Framework of weak measurement with noise

Apoorva Patel, Parveen Kumar

Projective measurement is used as a fundamental axiom in quantum mechanics, even though it is discontinuous and cannot predict which measured operator eigenstate will be observed in which experimental run. The probabilistic Born rule gives it an ensemble interpretation, predicting proportions of various outcomes over many experimental runs. Understanding gradual weak measurements requires replacing this scenario with a dynamical evolution equation for the collapse of the quantum state in individual experimental runs. We revisit the quantum trajectory framework that models quantum measurement as a continuous nonlinear stochastic process. We describe the ensemble of quantum trajectories as noise fluctuations on top of geodesics that attract the quantum state towards the measured operator eigenstates. In this effective theory framework for the ensemble of quantum trajectories, the measurement interaction can be specific to each system-apparatus pair, a context necessary for understanding weak measurements. Also in this framework, the constraint to reproduce projective measurement as per the Born rule in the appropriate limit requires that the magnitudes of the noise and the attraction are precisely related, in a manner reminiscent of the fluctuation-dissipation relation. This relation implies that both the noise and the attraction have a common origin in the underlying measurement interaction between the system and the apparatus. We analyze the quantum trajectory ensemble for the scenarios of quantum diffusion and binary quantum jump, and show that the ensemble distribution is completely determined in terms of a single evolution parameter. This trajectory ensemble distribution can be tested in weak measurement experiments. We also comment on how the required noise may arise in the measuring apparatus.

Mohit Dhanik, Shraddha Sharma, Pitamber Mahanandia

This study presents an improved quantum teleportation protocol designed to enhance fidelity in noisy environments by combining weak measurements (WMs) with flip and reversal operations. In our scheme, Alice prepares a four-qubit entangled state and shares one of the entangled qubits with Bob, which serves as the quantum channel for teleporting an arbitrary single-qubit state. Since the communication channel is subject to noise, Alice performs a weak measurement on the shared qubit before transmission to reduce the impact of decoherence. Building upon existing WM-flipreversal frameworks, we propose a modified weak measurement and reversal (WMR) protocol tailored for different noises in a four-qubit entangled system. The approach applies WM and flip operations prior to transmission to enhance resilience against noise, followed by corresponding reversal operations after transmission to recover the original quantum state. We systematically compare the performance of our proposed WMR protocol with the previously proposed WM-flip-reversal method under three common noise models: amplitude damping channel (ADC), phase flip channel (PFC), and bit flip channel (BFC). Our analysis reveals that the modified WMR scheme achieves significantly higher teleportation fidelity and improved robustness, particularly in bit flip noise environments. These findings highlight the potential of optimized weak measurement strategies for developing more reliable and noise-tolerant quantum communication protocols

Boaz Tamir, Sergei Masis

Prashanna Simkhada, Jean-François S. Van Huele

Ruth E. Kastner

Parveen Kumar

Projective measurement is used as a fundamental axiom in quantum mechanics, even though it is discontinuous and cannot predict which measured operator eigen state will be observed in which experimental run. The probabilistic Born rule gives it an ensemble interpretation, predicting proportions of various outcomes over many experimental runs. Understanding gradual weak measurements requires replacing this scenario with a dynamical evolution equation for the collapse of the quantum state in individual experimental runs. In this work, I revisit the quantum trajectory framework that models quantum measurement as a continuous nonlinear stochastic process. I describe the ensemble of quantum trajectories as noise fluctuations on top of geodesics that attract the quantum state towards the measured operator eigen states. In this effective theory framework for the ensemble of quantum trajectories, the measurement interaction is specific to each system-apparatus pair—a context necessary for understanding weak measurements. Also in this framework, the constraint to reproduce projective measurement as per the Born rule in the appropriate limit, requires that the magnitudes of the noise and the attraction are precisely related, in a manner reminiscent of the fluctuation dissipation relation. This relation implies that both the noise and the attraction have a common origin in the underlying measurement interaction between the system and the apparatus. I analyse the quantum trajectory ensemble for the scenarios of quantum diffusion and binary quantum jump, and show that the ensemble distribution is completely determined in terms of a single evolution parameter. I test the trajectory ensemble distribution predicted by the quantum diffusion model against the experimental data for weak measurement of superconducting transmon qubits. There is a good fit between theory and experiment for different initial states and several weak measurement couplings. This test vindicates the continuous stochastic measurement framework for quantum state collapse, where the rate of collapse is a characteristic parameter for each system-apparatus pair and is not a universal constant. Furthermore, it implies that the environment can influence the measurement outcomes only via the apparatus and not directly. These are important clues in construction of a complete theory of quantum measurement. The framework of weak measurements can also be used to construct quantum error correction protocols that protect a quantum state from external disturbances. Unlike projective measurements, one can extract only partial information about the error syndrome from the encoded state using weak measurements. I construct a feedback protocol that probabilistically corrects the error based on the extracted information. Using numerical simulations of one-qubit error correction codes, I show that the error correction succeeds for a range of the weak measurement strength, where (a) the error rate is below the threshold beyond which multiple errors dominate, and (b) the…