Quantum measurements are probabilistic and, in general, provide only partial information about the underlying quantum state. Obtaining a full classical description of an unknown quantum state requires the analysis of several different measurements, a task known as quantum-state tomography. Here we analyse the ultimate achievable performance in the tomography of continuous-variable systems, such as bosonic and quantum optical systems. We prove that tomography of these systems is extremely inefficient in terms of time resources, much more so than tomography of finite-dimensional systems such as qubits. Not only does the minimum number of state copies needed for tomography scale exponentially with the number of modes, but, even for low-energy states, it also scales unfavourably with the trace-distance error between the original state and its estimated classical description. On a more positive note, we prove that the tomography of Gaussian states is efficient by establishing a bound on the trace-distance error made when approximating a Gaussian state from knowledge of the first and second moments within a specified error bound. Last, we demonstrate that the tomography of non-Gaussian states prepared through Gaussian unitaries and a few local non-Gaussian evolutions is efficient and experimentally feasible.
Quantum measurements are probabilistic and, in general, provide only partial information about the underlying quantum state. Obtaining a full classical description of an unknown quantum state requires the analysis of several different measurements, a task known as quantum-state tomography. Here we analyse the ultimate achievable performance in the tomography of continuous-variable systems, such as bosonic and quantum optical systems. We prove that tomography of these systems is extremely inefficient in terms of time resources, much more so than tomography of finite-dimensional systems such as qubits. Not only does the minimum number of state copies needed for tomography scale exponentially with the number of modes, but, even for low-energy states, it also scales unfavourably with the trace-distance error between the original state and its estimated classical description. On a more positive note, we prove that the tomography of Gaussian states is efficient by establishing a bound on the trace-distance error made when approximating a Gaussian state from knowledge of the first and second moments within a specified error bound. Last, we demonstrate that the tomography of non-Gaussian states prepared through Gaussian unitaries and a few local non-Gaussian evolutions is efficient and experimentally feasible.
Quantum measurements are probabilistic and, in general, provide only partial information about the underlying quantum state. Obtaining a full classical description of an unknown quantum state requires the analysis of several different measurements, a task known as quantum-state tomography. Here we analyse the ultimate achievable performance in the tomography of continuous-variable systems, such as bosonic and quantum optical systems. We prove that tomography of these systems is extremely inefficient in terms of time resources, much more so than tomography of finite-dimensional systems such as qubits. Not only does the minimum number of state copies needed for tomography scale exponentially with the number of modes, but, even for low-energy states, it also scales unfavourably with the trace-distance error between the original state and its estimated classical description. On a more positive note, we prove that the tomography of Gaussian states is efficient by establishing a bound on the trace-distance error made when approximating a Gaussian state from knowledge of the first and second moments within a specified error bound. Last, we demonstrate that the tomography of non-Gaussian states prepared through Gaussian unitaries and a few local non-Gaussian evolutions is efficient and experimentally feasible.
This paper reviews recent advances in quantum learning theory for continuous-variable (CV) systems. Quantum learning theory investigates how to extract classical information from quantum systems as efficiently as possible. CV systems are ubiquitous in nature and in quantum technologies, as they describe bosonic and quantum-optical systems. While quantum learning theory for finite-dimensional systems has been extensively studied, the corresponding theory for CV systems has only recently begun to develop; here we provide a concise review. We focus on the following questions: what is the minimum number of copies (the sample complexity) required to learn a non-Gaussian state, possibly under energy constraints? What is the sample complexity for learning Gaussian states? How does the performance of CV state learning depend on non-Gaussianity? How can one test whether a state is Gaussian or far from the set of Gaussian states? And how can Gaussian processes be learned efficiently? Central to these topics, we also review several bounds on the trace distance between CV states in terms of their covariance matrices, which may be of independent interest. Overall, this work summarises selected developments in tomography of CV systems and highlights a selection of open problems.
