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International Journal of Quantum Information

Quantum reading for the practical man

Michele Dall’Arno

Published Nov 1, 2014• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum reading is the art of exploiting the quantum properties of light to retrieve classical information stored in an optical memory with low energy and high accuracy. It was shown that the optimal strategy for quantum reading of beamsplitters largely outperforms coherent strategies, further allowing for perfect quantum reading, but requires a source challenging from the experimental viewpoint. Focusing on probes — i.e. BAT states and entangled coherent states (ECS) — which are experimentally feasible with present quantum optical technology, but still allow for perfect quantum reading, we evaluate the tradeoffs between the energy and the probability of error (failure) in ambiguous (unambiguous) quantum reading. It turns out that BAT states outperform ECS in any regime except for the case of high-energy discrimination of two beamsplitters with similar reflectivities.

DOI
10.1142/s0219749915600187

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Quantum reading is the art of exploiting the quantum properties of light to retrieve classical information stored in an optical memory with low energy and high accuracy. It was shown that the optimal strategy for quantum reading of beamsplitters largely outperforms coherent strategies, further allowing for perfect quantum reading, but requires a source challenging from the experimental viewpoint. Focusing on probes — i.e. BAT states and entangled coherent states (ECS) — which are experimentally feasible with present quantum optical technology, but still allow for perfect quantum reading, we evaluate the tradeoffs between the energy and the probability of error (failure) in ambiguous (unambiguous) quantum reading. It turns out that BAT states outperform ECS in any regime except for the case of high-energy discrimination of two beamsplitters with similar reflectivities.
Quantum reading is the art of exploiting the quantum properties of light to retrieve classical information stored in an optical memory with low energy and high accuracy. Focusing on the ideal scenario where noise and loss are negligible, we review previous works on the optimal strategies for minimal-error retrieving of information (ambiguous quantum reading) and perfect but probabilistic retrieving of information (unambiguous quantum reading). The optimal strategies largely overcome the optimal coherent protocols (reminiscent of common CD readers), further allowing for perfect discrimination. Experimental proposals for optical implementations of optimal quantum reading are provided.
Quantum reading is the art of exploiting the quantum properties of light to retrieve classical information stored in an optical memory with low energy and high accuracy. Focusing on the ideal scenario where noise and loss are negligible, we review previous works on the optimal strategies for minimal-error retrieving of information (ambiguous quantum reading) and perfect but probabilistic retrieving of information (unambiguous quantum reading). The optimal strategies largely overcome the optimal coherent protocols (reminiscent of common CD readers), further allowing for perfect discrimination. Experimental proposals for optical implementations of optimal quantum reading are provided.
We address the problem of quantum reading of optical memories, namely the retrieving of classical information stored in the optical properties of a media with minimum energy. We present optimal strategies for ambiguous and unambiguous quantum reading of unitary optical memories, namely when one's task is to minimize the probability of errors in the retrieved information and when perfect retrieving of information is achieved probabilistically, respectively. A comparison of the optimal strategy with coherent probes and homodyne detection shows that the former saves orders of magnitude of energy when achieving the same performances. Experimental proposals for quantum reading which are feasible with present quantum optical technology are reported.
Quantum reading aims at retrieving classical information stored in an optical memory with low energy and high accuracy by exploiting the inherently quantum properties of light. We provide an optimal Gaussian strategy for quantum reading with phase-shift keying encoding that makes use of squeezed coherent light and homodyne detectors to largely outperform the Standard Quantum Limit, even in the presence of loss. This strategy, being feasible with current quantum optical technology, represents a viable prototype for a highly efficient and reliable quantum-enhanced optical reader.
The final goal of quantum hypothesis testing is to achieve quantum advantage over all possible classical strategies. In the protocol of quantum reading, this is achieved for information retrieval from an optical memory, whose generic cell stores a bit of information in two possible lossy channels. We show, theoretically and experimentally, that quantum advantage is obtained by practical photon-counting measurements combined with a simple maximum-likelihood decision. In particular, we show that this receiver combined with an entangled two-mode squeezed vacuum source is able to outperform any strategy based on statistical mixtures of coherent states for the same mean number of input photons. Our experimental findings demonstrate that quantum entanglement and simple optics are able to enhance the readout of digital data, paving the way to real applications of quantum reading and with potential applications for any other model that is based on the binary discrimination of bosonic loss.