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arXiv:1812.02087

Detecting Noisy Channels by Channel Discrimination : Local versus Entangled Resources

Joonwoo Bae, Tanmay Singal

Published Dec 5, 2018• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Dynamics of many-qubit systems, that may correspond to computational processing with quantum systems, can be efficiently and generally approximated by a sequence of two- and single-qubit gates. In practical applications, however, a quantum gate prepared as a unitary transformation may appear as a noisy channel and consequently may inhibit quantum advantages. In this work, we apply the scheme of channel discrimination to detect if a quantum gate that is actually realized is unitary or noisy. We show that a two-qubit unitary transformation and its noisy counterpart can be optimally discriminated by local resources, without the necessity of creating entanglement repeatedly. It is also shown that the scheme can be applied to estimation of the fraction of noise existing in quantum gates.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1812.02087

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Dynamics of many-qubit systems, that may correspond to computational processing with quantum systems, can be efficiently and generally approximated by a sequence of two- and single-qubit gates. In practical applications, however, a quantum gate prepared as a unitary transformation may appear as a noisy channel and consequently may inhibit quantum advantages. In this work, we apply the scheme of channel discrimination to detect if a quantum gate that is actually realized is unitary or noisy. We show that a two-qubit unitary transformation and its noisy counterpart can be optimally discriminated by local resources, without the necessity of creating entanglement repeatedly. It is also shown that the scheme can be applied to estimation of the fraction of noise existing in quantum gates.
Among the intriguing features of quantum theory, the problem of distinguishing quantum channels is of fundamental interest. In this paper, we focus on the single-shot discrimination of two noisy quantum channels using two distinct classes of probes: single-system (product) probes and entangled probes. Our aim is to identify optimal probing state for specific discrimination tasks and to analyze the necessity and role of entanglement in enhancing channel distinguishability. We show that maximally entangled probes are optimal for discriminating two qubit depolarizing channels, with any nonzero entanglement providing an advantage over single-system probes. In contrast, for dephasing channels in arbitrary dimensions, we prove that single-system probe can be optimal and that entanglement offers no improvement, even when the dephasing unitary is generalized. For qubit amplitude-damping channels, we identify distinct noise-dependent regimes in which either single-system probe outperforms maximally entangled probes and vice-versa. Moreover, we demonstrate that non-maximally entangled probes can act as the optimum probe if the noise parameters restricted to certain values in this task. We also present examples of noisy unitary channels for which discrimination is possible using non-maximally entangled probe, while both single-systems and maximally entangled probes fail. We introduce another class of noisy unitary channels for which perfect discrimination is achievable with a single system, while maximally entangled probes are insufficient. Finally, we show that two erasure channels can be optimally discriminated using any pure single-system probe, with no advantage gained from entanglement.
In quantum information and computation, the generation of entanglement through unitary gates remains a significant and active area of research. However, there are states termed as absolutely separable, from which entanglement cannot be created through any non-local unitary action. Thus, from a resource-theoretic perspective, non-absolutely separable states are useful as they can be turned into entangled states using some appropriate unitary gates. In this work, we propose an efficient method to detect non-absolutely separable states. Our approach relies on evaluating moments that can bypass the need for full state tomography, thereby enhancing its practical applicability. We then present several examples in support of our detection scheme. We also address a closely related problem concerning states whose partial transpose remains positive under any arbitrary non-local unitary action. Furthermore, we examine the effectiveness of our moment-based approach in the detection of quantum channels that are not absolutely separating, which entails the detection of resource preserving channels. Finally, we demonstrate the operational significance of non-absolutely separable states by proving that every such state can provide an advantage in a quantum-channel discrimination task.
A quantum state transformation can be generally approximated by single- and two-qubit gates. This, however, does not hold with noisy intermediate-scale quantum technologies due to the errors appearing in the gate operations, where errors of two-qubit gates such as controlled-not and swap operations are dominated. In this work we present a cost efficient single-copy certification for a realization of a two-qubit gate in the presence of depolarization noise, where we aim to identify if the realization is noise free, or not. We show that entangled resources such as entangled states and a joint measurement are not necessary for the purpose, i.e., a noise-free two-qubit gate is not needed to certify an implementation of a two-qubit gate. We present a proof-of-principle demonstration with photonic qubits.
Tasks involving black boxes appear frequently in the theory of quantum information, with quantum channel discrimination as a central example that has been deeply studied. In this work, we experimentally study the discrimination between two unitary quantum channels in the multiple-shot scenario. We challenge the theoretical results concerning the probability of correct discrimination with the results collected from experiments performed on the IBM Brisbane. Our analysis shows that neither too deep quantum circuits nor circuits that create too much entanglement are suitable for the discrimination task. We conclude that circuit architectures which minimize entanglement overhead while preserving discrimination power are significantly more resilient to hardware noise if their depth does not exceed a threshold value. Consequently, our findings necessitate a paradigm shift: for execution on noisy hardware, the theoretically suboptimal circuit is, counterintuitively, often the superior choice.
We study a set of new functionals (called entanglement–breaking indices) which characterize how many local iterations of a given (local) quantum channel are needed in order to completely destroy the entanglement between the system of interest over which the transformation is defined and an external ancilla. The possibility of contrasting the noisy effects introduced by the channel iterations via the action of intermediate (filtering) transformations is analyzed. We provide some examples in which our functionals can be exactly calculated. The differences between unitary and non-unitary filtering operations are analyzed showing that, at least for systems of dimension d larger than or equal to 3, the non-unitary choice is preferable (the gap between the performances of the two cases being divergent in some cases). For d = 2 (qubit case), on the contrary, no evidences of the presence of such gap is revealed: we conjecture that for this special case unitary filtering transformations are optimal. The scenario in which more general filtering protocols are allowed is also discussed in some detail. The case of a depolarizing noise acting on a two–qubit system is exactly solved in a general case.