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Annalen der Physik

The Negativity‐to‐Violation Map between Wigner Function and Quantum Contextuality Inequality for a Single Qudit

Ming‐Da Huang, Ya‐Fei Yu, Zhi‐Ming Zhang

Published Apr 3, 2019• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The relation between discrete Wigner function and quantum contextuality based on graph theory has been studied, following the work in [Nature 510,351(2014)]. To do this, non‐stabilizer projectors have been introduced to a series of non‐contextuality graphs based on stabilizer projectors for a single qudit with odd prime dimension. It has been found that, for a phase space point defined by Wootters, there exists a given set of states for an odd‐prime qudit where the negative discrete Wigner function on the phase space point means its quantum contextuality under measurements on the graphs designed by a specific method. To implement this method, a subset of non‐stabilizer projectors has been found. In the union of the set of states for all phase space points, there exists a negativity‐to‐violation map between Wigner function and quantum contextuality inequality. The robustness of the equivalence under depolarizing noise has been analyzed and discussed. For demonstration purposes, the graphs with different independence numbers and the corresponding set of states have been established on a single qutrit. Different to the cited work, this method involves only a single qudit, then is experimentally feasible for a qutrit.

DOI
10.1002/andp.201800464

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Abstract The relation between discrete Wigner function and quantum contextuality based on graph theory has been studied, following the work in [Nature 510,351(2014)]. To do this, non‐stabilizer projectors have been introduced to a series of non‐contextuality graphs based on stabilizer projectors for a single qudit with odd prime dimension. It has been found that, for a phase space point defined by Wootters, there exists a given set of states for an odd‐prime qudit where the negative discrete Wigner function on the phase space point means its quantum contextuality under measurements on the graphs designed by a specific method. To implement this method, a subset of non‐stabilizer projectors has been found. In the union of the set of states for all phase space points, there exists a negativity‐to‐violation map between Wigner function and quantum contextuality inequality. The robustness of the equivalence under depolarizing noise has been analyzed and discussed. For demonstration purposes, the graphs with different independence numbers and the corresponding set of states have been established on a single qutrit. Different to the cited work, this method involves only a single qudit, then is experimentally feasible for a qutrit.
Understanding what distinguishes quantum mechanics from classical mechanics is crucial for quantum information processing applications. In this work, we consider two notions of non-classicality for quantum systems, negativity of the Wigner function and contextuality for Pauli measurements. We prove that these two notions are equivalent for multi-qudit systems with odd local dimension. For a single qudit, the equivalence breaks down. We show that there exist single qudit states that admit a non-contextual hidden variable model description and whose Wigner functions are negative.
We construct logical Bell inequalities whose violations are determined by the Wigner function of a reduced quantum state. For odd-prime qudits, each phase-space point of any nonempty proper subsystem defines an inequality, violated precisely when the corresponding Gross Wigner value is negative. This correspondence allows us to quantify the contextuality that a reduced state guarantees for the composite system. The normalized violation gives a lower bound on the contextual fraction in the complete Weyl measurement scenario, valid for every joint state with that marginal, irrespective of its correlations. We identify a family of product states that saturates this bound. For these states, one marginal Wigner value fixes the contextual fraction of the entire system.
The Pauli groups are ubiquitous in quantum information theory because of their usefulness in describing quantum states and operations and their readily understood symmetry properties. In addition, the most well-understood quantum error correcting codes—stabilizer codes—are built using Pauli operators. The eigenstates of these operators—stabilizer states—display a structure (e.g., mutual orthogonality relationships) that has made them useful in examples of multi-qubit non-locality and contextuality. Here, we apply the graph-theoretical contextuality formalism of Cabello, Severini and Winter to sets of stabilizer states, with particular attention to the effect of generalizing two-level qubit systems to odd prime d-level qudit systems. While state-independent contextuality using two-qubit states does not generalize to qudits, we show explicitly how state-dependent contextuality associated with a Bell inequality does generalize. Along the way we note various structural properties of stabilizer states, with respect to their orthogonality relationships, which may be of independent interest.
