Generalized contextuality is known to be required in optimal strategies for quantum state discrimination protocols. More recently, sequential discrimination tasks have been studied; n players attempt to determine in which state a qubit was prepared, in such a way that they all have a finite probability of success. We consider the extent to which contextuality plays a role in sequential versions of both unambiguous and minimum error discrimination. In the standard nonsequential case where n = 1, we use the COPE formalism to demonstrate that the presence of contextuality is guaranteed not only for the optimal measurement, but for a specific set of nonoptimal measurements as well. In the sequential case n > 1, we show that the presence of contextuality depends on which states are prepared, and on the protocol (unambiguous or minimum error) selected.
Generalized contextuality is known to be required in optimal strategies for quantum state discrimination protocols. More recently, sequential discrimination tasks have been studied; n players attempt to determine in which state a qubit was prepared, in such a way that they all have a finite probability of success. We consider the extent to which contextuality plays a role in sequential versions of both unambiguous and minimum error discrimination. In the standard nonsequential case where n = 1, we use the COPE formalism to demonstrate that the presence of contextuality is guaranteed not only for the optimal measurement, but for a specific set of nonoptimal measurements as well. In the sequential case n > 1, we show that the presence of contextuality depends on which states are prepared, and on the protocol (unambiguous or minimum error) selected.
The problem of discriminating between non-orthogonal states is one that has generated a lot of interest. This basic formalism is useful in many areas of quantum information. It serves as a fundamental basis for many quantum key distribution schemes, it functions as an integral part of other quantum algorithms, and it is useful in experimental settings where orthogonal states are not always possible to generate. Additionally, the discrimination problem reveals important fundamental properties, and is intrinsically related to entanglement. In this thesis, the focus is on exploring the problem of sequentially discriminating between non-orthogonal states. In the simplest version these schemes, Alice sends one of two known pure states to Bob who performs a non-optimal discrimination procedure such that the post measurement states resulting from his measurement can then be discriminated by a third participant, Charlie. In these schemes, the goal is to optimize the joint probability of both Bob and Charlie succeeding. In devising such a scheme, there are several different criteria that can be prioritized. The most basic scheme, referred to as Minimum Error (ME) discrimination, prioritizes Bob's and Charlie's abilities to successfully determine which state was sent by Alice. In this scheme, Bob and Charlie each set up two detectors and based on the result from the detector they make a guess as to which state was sent. For instance, if Bob registers a click in his first detector, he concludes that Alice sent the first state. As each detector has some probability to produce a result for either incoming result, Bob and Charlie optimize their joint probability of success by optimizing the probability that each detector will fire when the correlated state is sent by Alice. Another possible scheme, referred to as Unambiguous Discrimination (UD), prioritizes Bob's and Charlie's ability to correctly determine the state sent by Alice. In this scheme, Bob and Charlie each set up three detectors, where if a result is obtained from the first two detectors Bob or Charlie can determine with certainty which state was sent by Alice. One final setup, referred to as Discrimination with a Fixed Rate of Inconclusive Outcome, is a combination of the previous two schemes, where Bob and Charlie maximize their probability of successfully determining the state sent by Alice where they allow some fixed probability that they will not be able to determine which state Alice sent. This fixed inconclusive probability allows Bob and Charlie to control how much they prioritize correctly determining the state that was sent, as in the Unambiguous Discrimination, versus prioritizing successfully determining the state sent by Alice, as in Minimum Error discrimination. One final topic that will be discussed by this thesis is Quantum Retrodiction. Quantum Retrodiction applies an alternate perspective on the communication protocol between Alice and Bob. In the predictive model, Alice calculates the probability that Bob gets a specific measurement result given that she prepares her system in a specific state. In the retrodictive model, Bob calculates the probability that Alice prepared her system in a specific state given the result of his measurement. This alternate perspective on the communication procedure gives new a new understanding and new tools for approaching the problem of state discrimination, as exemplified by applying the retrodictive formalism to unambiguous discrimination.
