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Two-sided estimates of minimum-error distinguishability of mixed quantum states via generalized Holevo-Curlander bounds

Jon Tyson

Published Jan 1, 2009• 36 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We prove a concise factor-of-2 estimate for the failure rate of optimally distinguishing an arbitrary ensemble of mixed quantum states, generalizing work of Holevo [Theor. Probab. Appl. 23, 411 (1978)] and Curlander [Ph.D. Thesis, MIT, 1979]. A modification to the minimal principle of Cocha and Poor [Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement, and Computing (Rinton, Princeton, NJ, 2003)] is used to derive a suboptimal measurement which has an error rate within a factor of 2 of the optimal by construction. This measurement is quadratically weighted and has appeared as the first iterate of a sequence of measurements proposed by Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301 (2002)]. Unlike the so-called pretty good measurement, it coincides with Holevo’s asymptotically optimal measurement in the case of nonequiprobable pure states. A quadratically weighted version of the measurement bound by Barnum and Knill [J. Math. Phys. 43, 2097 (2002)] is proven. Bounds on the distinguishability of syndromes in the sense of Schumacher and Westmoreland [Phys. Rev. A 56, 131 (1997)] appear as a corollary. An appendix relates our bounds to the trace-Jensen inequality.

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Two-sided estimates of minimum-error distinguishability of mixed quantum states via generalized Holevo–Curlander bounds

Jon Tyson

We prove a concise factor-of-2 estimate for the failure rate of optimally distinguishing an arbitrary ensemble of mixed quantum states, generalizing work of Holevo [Theor. Probab. Appl. 23, 411 (1978)] and Curlander [Ph.D. Thesis, MIT, 1979]. A modification to the minimal principle of Cocha and Poor [Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement, and Computing (Rinton, Princeton, NJ, 2003)] is used to derive a suboptimal measurement which has an error rate within a factor of 2 of the optimal by construction. This measurement is quadratically weighted and has appeared as the first iterate of a sequence of measurements proposed by Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301 (2002)]. Unlike the so-called pretty good measurement, it coincides with Holevo’s asymptotically optimal measurement in the case of nonequiprobable pure states. A quadratically weighted version of the measurement bound by Barnum and Knill [J. Math. Phys. 43, 2097 (2002)] is proven. Bounds on the distinguishability of syndromes in the sense of Schumacher and Westmoreland [Phys. Rev. A 56, 131 (1997)] appear as a corollary. An appendix relates our bounds to the trace-Jensen inequality.

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Minimum-error quantum distinguishability bounds from matrix monotone functions: A comment on “Two-sided estimates of minimum-error distinguishability of mixed quantum states via generalized Holevo–Curlander bounds” [J. Math. Phys. 50, 032106 (2009)]

Jon Tyson

Matrix monotonicity is used to obtain upper bounds on minimum-error distinguishability of arbitrary ensembles of mixed quantum states. This generalizes one direction of a two-sided bound recently obtained by the author [J. Tyson, J. Math. Phys. 50, 032106 (2009)]. It is shown that the previously obtained special case has unique properties.

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Error rates of Belavkin weighted quantum measurements and a converse to Holevo’s asymptotic optimality theorem

Jon Tyson

We compare several instances of pure-state Belavkin weighted square-root measurements from the standpoint of minimum-error discrimination of quantum states. The quadratically weighted measurement is proven superior to the so-called ``pretty good measurement'' (PGM) in a number of respects: (1) Holevo's quadratic weighting unconditionally outperforms the PGM in the case of two-state ensembles, with equality only in trivial cases. (2) A converse of a theorem of Holevo is proven, showing that a weighted measurement is asymptotically optimal only if it is quadratically weighted. Counterexamples for three states are constructed. The cube-weighted measurement of Ballester, Wehner, and Winter is also considered. Sufficient optimality conditions for various weights are compared.

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Two-sided bounds on minimum-error quantum measurement, on the reversibility of quantum dynamics, and on maximum overlap using directional iterates

Jon Tyson

In a unified framework, we estimate the following quantities of interest in quantum information theory: (1) the minimum-error distinguishability of arbitrary ensembles of mixed quantum states; (2) the approximate reversibility of quantum dynamics in terms of entanglement fidelity (This is referred to as “channel-adapted quantum error recovery” when applied to the composition of an encoding operation and a noise channel.); (3) the maximum overlap between a bipartite pure quantum state and a bipartite mixed-state that may be achieved by applying a local quantum operation to one part of the mixed-state; and (4) the conditional min-entropy of bipartite quantum states. A refined version of the author’s techniques [J. Tyson, J. Math. Phys. 50, 032016 (2009)] for bounding the first quantity is employed to give two-sided estimates of the remaining three quantities. We obtain a closed-form approximate reversal channel. Using a state-dependent Kraus decomposition, our reversal may be interpreted as a quadratically weighted version of that of Barnum and Knill [J. Math. Phys. 43, 2097 (2002)]. The relationship between our reversal and Barnum and Knill’s is therefore similar to the relationship between Holevo’s asymptotically optimal measurement [A. S. Kholevo, Theor. Probab. Appl. 23, 411 (1978)] and the “pretty good” measurement of Belavkin [Stochastics 1, 315 (1975)] and Hausladen and Wootters [J. Mod. Opt. 41, 2385 (1994)]. In particular, we obtain relatively simple reversibility estimates without negative matrix-powers at no cost in tightness of our bounds. Our recovery operation is found to significantly outperform the so-called “transpose channel” in the simple case of depolarizing noise acting on half of a maximally entangled state. Furthermore, our overlap results allow the entangled input state and the output target state to differ, thus obtaining estimates in a somewhat more general setting. Using a result of König et al. [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 55, 4337 (2009)], our maximum overlap estimate is used to bound the conditional min-entropy of arbitrary bipartite states. Our primary tool is “small angle” initialization of an abstract generalization of the iterative schemes of Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301 (2002)], Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 68, 012305 (2003)], and Reimpell and Werner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 080501 (2005)]. The monotonicity result of Reimpell [Ph.D. thesis, Technishe Universität, 2007] follows in greater generality.

