© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

Terms Privacy Legal Notice

Laser Physics Letters

Quantum walk inspired algorithm for directly measuring two-qubit entanglement

Qiao-Ling Tang, Yu Huang, Ming Yang, Xikun Li, Arif Ullah, Zhi Lin, Lu Yan, Qing Yang, Yan-Lin Liao

Published Apr 1, 2025• 0 citations

Abstract

Abstract Direct measurement of entanglement is an efficient method for obtaining the degree of entanglement without full reconstruction of the quantum state. But most of the current entanglement direct measurement schemes are designed for the states in specific physical systems, and are not universal for different physical systems. So, in this paper, we want to design a universal direct measurement algorithm for the entanglement of two-qubit states, where universal means that the algorithm does not depend on specific physical systems. Although the conventional quantum walk (QW) model does not have this universal property, we find that by introducing auxiliary qubits and CNOT gates in quantum circuits, a generalized QW model can be realized in any qubit system, i.e. it is universal for different physical systems. Inspired by the universal property of this generalized QW model, a universal quantum algorithm is designed for directly measuring the entanglement degree of two-qubit states, which we call the QW inspired algorithm. To demonstrate the feasibility of the algorithm, analytical calculations and numerical simulations for three representative quantum states are studied. The results show that the algorithm can be used to directly measure two-qubit entanglement, and the universality of the algorithm guarantees that it works not only in optical systems but also in any other physical system. Furthermore, this algorithm may find more applications in other quantum information tasks necessitating qubit–qubit coupling.

DOI: 10.1088/1612-202x/adc54e

Related papers

Application of quantum algorithms to direct measurement of concurrence of a two-qubit pure state

Hong‐Fu Wang, Zhang Shou

This paper proposes a method to measure directly the concurrence of an arbitrary two-qubit pure state based on a generalized Grover quantum iteration algorithm and a phase estimation algorithm. The concurrence can be calculated by applying quantum algorithms to two available copies of the bipartite system, and a final measurement on the auxiliary working qubits gives a better estimation of the concurrence. This method opens new prospects of entanglement measure by the application of quantum algorithms. The implementation of the protocol would be an important step toward quantum information processing and more complex entanglement measure of the finite-dimensional quantum system with an arbitrary number of qubits.

Chinese Physics B•Jul 1, 2009•10 citations

Entanglement Detection for Two-Qubit and Three-Qubit Pure States via Unitary Transformations and Ancilla State Measurements

Yu-Hang Liu, Yuan-Hong Tao, Yi-Wen Liu +2 more

Quantum entanglement is the fundamental hallmark of quantum mechanics and a core resource for realizing long-distance quantum communication and scalable linear quantum computing. Accordingly, the precise detection and quantitative quantification of entanglement constitute a foundational and critical problem in quantum information theory. To date, researchers have proposed numerous sufficient conditions for entanglement detection as well as a variety of entanglement measures to characterize the entanglement strength of quantum states; nevertheless, efficient and direct measurement schemes for core entanglement parameters remain underdeveloped. Based on unitary transformations and auxiliary measurements, this paper proposes a set of quantum circuit schemes capable of directly measuring the bipartite concurrence and the tripartite 3-tangle entanglement measure. By introducing auxiliary qubits and constructing specific controlled unitary operations, the proposed scheme maps the analytical expressions of the two entanglement measures onto the measurement probabilities of output states from quantum circuits. It enables efficient and direct quantitative measurement of bipartite and tripartite entanglement without performing full quantum state tomography. This work provides a feasible technical route for the experimental characterization of entanglement properties and lays a groundwork for the practical deployment of multipartite entanglement resources in quantum information processing.

quant-pharXiv:2607.15201•Jul 17, 2026•0 citations

Implementing quantum walks with a single qubit

Qi-Ping Su, Shi-Chao Wang, Yan Chi +5 more

Quantum walks have wide applications in quantum information, such as universal quantum computation, so it is important to explore properties of quantum walks thoroughly. We propose a novel method to implement discrete-time quantum walks (DTQWs) using only a single qubit, in which both coin and walker are encoded in the two-dimensional state space of a single qubit, operations are realized using single-qubit gates only, and high-dimensional final states of DTQWs can be obtained naturally. With this "one-qubit" approach, DTQW experiments can be realized much more easily, compared with previous methods, in most quantum systems and all properties based on quantum states of DTQWs (such as quantum correlation and coherence) can be investigated. By this approach, we experimentally implement one-particle and two-particle DTQWs with seven steps using single photons. Furthermore, we systematically investigate quantum correlations and coherence (based on the full state of the coin and walker) of the DTQW systems with different initial states of the coin, which have not been obtained and studied in DTQW experiments. As an application, we also study the assisted distillation of quantum coherence using the full state of the two-particle DTQW from the experiment. The maximal increase in distillable coherence for high-dimensional mixed states is investigated for the first time by obtaining its upper and lower bounds. Our work opens a new door to implement DTQW experiments and to better explore properties of quantum walks.