Quantum state discrimination enables the accurate identification of quantum states, which are generally nonorthogonal. Among various strategies, minimum-error discrimination and unambiguous state discrimination exhibit contextuality-enhanced success probabilities that surpass classical bounds, offering significant advantages for quantum sensing and communication. However, in practice, both error and failure outcomes can occur, suggesting the need for a unified strategy that incorporates both aspects while exploring the potential for contextuality enhancement. In this work, we theoretically demonstrate contextuality enhancement in quantum state discrimination under a fixed failure probability. We show that this enhancement disappears within a certain intermediate range of failure probabilities--a phenomenon absent in conventional strategies, where both minimum-error and unambiguous discrimination consistently outperform the noncontextual bound for equal priors. Moreover, we analyze how the existence of this non-enhancement region depends on the confusability of the quantum states, which corresponds to their fidelity in a quantum model. We further extend the discussion to the noisy state discrimination, which even encompasses the maximal-confidence discrimination. In this extended discussion, we observe that the non-enhancement region tends to disappear with increasing noise strength.
Quantum state discrimination is a fundamental information processing task that serves as a key component in many applications while also carrying foundational significance. In this work, we consider minimum error discrimination of multi-copy states, where instead of preparing a single system we assume that multiple instances of the same state are prepared. Now the discrimination allows for measurements from multiple parties with different measurement strategies varying from global measurement strategy to ones restricted to different forms of local operations and classical communication strategies. By comparing the average success probabilities in quantum and classical cases, we find a qubit strategy that outperforms all the bit strategies. On the other hand, we show that the classical measurement strategy does not give benefit in qubit over bit. However, we find that there are other (qu)bit-like operational theories which can outperform the best qubit strategies even with a classical measurement strategy and we are able to identify instances of different theories where different measurement strategies are optimal. In this way, we are able to find instances of nonlocality without entanglement as well as provide general bounds for bit-like operational theories.
State discrimination is a useful test problem with which to clarify the power and limitations of different classes of measurement. We consider the problem of discriminating between given states of a bipartite quantum system via sequential measurement of the subsystems, with classical feed-forward of measurement results. Our aim is to understand when sequential measurements, which are relatively easy to implement experimentally, perform as well, or almost as well, as optimal joint measurements, which are in general more technologically challenging. We construct conditions that the optimal sequential measurement must satisfy, analogous to the well-known Helstrom conditions for minimum error discrimination in the unrestricted case. We give several examples and compare the optimal probability of correctly identifying the state via global versus sequential measurement strategies.
We study sequential state discrimination measurements performed on the same qubit by subsequent observers. Specifically, we focus on the case when the observers perform a kind of a minimum-error type state discriminating measurement where the goal of the observers is to maximize their joint probability of successfully guessing the state that the qubit was initially prepared in. We call this the Joint Best Guess strategy. In this scheme, Alice prepares a qubit in one of two possible states. The qubit is first sent to Bob, who measures it, and then on to Charlie, and so on to altogether N consecutive receivers who all perform measurements on it. The goal for all observers is to determine which state Alice sent. In the Joint Best Guess strategy, every time a system is received the observer is required to make a guess, aided by the measurement, about its state. The price to pay for this requirement is that errors must be permitted, the guess can be correct or in error. There is a nonzero probability for all the receivers to successfully identify the initially prepared state, and we maximize this joint probability of success. This work is a step toward developing a theory of nondestructive sequential quantum measurements and could be useful in multiparty quantum communication schemes based on communicating with single qubits, particularly in schemes employing continuous variable states. It also represents a case where subsequent observers can probabilistically and optimally get around both the collapse postulate and the no-broadcasting theorem.
We investigate the performance of discrimination strategy in the comparison task of known quantum states. In the discrimination strategy, one infers whether or not two quantum systems are in the same state on the basis of the outcomes of separate discrimination measurements on each system. In some cases with more than two possible states, the optimal strategy in minimum-error comparison is that one should infer the two systems are in different states without any measurement, implying that the discrimination strategy performs worse than the trivial ``no-measurement'' strategy. We present a sufficient condition for this phenomenon to happen. For two pure states with equal prior probabilities, we determine the optimal comparison success probability with an error margin, which interpolates the minimum-error and unambiguous comparison. We find that the discrimination strategy is not optimal except for the minimum-error case.