Quantum coherence is an essential ingredient in quantum information processing and plays an important role in quantum computation. Therefore, it is a hot issue about how to quantify the coherence of quantum states in theoretical framework. The coherence effect of a state is usually described by the off-diagonal elements of its density matrix with respect to a particular reference basis. Recently, based on the established notions from quantitative theory of entanglement, a resource theory of coherence quantification has been proposed[1,2]. In the theory framework, a proper measure of coherence should satisfy three criteria: the coherence should be zero for all incoherent state; the coherence should not increase under mixing quantum states; the coherence should not increase under incoherent operations. Then, a number of coherence measures have been suggested, such as l1 norm of coherence and the relative entropy of coherence[2]. Wigner function is known as an important tool to study the non-classical property of quantum states for continuous-variable quantum systems. It has been generalized to finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, and named as discrete Wigner function[9-16]. The magic property of quantum states, which promotes stabilizer computation to universal quantum computation, can be generally measured by the absolute sum of the negative items (negativity sum) in the discrete Wigner function of the observed quantum states. In this paper we investigate quantum coherence from the view of discrete Wigner function. From the definition of the discrete Wigner function of the quantum systems with odd prime dimensions, for a given density matrix we analyze in phase space the performance of its diagonal and off-diagonal items. We find that, the discrete Wigner function of a quantum state contains two aspects: the true quantum coherence and the classical mixture, where the part of classical mixture can be excluded by only considering the discrete Wigner function of the diagonal items of the density matrix. Thus, we propose a possible measure method for quantum coherence from the discrete Wigner function of the off-diagonal items of the density matrix. We show that the proposed measure method satisfies the criteria (C1) and (C2) of coherence measure perfectly. For the criteria (C3), we give a numerical proof in three-dimensional quantum system. Meanwhile, we compare the proposed coherence measure with l1 norm coherence, and get an inequality relationship between them. Finally, an inequality is obtained to discuss the relation between quantum coherence and the negativity sum of discrete Wigner function, which shows that the quantum coherence is only necessary but not sufficient for quantum computation speed-up.
We show that, on a Hilbert space of odd dimension, the only pure states to possess a non-negative Wigner function are stabilizer states. The Clifford group is identified as the set of unitary operations which preserve positivity. The result can be seen as a discrete version of Hudson's Theorem. Hudson established that for continuous variable systems, the Wigner function of a pure state has no negative values if and only if the state is Gaussian. Turning to mixed states, it might be surmised that only convex combinations of stabilizer states give rise to non-negative Wigner distributions. We refute this conjecture by means of a counter-example. Further, we give an axiomatic characterization which completely fixes the definition of the Wigner function and compare two approaches to stabilizer states for Hilbert spaces of prime-power dimensions. In the course of the discussion, we derive explicit formulas for the number of stabilizer codes defined on such systems.
The use of quantum information in technology promises to supersede the so-called classical devices used nowadays. Understanding what features are inherently non-classical is crucial for reaching better-than-classical performance. This thesis focuses on two nonclassical behaviours: quantum contextuality and Wigner negativity. The former is a notion superseding nonlocality that can be exhibited by quantum systems. To date, it has mostly been studied in discrete-variable scenarios. In those scenarios, contextuality has been shown to be necessary and sufficient for advantages in some cases. On the other hand, negativity of the Wigner function is another unsettling non-classical feature of quantum states that originates from phase-space formulation in continuous-variable quantum optics. Continuous-variable scenarios offer promising candidates for implementing quantum computations. Wigner negativity is known to be a necessary resource for quantum speedup with continuous variables. However contextuality has been little understood and studied in continuous-variable scenarios. We first set out a robust framework for properly treating contextuality in continuous variables. We also quantify contextuality in such scenarios by using tools from infinite-dimensional optimisation theory. Building upon this, we show that Wigner negativity is equivalent to contextuality in continuous variables with respect to Pauli measurements thus establishing a continuous-variable analogue of a celebrated result by Howard et al. We then introduce experimentally-friendly witnesses for Wigner negativity of single mode and multimode quantum states, based on fidelities with Fock states, using again tools from infinite-dimensional optimisation theory. We further extend the range of previously known discrete-variable results linking contextuality and advantage into a new territory of information retrieval.