arXiv:2206.03642•Jun 8, 2022•1 citation

Universal device for two-qubit entangled measurements via photonic quantum walks

Wen-Zhe Yan, Zhibo Hou, Jun-Feng Tang +4 more

Sophisticated positive-operator-valued measures (POVMs) are fundamental to obtain a quantum advantage in many informational problems but are difficult to implement. We design a universal measurement device composed of cascaded quantum-walk modules able to realize arbitrary entangled POVMs on two qubits. Only parameters in the modules need reprogramming for different POVMs. We apply our device to the task of direction guessing, realizing nine different five-outcome entangled measurements (fidelities above 0.9850) via nine-step photonic quantum walks, recovering optimal direction guessing from nonideal input states. Our work marks an important step toward building a universal versatile quantum measurement device able to implement optimal measurements for various quantum information tasks.

arXiv:2204.11310•Physical Review Applied•Oct 12, 2023•2 citations

Scheme for direct measurement of a general two-qubit Hamiltonian

Simon J. Devitt, Jared H. Cole, Lloyd C. L. Hollenberg

The construction of two-qubit gates appropriate for universal quantum computation is of enormous importance to quantum-information processing. Building such gates is dependent on accurate knowledge of the interaction dynamics between two-qubit systems. This paper will present a systematic method for reconstructing the full two-qubit interaction Hamiltonian through experimental measures of concurrence. This not only gives a convenient method for constructing two qubit quantum gates, but can also be used to experimentally determine various Hamiltonian parameters in physical systems. We show explicitly how this method can be employed to determine the first- and second-order spin-orbit corrections to the exchange coupling in quantum dots.

arXiv:quant-ph/0511168•Physical Review A•May 24, 2006•44 citations

Computational power of single qubit discrete-time quantum walk

Shivani Singh, Prateek Chawla, Anupam Sarkar +1 more

Abstract Quantum walk has been regarded as a primitive to universal quantum computation. By using the operations required to describe the single particle discrete-time quantum walk on a position space we demonstrate the realization of the universal set of gates on two-and three-qubit system. The idea is to reap the effective Hilbert space of the single qubit and the position space on which it evolves in superposition of position space in order to realize multi-qubit states and universal set of quantum gates on them. Realization of many non-trivial gates in the form of engineering arbitrary states is simpler in the proposed quantum walk model when compared to the circuit based model of computation. We will also discuss the scalability of the model and some propositions for using lesser number of qubits in realizing larger qubit systems.

•Feb 23, 2021•3 citations

Abstract Direct measurement of entanglement is an efficient method for obtaining the degree of entanglement without full reconstruction of the quantum state. But most of the current entanglement direct measurement schemes are designed for the states in specific physical systems, and are not universal for different physical systems. So, in this paper, we want to design a universal direct measurement algorithm for the entanglement of two-qubit states, where universal means that the algorithm does not depend on specific physical systems. Although the conventional quantum walk (QW) model does not have this universal property, we find that by introducing auxiliary qubits and CNOT gates in quantum circuits, a generalized QW model can be realized in any qubit system, i.e. it is universal for different physical systems. Inspired by the universal property of this generalized QW model, a universal quantum algorithm is designed for directly measuring the entanglement degree of two-qubit states, which we call the QW inspired algorithm. To demonstrate the feasibility of the algorithm, analytical calculations and numerical simulations for three representative quantum states are studied. The results show that the algorithm can be used to directly measure two-qubit entanglement, and the universality of the algorithm guarantees that it works not only in optical systems but also in any other physical system. Furthermore, this algorithm may find more applications in other quantum information tasks necessitating qubit–qubit coupling.

