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Local Asymptotic Normality and Optimal Estimation of low-rank Quantum Systems

Samriddha Lahiry, Michael Nussbaum

Published Nov 5, 2021• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

In classical statistics, a statistical experiment consisting of $n$ i.i.d observations from d-dimensional multinomial distributions can be well approximated by a $d-1$ dimensional Gaussian distribution. In a quantum version of the result it has been shown that a collection of $n$ qudits of full rank can be well approximated by a quantum system containing a classical part, which is a $d-1$ dimensional Gaussian distribution, and a quantum part containing an ensemble of $d(d-1)/2$ shifted thermal states. In this paper, we obtain a generalization of this result when the qudits are not of full rank. We show that when the rank of the qudits is $r$, then the limiting experiment consists of an $r-1$ dimensional Gaussian distribution and an ensemble of both shifted pure and shifted thermal states. We also outline a two-stage procedure for the estimation of the low-rank qudit, where we obtain an estimator which is sharp minimax optimal. For the estimation of a linear functional of the quantum state, we construct an estimator, analyze the risk and use quantum LAN to show that our estimator is also optimal in the minimax sense.

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In classical statistics, a statistical experiment consisting of nnn i.i.d observations from d-dimensional multinomial distributions can be well approximated by a d−1d-1d−1 dimensional Gaussian distribution. In a quantum version of the result it has been shown that a collection of nnn qudits of full rank can be well approximated by a quantum system containing a classical part, which is a d−1d-1d−1 dimensional Gaussian distribution, and a quantum part containing an ensemble of d(d−1)/2d(d-1)/2d(d−1)/2 shifted thermal states. In this paper, we obtain a generalization of this result when the qudits are not of full rank. We show that when the rank of the qudits is rrr, then the limiting experiment consists of an r−1r-1r−1 dimensional Gaussian distribution and an ensemble of both shifted pure and shifted thermal states. We also outline a two-stage procedure for the estimation of the low-rank qudit, where we obtain an estimator which is sharp minimax optimal. For the estimation of a linear functional of the quantum state, we construct an estimator, analyze the risk and use quantum LAN to show that our estimator is also optimal in the minimax sense.
In classical statistics, a well known paradigm consists in establishing asymptotic equivalence between an experiment of i.i.d. observations and a Gaussian shift experiment, with the aim of obtaining optimal estimators in the former complicated model from the latter simpler model. In particular, a statistical experiment consisting of n i.i.d. observations from d-dimensional multinomial distributions can be well approximated by an experiment consisting of d−1 dimensional Gaussian distributions. In a quantum version of the result, it has been shown that a collection of n qudits (d-dimensional quantum states) of full rank can be well approximated by a quantum system containing a classical part, which is a d−1 dimensional Gaussian distribution, and a quantum part containing an ensemble of d(d−1)∕2 shifted thermal states. In this paper, we obtain a generalization of this result when the qudits are not of full rank. We show that when the rank of the qudits is r, then the limiting experiment consists of an r−1 dimensional Gaussian distribution and an ensemble of both shifted pure and shifted thermal states. For estimation purposes, we establish an asymptotic minimax result in the limiting Gaussian model. Analogous results are then obtained for estimation of a low rank qudit from an ensemble of identically prepared, independent quantum systems, using the local asymptotic equivalence result. We also consider the problem of estimation of a linear functional of the quantum state. We construct an estimator for the functional, analyze the risk and use quantum local asymptotic equivalence to show that our estimator is also optimal in the minimax sense.
In classical statistics, Pinsker’s theorem provides an exact asymptotic minimax bound in nonparametric estimation, improving upon optimal rates of convergence results. We obtain a quantum version of the theorem by establishing asymptotic minimax results for estimation of the displacement vector in a quantum Gaussian white noise model, given by a sequence of shifted vacuum states. Analogous results are then obtained for estimation of a general pure state from an ensemble of identically prepared, independent quantum systems, using the recently established local asymptotic equivalence to the quantum Gaussian white noise model. Optimality holds with respect to the most fundamental distance measure for quantum states, that is, trace norm distance, and in a true quantum sense, allowing for all possible measurements. Adaptive estimators are also obtained for the above cases. As an application, we obtain asymptotic minimax adaptive estimators for Wigner functions of pure states.
Quantum technology is increasingly relying on specialised statistical inference methods for analysing quantum measurement data. This motivates the development of “quantum statistics”, a field that is shaping up at the overlap of quantum physics and “classical” statistics. One of the less investigated topics to date is that of statistical inference for infinite dimensional quantum systems, which can be seen as quantum counterpart of nonparametric statistics. In this paper, we analyse the asymptotic theory of quantum statistical models consisting of ensembles of quantum systems which are identically prepared in a pure state. In the limit of large ensembles, we establish the local asymptotic equivalence (LAE) of this i.i.d. model to a quantum Gaussian white noise model. We use the LAE result in order to establish minimax rates for the estimation of pure states belonging to Hermite–Sobolev classes of wave functions. Moreover, for quadratic functional estimation of the same states we note an elbow effect in the rates, whereas for testing a pure state a sharp parametric rate is attained over the nonparametric Hermite–Sobolev class.
