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Stochastics

Optimal multiple quantum statistical hypothesis testing

V. P. Belavkin

Published Jan 1, 1973• 114 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the problem of optimal M-alternative determination of quantum statistical states. A review of newest achievement of solving this problem is given. A notion of an effective decision Hilbert space is introduced and necessary and sufficient condkions for optimality of multiple quantum hypothesis testing in this space are formulated. The general solution is found for the case of a two-dimensional decision space. Another problem solved is that of discrimination of quantum pure non-orthogonal states. The result is represented in explicit analytical form for an "equidiagonal" case, which is quite general. In particular, we find explicit solutions of optimal discrimination problem of homogeneous and equiangle sets of pure states. These results are used for the M-ary detection problem in solving for the quantum coherent non-orthogonal signals. It is proved that the simplex signals are optimal elso in quantum case. The optimal estimatesof phaseandamplitude of quantum coherent signals are found. For decision operators a notion of IT-representation is introduced to get a general quasi-classical (optimal in quasi-classical limit) M-ary detection procedure of stochastic fields and particles, which submits to Bose-Einstein statistics. An optimal solution of problem of non-coherent detection of quantum stochastic (including optical) signals are found in the extreme quantum limit (weaknoise and signals with unknown phase).

DOI
10.1080/17442507508833114

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This paper is concerned with the problem of optimal M-alternative determination of quantum statistical states. A review of newest achievement of solving this problem is given. A notion of an effective decision Hilbert space is introduced and necessary and sufficient condkions for optimality of multiple quantum hypothesis testing in this space are formulated. The general solution is found for the case of a two-dimensional decision space. Another problem solved is that of discrimination of quantum pure non-orthogonal states. The result is represented in explicit analytical form for an "equidiagonal" case, which is quite general. In particular, we find explicit solutions of optimal discrimination problem of homogeneous and equiangle sets of pure states. These results are used for the M-ary detection problem in solving for the quantum coherent non-orthogonal signals. It is proved that the simplex signals are optimal elso in quantum case. The optimal estimatesof phaseandamplitude of quantum coherent signals are found. For decision operators a notion of IT-representation is introduced to get a general quasi-classical (optimal in quasi-classical limit) M-ary detection procedure of stochastic fields and particles, which submits to Bose-Einstein statistics. An optimal solution of problem of non-coherent detection of quantum stochastic (including optical) signals are found in the extreme quantum limit (weaknoise and signals with unknown phase).
The problem of specifying the optimum quantum detector in multiple hypotheses testing is considered for application to optical communications. The quantum digital detection problem is formulated as a linear programming problem on an infinite-dimensional space. A necessary and sufficient condition is derived by the application of a general duality theorem specifying the optimum detector in terms of a set of linear operator equations and inequalities. Existence of the optimum quantum detector is also established. The optimality of commuting detection operators is discussed in some examples. The structure and performance of the optimal receiver are derived for the quantum detection of narrow-band coherent orthogonal and simplex signals. It is shown that modal photon counting is asymptotically optimum in the limit of a large signaling alphabet and that the capacity goes to infinity in the absence of a bandwidth limitation.
A review of the fundamental ideas and methods of the optimal reception and processing of quantum signals is given. Estimation via an operator based on the usual and generalized measurements (e.g., quasi-measurements) are discussed. The theory of operator estimation enables one to obtain Bayes limits for the usual estimates. The change from usual measurements to quasi-measurements generally improves performance. We show that some quasi-measurements can be realized as indirect measurements, and introduce an operator measure II(db) which describes the quasi-measurements on the space of measurements. Estimation based on quasi-measurements is described by operator measures Q(du) on the space of estimates. Minimization with respect to Q(du) is minimization simultaneously for all quasi-measurements and all estimates. For the M-ary hypothesis testing problem finding the optimum reduces to finding non-negative definite Hermitian operators Q1,…, Q m satisfying Q1+…+Q m = 1 where 1 is the identity operator, which extremize. Optimal Bayes quantum estimation is discussed. In the case of Gaussian quantum signal and minimum variance estimation, finding the quasi-measurements leads to optimal linear estimation. Further suboptimal methods for finding the operator in more general cases are discussed.
