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arXiv:1808.08984 · Quantum

Minimax quantum state estimation under Bregman divergence

Maria Quadeer, Marco Tomamichel, Christopher Ferrie

Published Mar 4, 2019• 8 citations
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Abstract

We investigate minimax estimators for quantum state tomography under general Bregman divergences. First, generalizing the work of Koyama et al. [Entropy 19, 618 (2017)] for relative entropy, we find that given any estimator for a quantum state, there always exists a sequence of Bayes estimators that asymptotically perform at least as well as the given estimator, on any state. Second, we show that there always exists a sequence of priors for which the corresponding sequence of Bayes estimators is asymptotically minimax (i.e. it minimizes the worst-case risk). Third, by re-formulating Holevo's theorem for the covariant state estimation problem in terms of estimators, we find that there exists a covariant measurement that is, in fact, minimax (i.e. it minimizes the worst-case risk). Moreover, we find that a measurement that is covariant only under a unitary 2-design is also minimax. Lastly, in an attempt to understand the problem of finding minimax measurements for general state estimation, we study the qubit case in detail and find that every spherical 2-design is a minimax measurement.

DOI
10.22331/q-2019-03-04-126

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We investigate minimax estimators for quantum state tomography under general Bregman divergences. First, generalizing the work of Koyama et al. [Entropy 19, 618 (2017)] for relative entropy, we find that given any estimator for a quantum state, there always exists a sequence of Bayes estimators that asymptotically perform at least as well as the given estimator, on any state. Second, we show that there always exists a sequence of priors for which the corresponding sequence of Bayes estimators is asymptotically minimax (i.e. it minimizes the worst-case risk). Third, by re-formulating Holevo's theorem for the covariant state estimation problem in terms of estimators, we find that there exists a covariant measurement that is, in fact, minimax (i.e. it minimizes the worst-case risk). Moreover, we find that a measurement that is covariant only under a unitary 2-design is also minimax. Lastly, in an attempt to understand the problem of finding minimax measurements for general state estimation, we study the qubit case in detail and find that every spherical 2-design is a minimax measurement.
We investigate minimax estimators for quantum state tomography under general Bregman divergences. First, generalizing the work of Komaki et al. hrefhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e19110618textrm[Entropy19,618(2017)]\\href{http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e19110618}{\\textrm{[Entropy 19, 618 (2017)]}}hrefhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e19110618textrm[Entropy19,618(2017)] for relative entropy, we find that given any estimator for a quantum state, there always exists a sequence of Bayes estimators that asymptotically perform at least as well as the given estimator, on any state. Second, we show that there always exists a sequence of priors for which the corresponding sequence of Bayes estimators is asymptotically minimax (i.e. it minimizes the worst-case risk). Third, by re-formulating Holevo's theorem for the covariant state estimation problem in terms of estimators, we find that any covariant measurement is, in fact, minimax (i.e. it minimizes the worst-case risk). Moreover, we find that a measurement is minimax if it is only covariant under a unitary 2-design. Lastly, in an attempt to understand the problem of finding minimax measurements for general state estimation, we study the qubit case in detail and find that every spherical 2-design is a minimax measurement.
A minimax estimator has the minimum possible error ("risk") in the worst case. We construct the first minimax estimators for quantum state tomography with relative entropy risk. The minimax risk of nonadaptive tomography scales as O(1/sqrt[N])-in contrast to that of classical probability estimation, which is O(1/N)-where N is the number of copies of the quantum state used. We trace this deficiency to sampling mismatch: future observations that determine risk may come from a different sample space than the past data that determine the estimate. This makes minimax estimators very biased, and we propose a computationally tractable alternative with similar behavior in the worst case, but superior accuracy on most states.
