The technological progress of the last few decades has brought us the ability of exploiting quantum effects to accomplish a variety of relevant tasks. Yet, quantum phenomena are fragile, and with the ability to engineer quantum information protocols comes the problem of keeping such information safe from the detrimental effects of noise and losses. In the present work we investigate continuous variables Gaussian quantum information in noisy environments, studying the effects of various noise sources in the cases of a quantum metrological task, an error correction scheme and discord-type correlations. We engage each of the topics from a theoretical point of view, successively delving into the details of the experimental realizations and concluding with a survey of the results. In particular, we present experimental implementation of an ab initio, deterministic, real-time adaptive phase estimation protocol in a realistic thermalized scenario, we investigate the performance of an error correction scheme for elimination of correlated noise in a quantum channel, and we study the robustness of discord-type quantum correlations when subject to additive noise and attenuation.
The technological progress of the last few decades has brought us the ability of exploiting quantum effects to accomplish a variety of relevant tasks. Yet, quantum phenomena are fragile, and with the ability to engineer quantum information protocols comes the problem of keeping such information safe from the detrimental effects of noise and losses. In the present work we investigate continuous variables Gaussian quantum information in noisy environments, studying the effects of various noise sources in the cases of a quantum metrological task, an error correction scheme and discord-type correlations. We engage each of the topics from a theoretical point of view, successively delving into the details of the experimental realizations and concluding with a survey of the results. In particular, we present experimental implementation of an ab initio, deterministic, real-time adaptive phase estimation protocol in a realistic thermalized scenario, we investigate the performance of an error correction scheme for elimination of correlated noise in a quantum channel, and we study the robustness of discord-type quantum correlations when subject to additive noise and attenuation.
Quantum mechanical systems can be used to out perform classical ones in several tasks. For instance, quantum correlations can be employed to beat the shot-noise limit in metrology protocols. Such parameter estimation methods are crucial for both advances in science and the development of technologies. Almost all quantum technologies operate with some level of noise and how quantum-enhancement fares in the presence of noise is still unclear. Here we show that, when a system in mixed multipartite quantum state is used to estimate a parameter, the information must be decoded by coherent interactions between the parts of the probe. On the other hand, noiseless quantum metrology protocols are adaptively additive for any pure entangled states, that is, no coherent processing is necessary in this case. This leads to an operational interpretation for the ability of performing coherent interactions in noisy parameter estimation and highlights a cornerstone difference between mixed and pure states. This result has fundamental importance in the search for the source of quantum advantage and it also has practical relevance for the designing of new high-precision-measurement devices.
Abstract Gaussian states, characterized by probability distributions in phase-space representations, play a fundamental role in quantum information processing. Despite their mathematical tractability, the presence of noise imposes limitations on achieving quantum protocols, impacting their effectiveness in continuous-variable quantum systems for various communication and computation tasks. Hence, investigating quantum entanglement and quantum correlations within the coherence of Gaussian states in noisy channels holds significant importance. In this study, we introduce and investigate a framework designed to precisely define and explore the dynamic evolution of quantum correlations within twomode Gaussian states subjected to the effects of a Gaussian thermal environment. We elucidate the temporal progression of quantum correlations within an open system comprising two interconnected bosonic modes embedded in a Gaussian thermal environment. We explore the impact of the environment by considering the evolution of the initial parameters of the input states. We measure the quantum correlations by employing the quantifiers: the Gaussian logarithmic negativity (GLN) N and the Gaussian quantum discord (GQD) D G . The behavior of these quantum correlation quantifiers is intricately related to the parameters of the input states utilized in the analysis. We demonstrate that the GQD D G serves as an appropriate measurement quantifier in capturing fundamental quantum correlations, outperforming other quantifiers. Furthermore, our findings reveal that the GQD D G exhibits greater resilience compared to GLN N , showing a reduced sensitivity to external influences.
Quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement imbue quantum systems with information processing power in excess of their classical counterparts. These properties of quantum states are, however, highly fragile. As we enter the era of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices, this vulnerability to noise is a major hurdle to the experimental realisation of quantum technologies. In this thesis we explore the role of noise in quantum information processing from two different perspectives. In Part I we consider noise from the perspective of quantum error correcting codes. Error correcting codes are often analysed with respect to simplified toy models of noise, such as iid depolarising noise. We consider generalising these techniques for analysing codes under more realistic noise models, including features such as biased or correlated errors. We also consider designing customised codes which not only take into account and exploit features of the underlying physical noise. Considering such tailored codes will be of particular importance for NISQ applications in which finite-size effects can be significant. In Part II we apply tools from information theory to study the finite-resource effects which arise in the trade-offs between resource costs and error rates for certain quantum information processing tasks. We start by considering classical communication over quantum channels, providing a refined analysis of the trade-off between communication rate and error in the regime of a finite number of channel uses. We then extend these techniques to the problem of resource interconversion in theories such as quantum entanglement and quantum thermodynamics, studying finite-size effects which arise in resource-error trade-offs. By studying this effect in detail, we also show how detrimental finite-size effects in devices such as thermal engines may be greatly suppressed by carefully engineering the underlying resource interconversion processes.
