Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2204.10948 · Physical Review A

Incompatibility of local measurements providing an advantage in local quantum state discrimination

Kornikar Sen, Saronath Halder, Ujjwal Sen

Published Jan 9, 2024• 7 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The uncertainty principle may be considered as giving rise to the notion of incompatibility of observables, a property that has been carefully analyzed in the literature for single systems. A pack of quantum measurements that cannot be measured simultaneously is said to form a set of incompatible measurements. Every set of incompatible measurements has an advantage over the compatible ones in a quantum state discrimination task where one prepares a state from an ensemble and sends it to another party, and the latter tries to detect the state using available measurements. Comparison between global and local quantum state discriminations is known to lead to a phenomenon of ``nonlocality.'' In this work, we seal a connection between the domains of local quantum state discrimination and incompatible quantum measurements. We consider the local quantum state discrimination task where a sender prepares a bipartite state and sends the subsystems to two receivers. The receivers try to detect the sent state using locally incompatible measurements. We analyze the ratio of the probability of successfully guessing the state using incompatible measurements and the maximum probability of successfully guessing the state using compatible measurements. We find that this ratio is upper bounded by a simple function of robustnesses of incompatibilities of the local measurements. Interestingly, corresponding to every pair of sets of incompatible measurements, there exists at least one local state discrimination task where this bound can be achieved. We argue that the optimal local quantum state discrimination task does not present any ``nonlocality,'' where the term is used in the sense of a difference between the ratios, of probabilities of successful detection via incompatible and compatible measurements, in global and local state discriminations. The results can be generalized to the regime of multipartite local quantum state distinguishing tasks.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.109.012415

Related papers

All Sets of Incompatible Measurements give an Advantage in Quantum State Discrimination

Paul Skrzypczyk, Ivan Šupić, Daniel Cavalcanti

Some quantum measurements cannot be performed simultaneously; i.e., they are incompatible. Here we show that every set of incompatible measurements provides an advantage over compatible ones in a suitably chosen quantum state discrimination task. This is proven by showing that the robustness of incompatibility, a quantifier of how much noise a set of measurements tolerates before becoming compatible, has an operational interpretation as the advantage in an optimally chosen discrimination task. We also show that if we take a resource-theory perspective of measurement incompatibility, then the guessing probability in discrimination tasks of this type forms a complete set of monotones that completely characterize the partial order in the resource theory. Finally, we make use of previously known relations between measurement incompatibility and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering to also relate the latter with quantum state discrimination.

arXiv:1901.00816•Physical Review Letters•Apr 2, 2019•123 citations

Operational characterization of incompatibility of quantum channels with quantum state discrimination

Junki Mori

A collection of quantum channels is called incompatible if they cannot be obtained as marginals from a single channel. The no-cloning theorem is the most prominent instance of incompatibility of quantum channels. We show that every collection of incompatible channels can be more useful than compatible ones as preprocessings in a state discrimination task with multiple ensembles of states. This is done by showing that the robustness of channel incompatibility, which is a measure for incompatibility of channels, exactly quantifies the maximum advantage in the state discrimination. We also show that incompatibility of quantum measurement and channel has a similar operational interpretation. Finally, we demonstrate that our result with respect to channel incompatibility includes all other kinds of incompatibility as special cases.

arXiv:1906.09859•Physical Review A•Mar 20, 2020•29 citations

Tight bounds on the distinguishability of quantum states under separable measurements

Somshubhro Bandyopadhyay, Michael Nathanson

One of the many interesting features of quantum nonlocality is that the states of a multipartite quantum system cannot always be distinguished as well by local measurements as they can when all quantum measurements are allowed. In this work, we characterize the distinguishability of sets of multipartite quantum states when restricted to separable measurements, those which contain the class of local measurements but nevertheless are free of entanglement between the component systems. We consider two quantities: the separable fidelity, a truly quantum quantity, which measures how well we can ``clone'' the input state, and the classical probability of success, which simply gives the optimal probability of identifying the state correctly. We obtain lower and upper bounds on the separable fidelity and give several examples in the bipartite and multipartite settings where these bounds are optimal. Moreover the optimal values in these cases can be attained by local measurements. We further show that for distinguishing orthogonal states under separable measurements, a strategy that maximizes the probability of success is also optimal for separable fidelity. We point out that the equality of fidelity and success probability does not depend on an using the optimal strategy, only on the orthogonality of the states. To illustrate this, we present an example where two sets (one consisting of orthogonal states and the other nonorthogonal states) are shown to have the same separable fidelity even though the success probabilities are different.

