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Physical Review A

Driving a known state by a discrete sequence of direct measurements

Luis Roa, G. A. Olivares-Rentería, M. L. Ladrón de Guevara, A. Delgado

Published Jan 30, 2007• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the problem of driving a known initial quantum state onto a known pure state without resorting to unitary transformations. This task can be achieved by means of a discrete sequence of von Neumann measurements only, introducing $N$ observables which are consecutively measured in order to make the state of the system approach the target state. We show that the probability of projecting onto the target state can be increased meaningfully by adding suitable observables to the process, that is, it converges to 1 when $N$ increases. These observables depend on the initial state and on the target state. We compare this scheme with one for which the initial state is not known [see L. Roa et al., Phys. Rev. A 73, 012322 (2006)]. This comparison shows that the knowledge of the initial density operator does not always increase the probability of success.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.75.014303

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We study the problem of driving a known initial quantum state onto a known pure state without resorting to unitary transformations. This task can be achieved by means of a discrete sequence of von Neumann measurements only, introducing NNN observables which are consecutively measured in order to make the state of the system approach the target state. We show that the probability of projecting onto the target state can be increased meaningfully by adding suitable observables to the process, that is, it converges to 1 when NNN increases. These observables depend on the initial state and on the target state. We compare this scheme with one for which the initial state is not known [see L. Roa et al., Phys. Rev. A 73, 012322 (2006)]. This comparison shows that the knowledge of the initial density operator does not always increase the probability of success.
We study the problem of driving a known initial quantum state onto a known pure state without using a unitary evolution. This task can be achieved by means of von Neumann measurement processes, introducing N observables which are consecutively measured in order to approach the state of the system to the target state. We proved that the probability of projecting onto the target state can be increased meaningfully by adding suitable observables to the process, that is, it converges to 1 when N increases. We also discuss a physical implementation of this scheme.
In this article we review two ways of driving a quantum system to a known pure state via a sequence discrete of von Neumann measurements. The first of them assumes that the initial state of the system is unknown, and the evolution is attained only with the help of two non-commuting observables. For this method, the overall success probability is maximized when the eigentstates of the involved observables constitute mutually unbiased bases. The second method assumes the initial state is known and it uses N observables which are consecutively measured to make the state of the system approach the target state. The probability of success of this procedure converges to 1 as the number of observables increases.
We study the problem of mapping an unknown mixed quantum state onto a known pure state without the use of unitary transformations. This is achieved with the help of sequential measurements of two noncommuting observables only. We show that the overall success probability is maximized in the case of measuring two observables whose eigenstates define mutually unbiased bases. We find that for this optimal case the success probability quickly converges to unity as the number of measurement processes increases and that it is almost independent of the initial state. In particular, we show that to guarantee a success probability close to one the number of consecutive measurements must be larger than the dimension of the Hilbert space. We connect these results to quantum copying, quantum deleting, and entanglement generation.
We study the problem of driving an unknown initial mixed quantum state onto a known pure state without using unitary transformations. This can be achieved, in an efficient manner, with the help of sequential measurements on at least two unbiased bases. However here we found that, when the system is affected by a decoherence mechanism, only one observable is required in order to achieve the same goal. In this way the decoherence can assist the process. We show that, depending on the sort of decoherence, the process can converge faster or slower than the method implemented by means of two complementary observables.
A general scheme is presented for controlling quantum systems using evolution driven by nonselective von Neumann measurements, with or without an additional tailored electromagnetic field. As an example, a two-level quantum system controlled by nonselective quantum measurements is considered. The control goal is to find optimal system observables such that consecutive nonselective measurement of these observables transforms the system from a given initial state into a state which maximizes the expected value of a target operator (the objective). A complete analytical solution is found including explicit expressions for the optimal measured observables and for the maximal objective value given any target operator, any initial system density matrix, and any number of measurements. As an illustration, upper bounds on measurement-induced population transfer between the ground and the excited states for any number of measurements are found. The anti-Zeno effect is recovered in the limit of an infinite number of measurements. In this limit the system becomes completely controllable. The results establish the degree of control attainable by a finite number of measurements.
We describe a quantum state tomography scheme which is applicable to a system described in a Hilbert space of arbitrary finite dimensionality and is constructed from sequences of two measurements. The scheme consists of measuring the various pairs of projectors onto two bases --which have no mutually orthogonal vectors--, the two members of each pair being measured in succession. We show that this scheme implies measuring the joint quasi-probability of any pair of non-degenerate observables having the two bases as their respective eigenbases. The model Hamiltonian underlying the scheme makes use of two meters initially prepared in an arbitrary given quantum state, following the ideas that were introduced by von Neumann in his theory of measurement.