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Laser Physics Letters

State-independent purity and fidelity of quantum operations

Fan‐Zhen Kong, Xiao-Lan Zong, Ming Yang, Zhuo‐Liang Cao

Published Feb 18, 2016• 5 citations

Abstract

Abstract The purity and fidelity of quantum operations are of great importance in characterizing the quality of quantum operations. The currently available definitions of the purity and fidelity of quantum operations are based on the average over all possible input pure quantum states, i.e. they are state-dependent (SD). In this paper, without resorting to quantum states, we define the state-independent (SI) purity and fidelity of a general quantum operation (evolution) in virtue of a new density matrix formalism for quantum operations, which is extended from the quantum state level to quantum operation level. The SI purity and fidelity gain more intrinsic physical properties of quantum operations than state-dependent ones, such as the purity of a one-qubit amplitude damping channel (with damping rate 1) is 1/2, which is in line with the fact that the channel is still a nonunitary operation described by two Kraus operators rather than a unitary one. But the state-dependent Haar average purity is 1 in this case. So the SI purity and fidelity proposed here can help the experimentalists to exactly quantify the implementation quality of an operation. As a byproduct, a new measure of the operator entanglement is proposed for a quantum evolution (unitary or nonunitary) in terms of the linear entropy of its density matrix on the orthonormal operator bases (OOBs) in Hilbert–Schmidt space.

DOI: 10.1088/1612-2011/13/4/045201

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Abstract The purity and fidelity of quantum operations are of great importance in characterizing the quality of quantum operations. The currently available definitions of the purity and fidelity of quantum operations are based on the average over all possible input pure quantum states, i.e. they are state-dependent (SD). In this paper, without resorting to quantum states, we define the state-independent (SI) purity and fidelity of a general quantum operation (evolution) in virtue of a new density matrix formalism for quantum operations, which is extended from the quantum state level to quantum operation level. The SI purity and fidelity gain more intrinsic physical properties of quantum operations than state-dependent ones, such as the purity of a one-qubit amplitude damping channel (with damping rate 1) is 1/2, which is in line with the fact that the channel is still a nonunitary operation described by two Kraus operators rather than a unitary one. But the state-dependent Haar average purity is 1 in this case. So the SI purity and fidelity proposed here can help the experimentalists to exactly quantify the implementation quality of an operation. As a byproduct, a new measure of the operator entanglement is proposed for a quantum evolution (unitary or nonunitary) in terms of the linear entropy of its density matrix on the orthonormal operator bases (OOBs) in Hilbert–Schmidt space.

Present-day quantum devices require precise implementation of desired quantum channels. To characterize the quality of implementation one uses the average operation fidelity

F

, defined as the fidelity between an initial pure state and its image with respect to the analyzed operation, averaged over an ensemble of pure states. We analyze the statistical properties of the operation fidelity for low-dimensional channels and study its extreme values and probability distribution. These results are obtained with the help of the joint numerical range of the set of Kraus operators representing a channel. Analytic expressions for the density

P(F)

are derived in some particular cases including unitary and mixed unitary channels as well as quantum maps represented by commuting Kraus operators. We propose a scheme for fidelity-based channel estimation which uses the distribution of operation fidelity.

Entanglement fidelity quantifies how well a quantum channel preserves the correlations between a transmitted system and an inaccessible reference system. We derive closed-form expressions for the entanglement fidelity associated with several standard quantum noise models, including the random Pauli-X, dephasing, depolarizing, Werner-Holevo, generalized Pauli (Weyl), and amplitude-damping channels. For each model, we express the entanglement fidelity in terms of a general input density operator

ρ

, using Schumacher's Kraus-operator approach, which provides a channel-agnostic recipe applicable to any completely positive trace-preserving (CPTP) map with a finite Kraus representation. We then specialize to a communication scenario in which the source emits a two-letter parametric alphabet, thereby making explicit the dependence of entanglement preservation on both channel and source parameters. The resulting expressions enable direct comparisons of channel performance and rankings for representative families of input states, including common qubit states.

Entanglement fidelity quantifies how well a quantum channel preserves the correlations between a transmitted system and an inaccessible reference system. We derive closed-form expressions for the entanglement fidelity of several standard quantum noise models, including the random Pauli-

X

, dephasing, depolarizing, Werner-Holevo, generalized Pauli (Weyl), and amplitude-damping channels. For each model, we express the entanglement fidelity in terms of a general input density operator

{\rho}

, using Schumacher's Kraus-operator approach, which provides a channel-agnostic recipe for any completely positive trace-preserving map with a finite Kraus representation. We then specialize to a communication scenario in which the source emits a two-letter parametric alphabet, thereby making explicit the dependence of entanglement preservation on both channel and source parameters. The resulting expressions enable direct comparisons of channel performance and rankings for representative families of input states.

To certify that an experimentally implemented quantum transformation is a certain unitary operation

U

on a

d

-dimensional Hilbert space, it suffices to determine fidelities of output states for

d+1

suitably chosen pure input states [Reich et al., Phys. Rev. A 88, 042309 (2013)]. The set of these

d+1

probe states can consist of

d

orthogonal states that form a basis and one additional state which is a balanced superposition of all

d

basis states. Here we provide an analytical lower bound on quantum process fidelity for two-qubit quantum gates which results from the knowledge of average state fidelity for the basis states and the fidelity of the superposition state. We compare this bound with the Hofmann bound that is based on knowledge of average state fidelities for two mutually unbiased bases. We also discuss the possible extension of our findings to

N

-qubit operations.

After reviewing the earlier ideas to measure the purity of a quantum system, a new scheme for the measurement of purity is presented, which aims at providing a simple, direct and efficient procedure without resorting to quantum state tomography. The scheme is also illustrated in the Bloch-vector representation for a two-level quantum system (qubit) and for a general D-level quantum system. As a variant, a simple example implemented in a one-dimensional scattering process to measure the purity of the target qubit is also given.

Presents the basic postulates of quantum mechanics in terms of the density matrix instead of the usual state vector formalism in the case of an isolated system. Extends it to the case of open systems with the help of the reduced density matrix formalism, and to the case of an imperfect state preparation described by a statistical mixture. Introduces the concept of quantum state purity to characterize the degree of mixture of the state, and shows that one can always "purify" a density matrix by going into a Hilbert space of larger dimension.