We consider Bayesian discrimination among multiple quantum states and establish a dimension-free one-shot upper bound on the minimum probability of error in terms of the sum of pairwise errors. This resolves a conjecture of Audenaert and Mosonyi [J. Math. Phys. 55 (2014)] and improves the multiple quantum Chernoff bound of Li [Ann. Statist. 44 (2016)] by removing its dimension-dependent prefactor. In the asymptotic many-copy regime, our bound proves the achievability of the multiple quantum Chernoff distance for arbitrary separable Hilbert spaces, thereby settling the previously open infinite-dimensional case, and further yields constant-factor sharp asymptotics for the optimal error probability. In binary quantum hypothesis testing, we prove that the minimum error probability is characterized, up to universal constants, by a trace harmonic-mean quantity. Consequently, the optimal binary quantum error probability is within a factor of two of the optimal classical error probability for the associated Nussbaum-Szkoła distributions, complementing the lower bound of Nussbaum and Szkoła [Ann. Statist. 37 (2009)].
For any pair of quantum states (the hypotheses), the task of binary quantum hypotheses testing is to derive the tradeoff relation between the probability p01 of rejecting the null hypothesis and p10 of accepting the alternative hypothesis. The case when both hypotheses are explicitly given was solved in the pioneering work by Helstrom. Here, instead, for any given null hypothesis as a pure state, we consider the worst-case alternative hypothesis that maximizes p10 under a constraint on the distinguishability of such hypotheses. Additionally, we restrict the optimization to separable measurements, in order to describe tests that are performed locally. The case p01=0 has been recently studied under the name of ``quantum state verification''. We show that the problem can be cast as a semi-definite program (SDP). Then we study in detail the two-qubit case. A comprehensive study in parameter space is done by solving the SDP numerically. We also obtain analytical solutions in the case of commuting hypotheses, and in the case where the two hypotheses can be orthogonal (in the latter case, we prove that the restriction to separable measurements generically prevents perfect distinguishability). In regards to quantum state verification, our work shows the existence of more efficient strategies for noisy measurement scenarios.
We consider unambiguous discrimination of three pure quantum states. Necessary and sufficient conditions to decide which states should be detected for optimal measurement of unambiguous discrimination are provided in terms of inner products and the geometric phase $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$. We get the optimal measurement and the optimal failure probability when the optimal unambiguous discrimination does not require the detection of every given quantum state. When at least two quantum states are orthogonal to each other, we supply the optimal measurement and optimal failure probability in analytic form. When all three quantum states are not orthogonal to each other and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}\ensuremath{\ne}0$, we find an analytic condition to determine the zero and nonzero elements for an optimal positive operator valued measure. We explain how to determine the solution in a geometric manner. Using the known solution of a case where the mutual inner products are real, we check the necessary and sufficient conditions when $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=\ensuremath{\pi}$ and analyze the property of the singular point when $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=0$ and the relation between the optimal points.
We determine the optimal universal coefficient in a reduction of multiple to binary quantum hypothesis testing. Specifically, for every finite ensemble in any Hilbert space dimension (finite or infinite), we prove that the error probability of the global pretty good measurement (PGM) is at most four times the sum of the optimal binary error probabilities. By constructing a family of regular-simplex ensembles, we further show that the coefficient four is optimal, even for arbitrary global measurements. This result improves on the pairwise bounds established by Cheng and Liu [arXiv:2606.06246 (2026)] and entails an explicit, sharp guarantee for the standard PGM itself. Our proof is also simpler: rather than constructing sequential measurements and applying a union bound, our proof relies on purely matrix-analytic techniques, combining a direct block Gram matrix analysis of the PGM error and a refined inequality between quantum Hellinger distance and Bures χ2χ^2χ2-divergence. Our analysis also yields a refined, one-shot pairwise Chernoff bound and explicit sufficient number of copies for a desired discrimination error.