arXiv:1801.08520 · Physical Review A
Self-testing quantum states and measurements in the prepare-and-measure scenario
Armin Tavakoli, Jędrzej Kaniewski, Tamás Vértesi, Denis Rosset, Nicolas Brunner
Abstract
The goal of self-testing is to characterize an a priori unknown quantum system based solely on measurement statistics, i.e., using an uncharacterized measurement device. Here we develop self-testing methods for quantum prepare-and-measure experiments, thus not necessarily relying on entanglement and/or violation of a Bell inequality. We present noise-robust techniques for self-testing sets of quantum states and measurements, assuming an upper bound on the Hilbert space dimension. We discuss in detail the case of a $2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ random access code with qubits, for which we provide analytically optimal self-tests. The simplicity and noise robustness of our methods should make them directly applicable to experiments.