Quantum instruments describe both the classical outcome and the updated quantum state in a measurement process. To do this in a non-trivial way, instruments must have the capability to interact coherently with the state that they measure. Here, we develop a resource theory for instruments. We consider a relevant quantifier of the separation between interactive and non-interactive instruments and show that it admits three distinct operational interpretations in terms of quantum information tasks. These concern (i) the preservation of maximally entangled states after a local measurement, (ii) the average ability to preserve random states after measurement, and (iii) the ability to recover the classical information generated from measuring half of a maximally entangled state. We also introduce a natural set of allowed operations and show that the third task fully characterises the resource content of instruments. Our general framework reproduces as special cases established resource theories for channels and measurements.
Quantum instruments describe both the classical outcome and the updated quantum state in a measurement process. To do this in a non-trivial way, instruments must have the capability to interact coherently with the state that they measure. Here, we develop a resource theory for instruments. We consider a relevant quantifier of the separation between interactive and non-interactive instruments and show that it admits three distinct operational interpretations in terms of quantum information tasks. These concern (i) the preservation of maximally entangled states after a local measurement, (ii) the average ability to preserve random states after measurement, and (iii) the ability to recover the classical information generated from measuring half of a maximally entangled state. We also introduce a natural set of allowed operations and show that the third task fully characterises the resource content of instruments. Our general framework reproduces as special cases established resource theories for channels and measurements.
Quantum resources are certain features of the quantum world that provide advantages in certain information-theoretic, thermodynamic, or other useful operational tasks that are outside the realm of what classical theories can achieve. Quantum resource theories provide us with an elegant framework for studying these resources quantitatively and rigorously. While numerous state-based quantum resource theories have already been investigated, and to some extent, measurement-based resource theories have also been explored, instrument-based resource theories remain largely unexplored, with only a few notable exceptions. As quantum instruments are devices that provide both the classical outcomes of induced measurements and the post-measurement quantum states, they are quite important, especially for scenarios where multiple parties sequentially act on a quantum system. In this work, we study several instrument-based resource theories, namely (1) the resource theory of information preservability, (2) the resource theory of (strong) entanglement preservability, (3) the resource theory of (strong) incompatibility preservability, (4) the resource theory of traditional incompatibility, and (5) the resource theory of parallel incompatibility. Furthermore, we outline the hierarchies of these instrument-based resources and provide measures to quantify them. We then also established a relationship between our resource measure and the advantage in an information-theoretic task. In short, we provide a detailed framework for a wide variety of instrument-based quantum resource theories.
Information is instrumental in our understanding of thermodynamics. Their interplay has been studied through completely degenerate Hamiltonians whereby the informational contributions to thermodynamic transformations can be isolated. In this setting, all states other than the maximally mixed state are considered to be in informational nonequilibrium. An important yet still open question is how to characterize the ability of quantum dynamics to preserve informational nonequilibrium. Here, the dynamical resource theory of informational nonequilibrium preservability is introduced to begin providing an answer to this question. A characterization of the allowed operations is given for qubit channels and the n-dimensional Weyl-covariant channels-a physically relevant subset of the general channels. An operational interpretation of a state discrimination game with Bell state measurements is given. Finally, an explicit link between a channel's classical capacity and its ability to preserve informational nonequilibrium is made.
Quantum coherence is one of the most important resources in quantum information theory. Indeed, preventing the loss of coherence is one of the most important technical challenges obstructing the development of large-scale quantum computers. Recently, there has been substantial progress in developing mathematical resource theories of coherence, paving the way towards its quantification and control. To date however, these resource theories have only been mathematically formalised within the realms of convex-geometry, information theory, and linear algebra. This approach is limited in scope, and makes it difficult to generalise beyond resource theories of coherence for single system quantum states. In this paper we take a complementary perspective, showing that resource theories of coherence can instead be defined purely compositionally, that is, working with the mathematics of process theories, string diagrams and category theory. This new perspective offers several advantages: i) it unifies various existing approaches to the study of coherence, for example, subsuming both speakable and unspeakable coherence; ii) it provides a general treatment of the compositional multi-system setting; iii) it generalises immediately to the case of quantum channels, measurements, instruments, and beyond rather than just states; iv) it can easily be generalised to the setting where there are multiple distinct sources of decoherence; and, iv) it directly extends to arbitrary process theories, for example, generalised probabilistic theories and Spekkens toy model---providing the ability to operationally characterise coherence rather than relying on specific mathematical features of quantum theory for its description. More importantly, by providing a new, complementary, perspective on the resource of coherence, this work opens the door to the development of novel tools which would not be accessible from the linear algebraic mind set.
