does not assume any prior information about the unitary to be emulated, the sample input states, or the relation between them. We rigorously prove that if the sample input states are tomographically complete, such that the action of an unknown unitary on the input subspace can be uniquely determined by its action on the sample input states, then our proposed algorithm succeeds in generating the desired output, with an error that becomes arbitrarily small by increasing the number of copies of the samples. Remarkably, the run-time of the algorithm is logarithmic in D , the dimension of the Hilbert space, and increases polynomially with d , the dimension of the subspace spanned by the sample input states. Furthermore, the sample complexity of the algorithm—i.e., the total number of copies of the sample input-output pairs needed to run the algorithm—is independent of D and polynomial in d . In contrast, the run-time and sample complexity of algorithms that perform tomography on the sample states are both linear in D . This algorithm can be used as a subroutine in other algorithms, such as quantum phase estimation. We discuss some applications of this algorithm in areas including complexity theory, secure quantum computation, and quantum resource theories.
Quantum theory fundamentally forbids the perfect copying of an arbitrary unknown quantum state, according to a principle known as the no-cloning theorem. Nevertheless, it is possible to construct a deterministic quantum map that produces multiple approximate copies of an unknown quantum state. This task is referred to as universal quantum cloning, further facilitating numerous quantum technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum communication. In this work, we theoretically verify that the universal quantum cloning cannot be realized within a noncontextual theory, highlighting its intrinsically nonclassical nature. Our verification first {focuses on revealing that} 1→21\rightarrow21→2 cloning scenario {is fully contextual}, and {further covers general examples to observe the contextual behavior of} N→MN\rightarrow MN→M scenario. We believe that our results regarding quantum cloning serve a key role for understanding both quantum foundation and application.
We propose a quantum algorithm that emulates the action of an unknown unitary transformation on a given input state, using multiple copies of some unknown sample input states of the unitary and their corresponding output states. The algorithm does not assume any prior information about the unitary to be emulated or the sample input states. To emulate the action of the unknown unitary, the new input state is coupled to the given sample input-output pairs in a coherent fashion. Remarkably, the runtime of the algorithm is logarithmic in D, the dimension of the Hilbert space, and increases polynomially with d, the dimension of the subspace spanned by the sample input states. Furthermore, the sample complexity of the algorithm-i.e., the total number of copies of the sample input-output pairs needed to run the algorithm-is independent of D and polynomial in d. In contrast, the runtime and sample complexity of incoherent methods, i.e., methods that use tomography, are both linear in D. The algorithm is blind, in the sense that, at the end, it does not learn anything about the given samples or the emulated unitary. This algorithm can be used as a subroutine in other algorithms, such as quantum phase estimation.