arXiv:1306.2712•Physical Review A•Nov 12, 2013•23 citations

Entanglement witness and nonlocality in confidence of measurement from multipartite quantum state discrimination

Donghoon Ha, Jeong San Kim

We consider multipartite quantum state discrimination and provide a specific relation between the properties of entanglement witness and quantum nonlocality inherent in the confidence of measurement. We first provide the definition of the confidence of measurement as well as its useful properties for various types of multipartite measurement. We show that globally-maximum confidence that cannot be achieved by local operations and classical communication strongly depends on the existence of a certain type of entanglement witness. We also provide conditions for an upper bound on maximum of locally-achievable confidence. Finally, we establish a method in terms of entanglement witness to construct quantum state ensembles with nonlocal maximum confidence.

arXiv:2405.20586•Scientific Reports•Oct 11, 2024•2 citations

State discrimination with postmeasurement information and incompatibility of quantum measurements

Claudio Carmeli, Teiko Heinosaari, Alessandro Toigo

We discuss the following variant of the standard minimum error state discrimination problem: Alice picks the state she sends to Bob among one of several disjoint state ensembles, and she communicates him the chosen ensemble only at a later time. Two different scenarios then arise: either Bob is allowed to arrange his measurement setup after Alice has announced him the chosen ensemble, or he is forced to perform the measurement before Alice's announcement. In the latter case, he can only postprocess his measurement outcome when Alice's extra information becomes available. We compare the optimal guessing probabilities in the two scenarios, and we prove that they are the same if and only if there exist compatible (i.e., jointly measurable) optimal measurements for all of Alice's state ensembles. When this is the case, postprocessing any of the corresponding joint measurements is Bob's optimal strategy in the postmeasurement information scenario. Furthermore, we establish a connection between discrimination with postmeasurement information and the standard state discrimination. By means of this connection and exploiting the presence of symmetries, we are able to compute the various guessing probabilities in many concrete examples.

arXiv:1804.09693•Physical Review A•Jul 19, 2018•45 citations

Conclusive local state marking: More nonlocality with no entanglement

Samrat Sen

Nonlocality exhibited by ensembles of composite quantum states, wherein local operations and classical communication (LOCC) yield suboptimal discrimination probabilities compared to global strategies, is one of the striking nonclassical features of quantum theory. A variant of this phenomenon arises in conclusive local state discrimination, where the correct state must be identified with zero error, albeit allowing for inconclusive outcomes. More recently, the notion of local state marking has been introduced, with the focus shifted to correctly identifying the permutation of a subset of states randomly chosen from a given set of multipartite states under LOCC. In this work, we unify these two approaches by introducing the task of conclusive local state marking, which reveals a finer hierarchy of nonlocality in multipartite quantum state ensembles. Notably, we demonstrate that certain ensembles of product states can exhibit a stronger form of nonlocality than entangled ensembles traditionally considered highly nonlocal.

