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Physical Review A

Quantum postselective measurements: Sufficient condition for overcoming the Holevo bound and the role of max-relative entropy

N. R. Kenbaev, Dmitry Anatolevich Kronberg

Published Jan 20, 2022• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The operation of unambiguous state discrimination (USD) plays an important role in quantum information theory. Here, we study the generalization for this operation which can be applied where USD is not available, including the case of completely coinciding supports. We demonstrate the effect of overcoming the Holevo bound after postselective measurements, which works for a class of ensembles, including two arbitrary noncommuting quantum states. We also discuss the role of max-relative entropy in postselective measurements and give an alternative operational interpretation for this function.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.105.012609

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•Jan 1, 2008•0 citations
The operation of unambiguous state discrimination (USD) plays an important role in quantum information theory. Here, we study the generalization for this operation which can be applied where USD is not available, including the case of completely coinciding supports. We demonstrate the effect of overcoming the Holevo bound after postselective measurements, which works for a class of ensembles, including two arbitrary noncommuting quantum states. We also discuss the role of max-relative entropy in postselective measurements and give an alternative operational interpretation for this function.
Unambiguous (non-orthogonal) state discrimination (USD) has a fundamental importance in quantum information and quantum cryptography. Various aspects of two-state and multiple-state USD are studied here using singular value decomposition of the evolution operator that describes a given state discriminating system. In particular, we relate the minimal angle between states to the ratio of the minimal and maximal singular values. This is supported by a simple geometrical picture in two-state USD. Furthermore, by studying the singular vectors population we find that the minimal angle between input vectors in multiple-state USD is always larger than the minimal angle in two-state USD in the same system. As an example we study what pure states can be probabilistically transformed into maximally entangled pure states in a given system .
We prove that the ultimate channel capacity, the Holevo bound, for sending classical data on a quantum channel (the so-called classical-quantum, or cq channel) can be achieved for a pure-state cq channel by decoding codewords via a collective quantum measurement based on unambiguous state discrimination (USD). In cq communication theory, the channel decoder acts directly on the modulated codeword waveform in the quantum (viz., electromagnetic or optical) domain, and it is known that collective measurements on long codeword blocks are needed to attain the Holevo capacity, which is strictly larger than the Shannon capacity of the classical channel induced by any specific measurement choice on each channel use. The USD measurement based channel decoder we propose, can distinguish finite blocklength codeword quantum states unambiguously (i.e., an incorrect codeword is never chosen) provided one allows for a finite probability of obtaining an inconclusive (erasure) outcome. We show that the probability of the inconclusive outcome goes to zero for asymptotically long codewords whenever the code rate is below the Holevo bound. The USD channel decoder is an addition to a small list of other collective measurements known to achieve the Holevo capacity (such as, the square root measurement, the minimum probability of error measurement, the sequential decoding measurement, and the quantum successive cancellation decoder for the cq polar code). A structured optical receiver design is not known yet for any of these decoders. What makes the USD decoder special is that there is no classical analogue to truly unambiguous discrimination (say, of samples drawn from a set of probability distributions). Secondly, the erasures-only decoding of USD is likely to result in a better channel reliability function. Finally, the USD measurement seems more likely to lead naturally to a structured optical receiver design and implementation.
The resource theory of coherence quantifies the quantum properties of states and their role in quantum information processing. Extending coherence theory to ensembles, the natural objects in quantum communication, remains an active research direction, with their operational potential still being explored. In this work, we establish a maximally coherent ensemble in every finite dimension: the continuous ensemble of pure states distributed according to the normalized Haar measure attains the tight upper bound on basis-free relative entropy ensemble coherence. We then prove that ensemble coherence bounds the effective informational advantage of postselective measurements over the Holevo quantity for two equiprobable pure states. Finally, for the qubit B92 QKD protocol, we show that the coherence of Alice's ensemble upper-bounds the secret key rate in the asymptotic regime. These results give ensemble coherence a quantitative operational meaning in quantum communication and cryptography
Evaluating the amount of information obtained from non-orthogonal quantum states is an important topic in the field of quantum information. The commonly used evaluation method is Holevo bound, which only provides a loose upper bound for quantum measurement. In this paper, we provide a theoretical study of the positive operator-valued measure (POVM) for discriminating nonorthogonal states. We construct a generalized POVM measurement operation, and derive the optimal one for state discrimination by Lagrange multiplier method. With simulation, we find that the optimal POVM measurement provides a tight upper bound for state discrimination, which is significantly lower than that predicted by Holevo bound. The derivation of optimal POVM measurement will play an important role in the security research of quantum key distribution.
The discrimination of two mixed quantum states is a fundamental task in quantum state estimation and quantum information theory. In quantum state discrimination a quantum system is assumed to be in one of two possible – in general mixed – non-orthogonal quantum states. The discrimination then consists of a measurement strategy that allows to decide in which state the system was before the measurement. In unambiguous state discrimination the aim is to make this decision without errors, but it is allowed to give an inconclusive answer. Especially interesting are measurement strategies that minimize the probability of an inconclusive answer. A starting point for the analysis of this optimization problem was a result by Eldar et al. [Phys. Rev. A 69, 062318 (2004)], which provides non-operational necessary and sufficient conditions for a given measurement strategy to be optimal. These conditions are reconsidered and simplified in such a way that they become operational. The simplified conditions are the basis for further central results: It is shown that the optimal measurement strategy is unique, a statement that is e.g. of importance for the complexity analysis of optimal measurement devices. The optimal measurement strategy is derived for the case, where one of the possible input states has at most rank two, which was an open problem for many years. Furthermore, using the optimality criterion it is shown that there always exists a threshold probability for each state, such that below this probability it is optimal to exclude this state from the discrimination strategy. If the two states subject to discrimination can be brought to a diagonal structure with (2×2)-dimensional blocks, then the unambiguous discrimination of these states can be reduced to the unambiguous discrimination of pure states. A criterion is presented that allows to identify the presence of such a structure for two self-adjoint operators. This criterion consists of the evaluation of three commutators and allows an explicit construction of the (2×2)-dimensional blocks. As an important application of unambiguous state discrimination, unambiguous state comparison, i.e., the question whether two states are identical or not, is generalized and optimal measurements for this problem are constructed. If for a certain family of states, a physical device maps the input state to an output state, such that a second device can be built that yields back the original input state, such a map is called reversible on this family. With respect to state discrimination, such reversible maps are particularly interesting, if the output states are pure. A complete characterization of all families that allow such a reversible and purifying map is provided. If the states are mapped to pure states, but the map itself is not reversible, upper and lower bounds are analyzed for the “deviation from perfect faithfulness”, a quantity which measures the deviation from a reversible mapping.