Recent experimental progress in the preparation and control of quantum systems has brought to light the importance of Quantum State Tomography (QST) in validating the results. In this thesis we investigate several aspects of QST, whose central problem is to devise estimation schemes for the recovery of an unknown state, given an ensemble of n independent identically prepared systems. The key issues in tackling QST for large dimensional systems is the construction of physically relevant low dimensional state models, and the design of appropriate measurements. Inspired by compressed sensing tomography, in chapters 4, 5 we consider the statistical problem of estimating low rank states (r ≪ d) in the set-up of Multiple Ions Tomography (MIT), where r and d are the rank and the dimension of the state respectively. We investigate how the estimation error behaves with a reduction in the number of measurement settings, compared to ‘full’ QST in two setups - Pauli and random bases measurement designs. We study the estimation errors in this ‘incomplete’ measurement setup in terms of a concentration of the Fisher information matrix. For the random bases design we demonstrate that O(r logd) settings suffice for the mean square error w.r.t the Frobenius norm to achieve the optimal O(1/n) rate of estimation. When the error functions are locally quadratic, like the Frobenius norm, then the expected error (or risk) of standard procedures achieves this optimal rate. However, for fidelity based errors such as the Bures distance we show that no ‘compressive’ recovery exists for states close to the boundary, and it is known that even with conventional ‘full’ tomography schemes the risk scales as O(1/√n) for such states and error functions. For qubit states this boundary is the surface of the Bloch sphere. Several estimators have been proposed to improve this scaling with ‘adaptive’ tomography. In chapter 6 we analyse this problem from the perspective of the maximum Bures risk over all qubit states. We propose two adaptive estimation strategies, one based on local measurements and another based on collective measurements utilising the results of quantum local asymptotic normality. We demonstrate a scaling of O(1/n) for the maximum Bures risk with both estimation strategies, and also discuss the construction of a minimax optimal estimator. In chapter 7 we return to the MIT setup and systematically compare several tomographic estimators in an extensive simulation study. We present and analyse results from this study, investigating the performance of the estimators across various states, measurement designs and error functions. Along with commonly used estimators like maximum likelihood, we propose and evaluate a few new ones. We finally introduce two web-based applications designed as tools for performing QST simulations online.
Density matrices are positively semi-definite Hermitian matrices with unit trace that describe the states of quantum systems. Many quantum systems of physical interest can be represented as high-dimensional low rank density matrices. A popular problem in quantum state tomography (QST) is to estimate the unknown low rank density matrix of a quantum system by conducting Pauli measurements. Our main contribution is twofold. First, we establish the minimax lower bounds in Schatten ppp-norms with 1≤p≤+∞1\leq p\leq+\infty1≤p≤+∞ for low rank density matrices estimation by Pauli measurements. In our previous paper [14], these minimax lower bounds are proved under the trace regression model with Gaussian noise and the noise is assumed to have common variance. In this paper, we prove these bounds under the Binomial observation model which meets the actual model in QST. Second, we study the Dantzig estimator (DE) for estimating the unknown low rank density matrix under the Binomial observation model by using Pauli measurements. In our previous papers [14] and [25], we studied the least squares estimator and the projection estimator, where we proved the optimal convergence rates for the least squares estimator in Schatten ppp-norms with 1≤p≤21\leq p\leq21≤p≤2 and, under a stronger condition, the optimal convergence rates for the projection estimator in Schatten ppp-norms with 1≤p≤+∞1\leq p\leq+\infty1≤p≤+∞. In this paper, we show that the results of these two distinct estimators can be simultaneously obtained by the Dantzig estimator. Moreover, better convergence rates in Schatten norm distances can be proved for Dantzig estimator under conditions weaker than those needed in [14] and [25]. When the objective function of DE is replaced by the negative von Neumann entropy, we obtain sharp convergence rate in Kullback-Leibler divergence.
We propose a novel approach to the minimax estimation of high-order functionals from the perspective of quantum computing. Specifically, for any real number α≫1α\gg 1α≫1, we present two estimators, one for the classical functional Fα(P)=∑i=1Spiα\mathrm{F}_α(P) = \sum_{i=1}^S p_i^αFα​(P)=∑i=1S​piα​ of a discrete distribution PPP and the other for the quantum functional Fα(ρ)=tr⁡(ρα)\mathrm{F}_α(ρ) = \operatorname{tr}(ρ^α)Fα​(ρ)=tr(ρα) of a mixed state ρρρ. These functionals have close connections with the Rényi entropy and the Tsallis entropy. We show that both estimators achieve the minimax optimal L2L_2L2​ rate αn−1α\mathsf{n}^{-1}αn−1 in the range α≲n≲α3−o(1)α\lesssim \mathsf{n} \lesssim α^{3-o(1)}α≲n≲α3−o(1), where the support size SSS of PPP or the dimension of ρρρ can be much larger than the number of samples n\mathsf{n}n. As a result, both estimators achieve the \textit{optimal} sample complexity n≍α\mathsf{n} \asymp αn≍α, improving upon the prior best upper bounds O(α2)O(α^2)O(α2) established by Jiao, Venkat, Han, and Weissman (IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 2017) for classical functionals and Chen and Wang (COLT 2025) for quantum functionals. Our estimators are constructed under a unified framework using quantum primitives and run in linear time on a quantum computer. This work reveals an unexpected path from quantum computing to statistics, suggesting a conceptually new methodology for functional estimation. It adds to the growing list of quantum proofs for classical theorems.