We give a shadow tomography algorithm that uses O(log⁡(m)log⁡(m/δ)/ε2)O(\log(m) \log(m/δ) / \varepsilon^2)O(log(m)log(m/δ)/ε2) copies of the input state. Specifically, given a quantum state ρρρ and observables O1,…,OmO_1,\ldots,O_mO1​,…,Om​, the algorithm outputs estimates of tr(Oiρ)\mathrm{tr}(O_iρ)tr(Oi​ρ) for all i∈[m]i\in[m]i∈[m] that are all accurate to within ±ε\pm\varepsilon±ε, except with probability at most δδδ. The key idea is to work in the average-case setting: for a random state drawn from a known prior, a pretty good measurement on O(log⁡(m)/ε2)O(\log(m)/\varepsilon^2)O(log(m)/ε2) copies gives a constant-error guarantee on all but a small fraction of the prior. Boosting this guarantee gives an average-case shadow tomography algorithm, and the minimax principle then (non-constructively) implies the existence of a measurement with the same worst-case guarantee. We also identify an obstruction to further improvement with this approach. While pretty good measurements amplify success over the randomness of the prior, they do not amplify success over the randomness of measurement. This issue appears to be inherent, and gives rise to the remaining log⁡(m)\log(m)log(m) factor separating the complexity of the quantum problem from its classical counterpart.
Recent experimental progress in the preparation and control of quantum systems has brought to light the importance of Quantum State Tomography (QST) in validating the results. In this thesis we investigate several aspects of QST, whose central problem is to devise estimation schemes for the recovery of an unknown state, given an ensemble of n independent identically prepared systems. The key issues in tackling QST for large dimensional systems is the construction of physically relevant low dimensional state models, and the design of appropriate measurements. Inspired by compressed sensing tomography, in chapters 4, 5 we consider the statistical problem of estimating low rank states (r ≪ d) in the set-up of Multiple Ions Tomography (MIT), where r and d are the rank and the dimension of the state respectively. We investigate how the estimation error behaves with a reduction in the number of measurement settings, compared to ‘full’ QST in two setups - Pauli and random bases measurement designs. We study the estimation errors in this ‘incomplete’ measurement setup in terms of a concentration of the Fisher information matrix. For the random bases design we demonstrate that O(r logd) settings suffice for the mean square error w.r.t the Frobenius norm to achieve the optimal O(1/n) rate of estimation. When the error functions are locally quadratic, like the Frobenius norm, then the expected error (or risk) of standard procedures achieves this optimal rate. However, for fidelity based errors such as the Bures distance we show that no ‘compressive’ recovery exists for states close to the boundary, and it is known that even with conventional ‘full’ tomography schemes the risk scales as O(1/√n) for such states and error functions. For qubit states this boundary is the surface of the Bloch sphere. Several estimators have been proposed to improve this scaling with ‘adaptive’ tomography. In chapter 6 we analyse this problem from the perspective of the maximum Bures risk over all qubit states. We propose two adaptive estimation strategies, one based on local measurements and another based on collective measurements utilising the results of quantum local asymptotic normality. We demonstrate a scaling of O(1/n) for the maximum Bures risk with both estimation strategies, and also discuss the construction of a minimax optimal estimator. In chapter 7 we return to the MIT setup and systematically compare several tomographic estimators in an extensive simulation study. We present and analyse results from this study, investigating the performance of the estimators across various states, measurement designs and error functions. Along with commonly used estimators like maximum likelihood, we propose and evaluate a few new ones. We finally introduce two web-based applications designed as tools for performing QST simulations online.
In classical statistics, Pinsker’s theorem provides an exact asymptotic minimax bound in nonparametric estimation, improving upon optimal rates of convergence results. We obtain a quantum version of the theorem by establishing asymptotic minimax results for estimation of the displacement vector in a quantum Gaussian white noise model, given by a sequence of shifted vacuum states. Analogous results are then obtained for estimation of a general pure state from an ensemble of identically prepared, independent quantum systems, using the recently established local asymptotic equivalence to the quantum Gaussian white noise model. Optimality holds with respect to the most fundamental distance measure for quantum states, that is, trace norm distance, and in a true quantum sense, allowing for all possible measurements. Adaptive estimators are also obtained for the above cases. As an application, we obtain asymptotic minimax adaptive estimators for Wigner functions of pure states.