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Two-sided bounds on minimum-error quantum measurement, on the reversibility of quantum dynamics, and on the maximum overlap problem using abstract Jezek-Rehacek-Fiurasek-Hradil-Reimpell-Werner iterates

Jon E. Tyson

In a unified framework, we obtain two-sided estimates of the following quantities of interest in quantum information theory: 1.The minimum-error distinguishability of arbitrary ensembles of mixed quantum states. 2.The approximate reversibility of quantum dynamics in terms of entanglement fidelity. (This is also referred to as channel-adapted quantum error recovery when the reversed channel is the composition of an encoding operation and a noise channel.) 3.The maximum overlap between a bipartite pure quantum state and a bipartite mixed state that may be achieved by applying a local quantum operation to one part of the mixed state. 4. The conditional min-entropy of bipartite quantum states. A refined version of the author's techniques [J. Math. Phys. 50, 032016] for bounding the first quantity is employed to give two-sided estimates of the remaining three quantities. Our primary tool is small angle initialization of an abstract generalization of the iterative schemes for computing optimal measurements and quantum error recoveries introduced by Jezek-Rehacek-Fiurasek [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301], Jezek-Fiurasek-Hradil [Phys. Rev. A 68, 012305], and Reimpell-Werner [Phys. Rev. Lett 94, 080501].

•Jul 20, 2009•0 citations

Distinguishing mixed quantum states: Minimum-error discrimination versus optimum unambiguous discrimination

Ulrike Herzog, János A. Bergou

We consider two different optimized measurement strategies for the discrimination of nonorthogonal quantum states. The first is ambiguous discrimination with a minimum probability of inferring an erroneous result, and the second is unambiguous, i.e., error-free, discrimination with a minimum probability of getting an inconclusive outcome, where the measurement fails to give a definite answer. For distinguishing between two mixed quantum states, we investigate the relation between the minimum-error probability achievable in ambiguous discrimination, and the minimum failure probability that can be reached in unambiguous discrimination of the same two states. The latter turns out to be at least twice as large as the former for any two given states. As an example, we treat the case where the state of the quantum system is known to be, with arbitrary prior probability, either a given pure state, or a uniform statistical mixture of any number of mutually orthogonal states. For this case we derive an analytical result for the minimum probability of error and perform a quantitative comparison with the minimum failure probability.