Continuous-variable systems enable key quantum technologies in computation, communication, and sensing. Bosonic Gaussian states emerge naturally in various such applications, including gravitational-wave and dark-matter detection. A fundamental question is how to characterize an unknown bosonic Gaussian state from as few samples as possible. Despite decades-long exploration, the ultimate efficiency limit remains unclear. In this work, we study the necessary and sufficient number of copies to learn an n-mode Gaussian state, with energy less than E, to ε trace distance with high probability. We prove a lower bound of Ω(n3/ε2) for Gaussian measurements, matching the best known upper bound up to doubly-log energy dependence, and Ω(n2/ε2) for arbitrary measurements. We further show an upper bound of O(n2/ε2) given that the Gaussian state is promised to be either pure or passive. Interestingly, while Gaussian measurements suffice for nearly optimal learning of pure Gaussian states, non-Gaussian measurements are provably required for optimal learning of passive Gaussian states. Finally, focusing on learning single-mode Gaussian states via non-entangling Gaussian measurements, we provide a nearly tight bound of Θ(E/ε2) for any non-adaptive schemes, showing adaptivity is indispensable for nearly energy-independent scaling. As a byproduct, we establish sharp bounds on the trace distance between Gaussian states in terms of the total variation distance between their Wigner distributions, and obtain a nearly tight sample complexity bound for learning the Wigner distribution of any Gaussian state to ε total variation distance. Our results significantly advance quantum learning theory in the bosonic regimes and have practical impact in quantum sensing and benchmarking applications.
Quantum state tomography, aimed at deriving a classical description of an unknown state from measurement data, is a fundamental task in quantum physics. In this work, we analyse the ultimate achievable performance of tomography of continuous-variable systems, such as bosonic and quantum optical systems. We prove that tomography of these systems is extremely inefficient in terms of time resources, much more so than tomography of finite-dimensional systems: not only does the minimum number of state copies needed for tomography scale exponentially with the number of modes, but it also exhibits a dramatic scaling with the trace-distance error, even for low-energy states, in stark contrast with the finite-dimensional case. On a more positive note, we prove that tomography of Gaussian states is efficient. To accomplish this, we answer a fundamental question for the field of continuous-variable quantum information: if we know with a certain error the first and second moments of an unknown Gaussian state, what is the resulting trace-distance error that we make on the state? Lastly, we demonstrate that tomography of non-Gaussian states prepared through Gaussian unitaries and a few local non-Gaussian evolutions is efficient and experimentally feasible.
Unlike in finite dimensions, quantum information in continuous-variable systems has the peculiar feature that without imposing physical constraints, the sample complexity of state tomography can be unbounded. Remarkably, this is even the case for state-of-the-art protocols for learning Gaussian states, which have finite-dimensional descriptions: the best known rates scale with loglogE, where E is the energy of the system. We prove this is not an artifact of existing analyses, but a fundamental limitation of the measurements used. We show: (1) Any protocol that uses Gaussian measurements, even entangled or adaptively chosen ones, must incur a loglogE dependence. This answers an open question posed by a number of previous works. (2) There is a smooth tradeoff between the number of rounds of adaptivity and the energy dependence, and we give a matching protocol achieving this interpolated rate. (3) With highly entangled, non-Gaussian measurements, one can learn n-mode pure Gaussian states with O(n2/ε2) samples, independent of E. This answers an open question posed by Chen et al. (4) A simple protocol based on the single-copy canonical phase POVM of Holevo and Helstrom learns single-mode pure Gaussian states with O(1/ε2) samples, again independent of E.
Our results clarify the role of energy in bosonic state tomography and shed new light on the intriguing interplay between adaptivity, entanglement, and magic in quantum learning.
Recent results have established dramatic advantages in learning properties of quantum states when a quantum computer is available to process or jointly measure multiple copies of the unknown quantum state. Learning tasks can be accomplished with exponentially fewer copies of the state when compared to optimized classical learning strategies that are restricted to measuring one copy of the state at a time. While these results were established in abstract settings and for artificial learning tasks, they motivate the application of quantum computers to imaging and sensing of weak electromagnetic fields since these settings are ultimately concerned with the learning of unknown quantum states. In this work we apply these new results in quantum learning to the problem of learning Gaussian states of the electromagnetic field, which are germane since they describe most fields used in imaging and sensing. In order to connect with quantum learning theory, we consider the transduction of an n-mode Gaussian state into a register of qubits on a quantum computer followed by optimized measurements on these qubits to extract the parameters defining the original Gaussian state. We rigorously bound the number of copies of the Gaussian state required to achieve worst-case additive error in parameter estimates. The scaling of this bound with n is exponentially better than naïve strategies for characterizing Gaussian states and matches recently derived bounds for characterization of Gaussian states using continuous-variable (CV) classical shadows. In addition, our bound has a polynomially better dependence on the energy of the multimode Gaussian state compared to the CV shadows protocol.