Noise present in an environment has significant impacts on a quantum system affecting properties like coherence, entanglement and other metrological features of a quantum state. In this dissertation, we address the effects of different types of noise that are present in a communication channel (or medium) and an interferometric setup, and analyze their effects in the contexts of preserving coherence and entanglement, phase sensitivity, and limits on rate of communication through noisy channels. We first consider quantum optical phase estimation in quantum metrology when phase fluctuations are introduced in the system by its interaction with a noisy environment. By considering path-entangled dual-mode photon Fock states in a Mach-Zehnder optical interferometric configuration, we show that such phase fluctuations affect phase sensitivity and visibility by adding noise to the phase to be estimated. We also demonstrate that the optimal detection strategy for estimating a phase in the presence of such phase noise is provided by the parity detection scheme. We then investigate the random birefringent noise present in an optical fiber affecting the coherence properties of a single photon polarization qubit propagating through it. We show that a simple but effective control technique, called dynamical decoupling, can be used to suppress the effects of the dephasing noise, thereby preserving its ability to carry the encoded quantum information in a long-distance optical fiber communication system. Optical amplifiers and attenuators can also add noise to an entangled quantum system, deteriorating the non-classical properties of the state. We show this by considering a two-mode squeezed vacuum state, which is a Gaussian entangled state, propagating through a noisy medium, and characterizing the loss of entanglement in the covariance matrix and the symplectic formalism for this state. Finally, we discuss limits on the rate of communication in the context of sending messages through noisy optical quantum communication channels. In particular, we prove that a strong converse theorem holds under a maximum photon number constraint for these channels, guaranteeing that the success probability in decoding the message vanishes in the asymptotic limit for the rate exceeding the capacity of the channels.
In this thesis I study optimal strategies to estimate or characterize quantum states and processes (quantum channels). I consider the problem of estimating a phase encoded on a gaussian state. Phase estimation is at the heart of many quantum metrology applications, such as gravitational wave detectors or clock synchronization. I address the problem to the phase estimation fidelity for pure and mixed gaussian states and study how temperature affects the precision of estimation. Although the case of pure states has been studied before, very little is known about estimation in mixed states. The interest in mixed gaussian states relies on the fact that these are the states one has in real experiments with light due to the unavoidable presence of noise. Displaced and squeezed thermal states are studied. For the case of displaced states, I find that fidelity estimation gets worse when the temperature increases. On the contrary, for squeezed thermal states I find the surprising result that a larger temperature yields better estimation. This apparently paradoxical feature, also appears when I derive the estimation accuracy that can be obtained when an asymptotically large number of copies of the state is available. I also study quantum benchmarks that can be applied to a wide variety of protocols, such us quantum storage or quantum teleportation. A very important question in QIT is to know whether a particular quantum protocol can be realized by classical means with the same efficiency. After all, QIT lives from the promise of this quantum advantage. This question becomes specially relevant in experimental (real) implementations of quantum schemes. In real experiments there are always losses and the ideal quantum protocols become imperfect. It is then necessary to assess whether the same experimental result could be obtained by classical (less costly) means. So, for example, in a particular teleportation experiment -which involves generation of entanglement, complicated Bell measurements, fighting decoherence, etc.- one might ask whether one could achieve the same (i.e. mapping the state of a system to a second system located in a different place or time) by measuring the system, transmitting the collected information to the other location, and finally preparing the system accordingly. It is hence of paramount importance to give bounds on the efficiency of these measure and prepare (or entanglement breaking) channels. For this purpose we propose a threshold based on a phase-covariant family of states. Besides of being a family with a straightforward group-theoretical structure, which gives obvious computational advantages, this family is interesting because it can be tested experimentally also in a straightforward way. A crucial feature for the practical use of our benchmark is that it does not require pure (ideal) input states. I finally consider the problem of estimating the parameter of the amplification channel. The amplification channel is interesting by itself but also by the fact that the Hawking-Unruh effect can be formally modeled by it. The Unruh-Hawking effect is a relativistic effect and as such it is hard to measure and detect in current experiments. I investigate whether quantum strategies can provide an improvement over classical protocols in the estimation of the amplification parameter. If the field is inertially prepared in the vacuum one could measure its temperature as detected by a noninertial observer and extract information about the parameter. But I would like to know if the vacuum state is the optimal probe state in an inertial frame for such a task or a better sensitivity could be achieved if the field were in a state of nonzero energy (mean photon number) from an inertial perspective. The aim is to determine the optimal input states, so that, by optimally measuring the output, one can construct an estimator for amplification channel parameter which is unbiased and has the minimum possible variance.
Quantum error correction is essential for robust quantum-information processing with noisy devices. As bosonic quantum systems play a role in quantum sensing, communication, and computation, it is useful to design error-correction codes suitable for these systems against various different types of noises. While most efforts aim at protecting qubits encoded into the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of a bosonic mode, Ref. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 080503 (2020)] proposed an error-correction code to maintain the infinite-dimensional-Hilbert-space nature of bosonic systems by encoding a single bosonic mode into multiple bosonic modes. Enabled by Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill states as ancilla, the code overcomes the no-go theorem of Gaussian error correction. In this work, we generalize the error-correction code to the scenario with general correlated and heterogeneous Gaussian noises, including memory effects. We introduce Gaussian preprocessing and postprocessing to convert the general noise model to an independent but heterogeneous collection of additive white Gaussian noise channels and then apply concatenated codes in an optimized manner. To evaluate the performance, we develop a theory framework to enable the efficient calculation of the noise SD after the error correction, despite the non-Gaussian nature of the codes. Our code provides the optimal scaling of the residue-noise SD with the number of modes and can be widely applied to distributed sensor networks, network communication, and composite quantum-memory systems.