arXiv:2506.09415•Physical Review A•Nov 26, 2025•1 citation
The uncertainty principle may be considered as giving rise to the notion of incompatibility of observables, a property that has been carefully analyzed in the literature for single systems. A pack of quantum measurements that cannot be measured simultaneously is said to form a set of incompatible measurements. Every set of incompatible measurements has an advantage over the compatible ones in a quantum state discrimination task where one prepares a state from an ensemble and sends it to another party, and the latter tries to detect the state using available measurements. Comparison between global and local quantum state discriminations is known to lead to a phenomenon of nonlocality.'' In this work, we seal a connection between the domains of local quantum state discrimination and incompatible quantum measurements. We consider the local quantum state discrimination task where a sender prepares a bipartite state and sends the subsystems to two receivers. The receivers try to detect the sent state using locally incompatible measurements. We analyze the ratio of the probability of successfully guessing the state using incompatible measurements and the maximum probability of successfully guessing the state using compatible measurements. We find that this ratio is upper bounded by a simple function of robustnesses of incompatibilities of the local measurements. Interestingly, corresponding to every pair of sets of incompatible measurements, there exists at least one local state discrimination task where this bound can be achieved. We argue that the optimal local quantum state discrimination task does not present any nonlocality,'' where the term is used in the sense of a difference between the ratios, of probabilities of successful detection via incompatible and compatible measurements, in global and local state discriminations. The results can be generalized to the regime of multipartite local quantum state distinguishing tasks.
Some quantum measurements cannot be performed simultaneously; i.e., they are incompatible. Here we show that every set of incompatible measurements provides an advantage over compatible ones in a suitably chosen quantum state discrimination task. This is proven by showing that the robustness of incompatibility, a quantifier of how much noise a set of measurements tolerates before becoming compatible, has an operational interpretation as the advantage in an optimally chosen discrimination task. We also show that if we take a resource-theory perspective of measurement incompatibility, then the guessing probability in discrimination tasks of this type forms a complete set of monotones that completely characterize the partial order in the resource theory. Finally, we make use of previously known relations between measurement incompatibility and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering to also relate the latter with quantum state discrimination.
A collection of quantum channels is called incompatible if they cannot be obtained as marginals from a single channel. The no-cloning theorem is the most prominent instance of incompatibility of quantum channels. We show that every collection of incompatible channels can be more useful than compatible ones as preprocessings in a state discrimination task with multiple ensembles of states. This is done by showing that the robustness of channel incompatibility, which is a measure for incompatibility of channels, exactly quantifies the maximum advantage in the state discrimination. We also show that incompatibility of quantum measurement and channel has a similar operational interpretation. Finally, we demonstrate that our result with respect to channel incompatibility includes all other kinds of incompatibility as special cases.
One of the many interesting features of quantum nonlocality is that the states of a multipartite quantum system cannot always be distinguished as well by local measurements as they can when all quantum measurements are allowed. In this work, we characterize the distinguishability of sets of multipartite quantum states when restricted to separable measurements, those which contain the class of local measurements but nevertheless are free of entanglement between the component systems. We consider two quantities: the separable fidelity, a truly quantum quantity, which measures how well we can ``clone'' the input state, and the classical probability of success, which simply gives the optimal probability of identifying the state correctly. We obtain lower and upper bounds on the separable fidelity and give several examples in the bipartite and multipartite settings where these bounds are optimal. Moreover the optimal values in these cases can be attained by local measurements. We further show that for distinguishing orthogonal states under separable measurements, a strategy that maximizes the probability of success is also optimal for separable fidelity. We point out that the equality of fidelity and success probability does not depend on an using the optimal strategy, only on the orthogonality of the states. To illustrate this, we present an example where two sets (one consisting of orthogonal states and the other nonorthogonal states) are shown to have the same separable fidelity even though the success probabilities are different.
We consider multipartite quantum state discrimination and provide a specific relation between the properties of entanglement witness and quantum nonlocality inherent in the confidence of measurement. We first provide the definition of the confidence of measurement as well as its useful properties for various types of multipartite measurement. We show that globally-maximum confidence that cannot be achieved by local operations and classical communication strongly depends on the existence of a certain type of entanglement witness. We also provide conditions for an upper bound on maximum of locally-achievable confidence. Finally, we establish a method in terms of entanglement witness to construct quantum state ensembles with nonlocal maximum confidence.
We discuss the following variant of the standard minimum error state discrimination problem: Alice picks the state she sends to Bob among one of several disjoint state ensembles, and she communicates him the chosen ensemble only at a later time. Two different scenarios then arise: either Bob is allowed to arrange his measurement setup after Alice has announced him the chosen ensemble, or he is forced to perform the measurement before Alice's announcement. In the latter case, he can only postprocess his measurement outcome when Alice's extra information becomes available. We compare the optimal guessing probabilities in the two scenarios, and we prove that they are the same if and only if there exist compatible (i.e., jointly measurable) optimal measurements for all of Alice's state ensembles. When this is the case, postprocessing any of the corresponding joint measurements is Bob's optimal strategy in the postmeasurement information scenario. Furthermore, we establish a connection between discrimination with postmeasurement information and the standard state discrimination. By means of this connection and exploiting the presence of symmetries, we are able to compute the various guessing probabilities in many concrete examples.
Nonlocality exhibited by ensembles of composite quantum states, wherein local operations and classical communication (LOCC) yield suboptimal discrimination probabilities compared to global strategies, is one of the striking nonclassical features of quantum theory. A variant of this phenomenon arises in conclusive local state discrimination, where the correct state must be identified with zero error, albeit allowing for inconclusive outcomes. More recently, the notion of local state marking has been introduced, with the focus shifted to correctly identifying the permutation of a subset of states randomly chosen from a given set of multipartite states under LOCC. In this work, we unify these two approaches by introducing the task of conclusive local state marking, which reveals a finer hierarchy of nonlocality in multipartite quantum state ensembles. Notably, we demonstrate that certain ensembles of product states can exhibit a stronger form of nonlocality than entangled ensembles traditionally considered highly nonlocal.