Quantum physics currently provides our deepest description of nature. To understand precisely how it differs from classical physics is not only of foundational interest, but also important to advance technology: the advent of quantum information has led to the insight that certain quantum phenomena, e.g., entanglement and coherence, are resources which enable us to solve practical tasks that are unsolvable within the realm of classical physics. But how can we quantify quantum resources and how do we decide which resource is relevant for a specific operational advantage in quantum cryptography, quantum computation, or quantum metrology? How can we employ these resources optimally? Addressing these questions is the motivation for the development of quantum resource theories, a mathematically rigorous framework that allows us to investigate a specific quantum phenomenon as a resource. Formally, such theories emerge from restrictions which are imposed in addition to the laws of quantum mechanics. A prominent example is the restriction to local operations and classical communication, which singles out entanglement as a resource. Typically, such theories describe the value of quantum states, i.e., static resources. An important question in such theories concerns their structure as determined by the restriction under consideration, which is analyzed for coherence theory on qubits in this thesis. Only recently, so-called dynamical resource theories that quantify the value of operations were proposed, which are advantageous for several reasons: they include resource theories of states as special cases, allow us to quantify additional quantum properties such as the detection or usage of static resources, which will be a main topic of this thesis, and are more natural from an operational perspective. But are different types of dynamical resources present in quantum operations related? For the case of dynamical coherence and entanglement, it will be shown that there is not only a quantitative, but also a qualitative connection.
Quantum coherence is one of the most important resources in quantum information theory. Indeed, preventing the loss of coherence is one of the most important technical challenges obstructing the development of large-scale quantum computers. Recently, there has been substantial progress in developing mathematical resource theories of coherence, paving the way towards its quantification and control. To date however, these resource theories have only been mathematically formalised within the realms of convex-geometry, information theory, and linear algebra. This approach is limited in scope, and makes it difficult to generalise beyond resource theories of coherence for single system quantum states. In this paper we take a complementary perspective, showing that resource theories of coherence can instead be defined purely compositionally, that is, working with the mathematics of process theories, string diagrams and category theory. This new perspective offers several advantages: i) it unifies various existing approaches to the study of coherence, for example, subsuming both speakable and unspeakable coherence; ii) it provides a general treatment of the compositional multi-system setting; iii) it generalises immediately to the case of quantum channels, measurements, instruments, and beyond rather than just states; iv) it can easily be generalised to the setting where there are multiple distinct sources of decoherence; and, iv) it directly extends to arbitrary process theories, for example, generalised probabilistic theories and Spekkens toy model---providing the ability to operationally characterise coherence rather than relying on specific mathematical features of quantum theory for its description. More importantly, by providing a new, complementary, perspective on the resource of coherence, this work opens the door to the development of novel tools which would not be accessible from the linear algebraic mind set.
Quantum instruments describe both the classical outcome and the updated state associated with a quantum measurement. We ask whether these processes can be simulated using only a natural subset of resources, namely projective measurements on the system and quantum processing of the postmeasurement states. We show that the simulability of instruments can be connected to an entanglement classification problem. This leads to a computationally efficient necessary condition for simulation of generic instruments and to a complete characterisation for qubits. We use this to address relevant quantum information tasks, namely (i) the noise tolerance of standard qubit unsharp measurements, (ii) nonprojective advantages in information-disturbance trade-offs, and (iii) increased sequential Bell inequality violations under projective measurements. Moreover, we consider also d-dimensional Lüders instruments that correspond to weak versions of standard basis measurements and show that for large d these can permit scalable noise advantages over projective implementations.