arXiv:quant-ph/0403124•Physical Review A•Aug 5, 2004•64 citations
We prove a concise factor-of-2 estimate for the failure rate of optimally distinguishing an arbitrary ensemble of mixed quantum states, generalizing work of Holevo [Theor. Probab. Appl. 23, 411 (1978)] and Curlander [Ph.D. Thesis, MIT, 1979]. A modification to the minimal principle of Cocha and Poor [Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement, and Computing (Rinton, Princeton, NJ, 2003)] is used to derive a suboptimal measurement which has an error rate within a factor of 2 of the optimal by construction. This measurement is quadratically weighted and has appeared as the first iterate of a sequence of measurements proposed by Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301 (2002)]. Unlike the so-called pretty good measurement, it coincides with Holevo’s asymptotically optimal measurement in the case of nonequiprobable pure states. A quadratically weighted version of the measurement bound by Barnum and Knill [J. Math. Phys. 43, 2097 (2002)] is proven. Bounds on the distinguishability of syndromes in the sense of Schumacher and Westmoreland [Phys. Rev. A 56, 131 (1997)] appear as a corollary. An appendix relates our bounds to the trace-Jensen inequality.
We prove a concise factor-of-2 estimate for the failure rate of optimally distinguishing an arbitrary ensemble of mixed quantum states, generalizing work of Holevo [Theor. Probab. Appl. 23, 411 (1978)] and Curlander [Ph.D. Thesis, MIT, 1979]. A modification to the minimal principle of Cocha and Poor [Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement, and Computing (Rinton, Princeton, NJ, 2003)] is used to derive a suboptimal measurement which has an error rate within a factor of 2 of the optimal by construction. This measurement is quadratically weighted and has appeared as the first iterate of a sequence of measurements proposed by Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301 (2002)]. Unlike the so-called pretty good measurement, it coincides with Holevo’s asymptotically optimal measurement in the case of nonequiprobable pure states. A quadratically weighted version of the measurement bound by Barnum and Knill [J. Math. Phys. 43, 2097 (2002)] is proven. Bounds on the distinguishability of syndromes in the sense of Schumacher and Westmoreland [Phys. Rev. A 56, 131 (1997)] appear as a corollary. An appendix relates our bounds to the trace-Jensen inequality.
We compare several instances of pure-state Belavkin weighted square-root measurements from the standpoint of minimum-error discrimination of quantum states. The quadratically weighted measurement is proven superior to the so-called ``pretty good measurement'' (PGM) in a number of respects: (1) Holevo's quadratic weighting unconditionally outperforms the PGM in the case of two-state ensembles, with equality only in trivial cases. (2) A converse of a theorem of Holevo is proven, showing that a weighted measurement is asymptotically optimal only if it is quadratically weighted. Counterexamples for three states are constructed. The cube-weighted measurement of Ballester, Wehner, and Winter is also considered. Sufficient optimality conditions for various weights are compared.
In a unified framework, we estimate the following quantities of interest in quantum information theory: (1) the minimum-error distinguishability of arbitrary ensembles of mixed quantum states; (2) the approximate reversibility of quantum dynamics in terms of entanglement fidelity (This is referred to as “channel-adapted quantum error recovery” when applied to the composition of an encoding operation and a noise channel.); (3) the maximum overlap between a bipartite pure quantum state and a bipartite mixed-state that may be achieved by applying a local quantum operation to one part of the mixed-state; and (4) the conditional min-entropy of bipartite quantum states. A refined version of the author’s techniques [J. Tyson, J. Math. Phys. 50, 032016 (2009)] for bounding the first quantity is employed to give two-sided estimates of the remaining three quantities. We obtain a closed-form approximate reversal channel. Using a state-dependent Kraus decomposition, our reversal may be interpreted as a quadratically weighted version of that of Barnum and Knill [J. Math. Phys. 43, 2097 (2002)]. The relationship between our reversal and Barnum and Knill’s is therefore similar to the relationship between Holevo’s asymptotically optimal measurement [A. S. Kholevo, Theor. Probab. Appl. 23, 411 (1978)] and the “pretty good” measurement of Belavkin [Stochastics 1, 315 (1975)] and Hausladen and Wootters [J. Mod. Opt. 41, 2385 (1994)]. In particular, we obtain relatively simple reversibility estimates without negative matrix-powers at no cost in tightness of our bounds. Our recovery operation is found to significantly outperform the so-called “transpose channel” in the simple case of depolarizing noise acting on half of a maximally entangled state. Furthermore, our overlap results allow the entangled input state and the output target state to differ, thus obtaining estimates in a somewhat more general setting. Using a result of König et al. [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 55, 4337 (2009)], our maximum overlap estimate is used to bound the conditional min-entropy of arbitrary bipartite states. Our primary tool is “small angle” initialization of an abstract generalization of the iterative schemes of Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301 (2002)], Ježek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 68, 012305 (2003)], and Reimpell and Werner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 080501 (2005)]. The monotonicity result of Reimpell [Ph.D. thesis, Technishe Universität, 2007] follows in greater generality.
In a unified framework, we obtain two-sided estimates of the following quantities of interest in quantum information theory: 1.The minimum-error distinguishability of arbitrary ensembles of mixed quantum states. 2.The approximate reversibility of quantum dynamics in terms of entanglement fidelity. (This is also referred to as channel-adapted quantum error recovery when the reversed channel is the composition of an encoding operation and a noise channel.) 3.The maximum overlap between a bipartite pure quantum state and a bipartite mixed state that may be achieved by applying a local quantum operation to one part of the mixed state. 4. The conditional min-entropy of bipartite quantum states. A refined version of the author's techniques [J. Math. Phys. 50, 032016] for bounding the first quantity is employed to give two-sided estimates of the remaining three quantities. Our primary tool is small angle initialization of an abstract generalization of the iterative schemes for computing optimal measurements and quantum error recoveries introduced by Jezek-Rehacek-Fiurasek [Phys. Rev. A 65, 060301], Jezek-Fiurasek-Hradil [Phys. Rev. A 68, 012305], and Reimpell-Werner [Phys. Rev. Lett 94, 080501].
We consider two different optimized measurement strategies for the discrimination of nonorthogonal quantum states. The first is ambiguous discrimination with a minimum probability of inferring an erroneous result, and the second is unambiguous, i.e., error-free, discrimination with a minimum probability of getting an inconclusive outcome, where the measurement fails to give a definite answer. For distinguishing between two mixed quantum states, we investigate the relation between the minimum-error probability achievable in ambiguous discrimination, and the minimum failure probability that can be reached in unambiguous discrimination of the same two states. The latter turns out to be at least twice as large as the former for any two given states. As an example, we treat the case where the state of the quantum system is known to be, with arbitrary prior probability, either a given pure state, or a uniform statistical mixture of any number of mutually orthogonal states. For this case we derive an analytical result for the minimum probability of error and perform a quantitative comparison with the minimum failure probability.