This paper proposes a method to measure directly the concurrence of an arbitrary two-qubit pure state based on a generalized Grover quantum iteration algorithm and a phase estimation algorithm. The concurrence can be calculated by applying quantum algorithms to two available copies of the bipartite system, and a final measurement on the auxiliary working qubits gives a better estimation of the concurrence. This method opens new prospects of entanglement measure by the application of quantum algorithms. The implementation of the protocol would be an important step toward quantum information processing and more complex entanglement measure of the finite-dimensional quantum system with an arbitrary number of qubits.

Quantum entanglement is the fundamental hallmark of quantum mechanics and a core resource for realizing long-distance quantum communication and scalable linear quantum computing. Accordingly, the precise detection and quantitative quantification of entanglement constitute a foundational and critical problem in quantum information theory. To date, researchers have proposed numerous sufficient conditions for entanglement detection as well as a variety of entanglement measures to characterize the entanglement strength of quantum states; nevertheless, efficient and direct measurement schemes for core entanglement parameters remain underdeveloped. Based on unitary transformations and auxiliary measurements, this paper proposes a set of quantum circuit schemes capable of directly measuring the bipartite concurrence and the tripartite 3-tangle entanglement measure. By introducing auxiliary qubits and constructing specific controlled unitary operations, the proposed scheme maps the analytical expressions of the two entanglement measures onto the measurement probabilities of output states from quantum circuits. It enables efficient and direct quantitative measurement of bipartite and tripartite entanglement without performing full quantum state tomography. This work provides a feasible technical route for the experimental characterization of entanglement properties and lays a groundwork for the practical deployment of multipartite entanglement resources in quantum information processing.

Quantum walks have wide applications in quantum information, such as universal quantum computation, so it is important to explore properties of quantum walks thoroughly. We propose a novel method to implement discrete-time quantum walks (DTQWs) using only a single qubit, in which both coin and walker are encoded in the two-dimensional state space of a single qubit, operations are realized using single-qubit gates only, and high-dimensional final states of DTQWs can be obtained naturally. With this "one-qubit" approach, DTQW experiments can be realized much more easily, compared with previous methods, in most quantum systems and all properties based on quantum states of DTQWs (such as quantum correlation and coherence) can be investigated. By this approach, we experimentally implement one-particle and two-particle DTQWs with seven steps using single photons. Furthermore, we systematically investigate quantum correlations and coherence (based on the full state of the coin and walker) of the DTQW systems with different initial states of the coin, which have not been obtained and studied in DTQW experiments. As an application, we also study the assisted distillation of quantum coherence using the full state of the two-particle DTQW from the experiment. The maximal increase in distillable coherence for high-dimensional mixed states is investigated for the first time by obtaining its upper and lower bounds. Our work opens a new door to implement DTQW experiments and to better explore properties of quantum walks.

Sophisticated positive-operator-valued measures (POVMs) are fundamental to obtain a quantum advantage in many informational problems but are difficult to implement. We design a universal measurement device composed of cascaded quantum-walk modules able to realize arbitrary entangled POVMs on two qubits. Only parameters in the modules need reprogramming for different POVMs. We apply our device to the task of direction guessing, realizing nine different five-outcome entangled measurements (fidelities above 0.9850) via nine-step photonic quantum walks, recovering optimal direction guessing from nonideal input states. Our work marks an important step toward building a universal versatile quantum measurement device able to implement optimal measurements for various quantum information tasks.

The construction of two-qubit gates appropriate for universal quantum computation is of enormous importance to quantum-information processing. Building such gates is dependent on accurate knowledge of the interaction dynamics between two-qubit systems. This paper will present a systematic method for reconstructing the full two-qubit interaction Hamiltonian through experimental measures of concurrence. This not only gives a convenient method for constructing two qubit quantum gates, but can also be used to experimentally determine various Hamiltonian parameters in physical systems. We show explicitly how this method can be employed to determine the first- and second-order spin-orbit corrections to the exchange coupling in quantum dots.

Abstract Quantum walk has been regarded as a primitive to universal quantum computation. By using the operations required to describe the single particle discrete-time quantum walk on a position space we demonstrate the realization of the universal set of gates on two-and three-qubit system. The idea is to reap the effective Hilbert space of the single qubit and the position space on which it evolves in superposition of position space in order to realize multi-qubit states and universal set of quantum gates on them. Realization of many non-trivial gates in the form of engineering arbitrary states is simpler in the proposed quantum walk model when compared to the circuit based model of computation. We will also discuss the scalability of the model and some propositions for using lesser number of qubits in realizing larger qubit systems.