The problem of unambiguous state discrimination consists of determining in which of a set of known quantum states a particular system is. One is allowed to fail but not to make a mistake. The optimal procedure is the one with the lowest failure probability. This procedure has been extended to bipartite states where the two parties Alice and Bob are allowed to manipulate their particles locally and communicate classically in order to determine which of two possible two-particle states they have been given. The failure probability of this local procedure is the same as if the two particles were together in the same location. Here we examine the effect of restricting the classical communication between the parties, either allowing none or eliminating the possibility that one party's measurement depends on the result of the other party's. These issues are studied for two-qubit states, and optimal procedures are found. In some cases the restrictions cause increases in the failure probability, but in other cases they do not. Applications of this procedure, in particular to secret sharing, are discussed.
The problem of unambiguous state discrimination consists of determining in which of a set of known quantum states a particular system is. One is allowed to fail but not to make a mistake. The optimal procedure is the one with the lowest failure probability. This procedure has been extended to bipartite states where the two parties Alice and Bob are allowed to manipulate their particles locally and communicate classically in order to determine which of two possible two-particle states they have been given. The failure probability of this local procedure is the same as if the two particles were together in the same location. Here we examine the effect of restricting the classical communication between the parties, either allowing none or eliminating the possibility that one party's measurement depends on the result of the other party's. These issues are studied for two-qubit states, and optimal procedures are found. In some cases the restrictions cause increases in the failure probability, but in other cases they do not. Applications of this procedure, in particular to secret sharing, are discussed.
We consider a quantum system of two nonorthogonal bipartite quantum states. We distribute the qubits between two parties, Alice and Bob. They each measure their qubits and then compare their measurement results to determine which state they were sent. This procedure is error-free, which implies that it must sometimes fail. In addition, no quantum memory is required; it is not necessary for one of the qubits to be stored until the result of the measurement on the other is known. We consider the cases in which, should a failure occur, both parties receive a failure signal or only one does. In the latter case, if the two states share the same Schmidt basis, the states can be discriminated with the same failure probability as would be obtained if the qubits were measured together. This scheme is sufficiently simple that it can be generalized to multipartite qubit and qudit states. Applications to quantum secret sharing are discussed.
We initially consider a quantum system consisting of two qubits, which can be in one of two nonorthogonal states $\ensuremath{\mid}{\ensuremath{\Psi}}_{0}⟩$ and $\ensuremath{\mid}{\ensuremath{\Psi}}_{1}⟩$. We distribute the qubits to two parties, Alice and Bob. They each measure their qubits and then compare their measurement results to determine which state they were sent. This procedure is error-free, which implies that it must sometimes fail. In addition, no quantum memory is required; it is not necessary for one of the qubits to be stored until the result of the measurement on the other is known. We consider the cases in which, should failure occur, both parties receive a failure signal or only one does. In the latter case, if the two states share the same Schmidt basis, the states can be discriminated with the same failure probability that would be obtained if the qubits were measured together. This scheme is sufficiently simple that it can be generalized to multipartite qubit, and qudit, states. Applications to quantum secret sharing are discussed. Finally, we present an optical scheme to experimentally realize the protocol in the case of two qubits.
Quantum state discrimination is a fundamental problem in quantum information science. We investigate the optimal distinguishability of orthogonal two-qubit (bipartite) quantum states. The scenario consists of three parties: Alice, Bob, and Charlie. Charlie prepares one of two orthogonal states and sends one qubit to Alice and the other to Bob. Their goal is to correctly identify which state Charlie sent. In most state discrimination scenarios, it is assumed that Alice and Bob can freely communicate with one another so as to collectively agree on the best guess. In this research, we consider a more restricted setting where only one-way classical communication is possible from Alice to Bob. Under this setting, we study two figures of merit (i) Alice's optimal probability, P, of identifying the state , and (ii) Alice's optimal probability, P⊥, of identifying the state along with helping Bob identify the state perfectly. We show that in general P=P⊥ and we prove a theorem for when P=P⊥. We also found that the maximum of P−P⊥ can arbitrarily approach 1/2.
In this paper, we consider the conditions under which a given ensemble of two-qubit states can be optimally distinguished by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We begin by completing the perfect distinguishability problem of two-qubit ensembles-both for separable operations and LOCC-by providing necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect discrimination of one pure and one mixed state. Then, for the well-known task of minimum error discrimination, it is shown that almost all two-qubit ensembles consisting of three pure states cannot be optimally discriminated using LOCC. This is surprising considering that any two pure states can be distinguished optimally by LOCC. Special attention is given to ensembles that lack entanglement, and we prove an easy sufficient condition for when a set of three product states cannot be optimally distinguished by LOCC, thus providing new examples of the phenomenon known as non-locality without entanglement. We next consider an example of N parties who each share the same state but who are ignorant of its identity. The state is drawn from the rotationally invariant trine ensemble, and we establish a tight connection between the N-copy ensemble and Shor's lifted single-copy ensemble. For any finite N, we prove that optimal identification of the states cannot be achieved by LOCC; however, as N→∞, LOCC can indeed discriminate the states optimally. This is the first result of its kind. Finally, we turn to the task of unambiguous discrimination and derive new lower bounds on the LOCC inconclusive probability for symmetric states. When applied to the double trine ensemble, this leads to a rather different distinguishability character than when the minimum error probability is considered.
We show how to optimally unambiguously discriminate between two subspaces of a Hilbert space. In particular we suppose that we are given a quantum system in either the state $\ensuremath{\mid}{\ensuremath{\psi}}_{1}⟩$, where $\ensuremath{\mid}{\ensuremath{\psi}}_{1}⟩$ can be any state in the subspace S1, or $\ensuremath{\mid}{\ensuremath{\psi}}_{2}⟩$, where $\ensuremath{\mid}{\ensuremath{\psi}}_{2}⟩$ can be any state in the subspace S2, and our task is to determine in which of the subspaces the state of our quantum system lies. We do not want to make any error, which means that our procedure will sometimes fail if the subspaces are not orthogonal. This is a special case of the unambiguous discrimination of mixed states. We present the positive operator valued measures that solve this problem and several applications of this procedure, including the discrimination of multipartite states without classical communication.
We consider an infinite class of unambiguous quantum state discrimination problems on multipartite systems, described by Hilbert space H, of any number of parties. Restricting consideration to measurements that act only on H, we find the optimal global measurement for each element of this class, achieving the maximum possible success probability of 1/2 in all cases. This measurement turns out to be both separable and unique, and by our recently discovered necessary condition for local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC) it is easily shown to be impossible by any finite-round LOCC protocol. We also show that, quite generally, if the input state is restricted to lie in H, then any LOCC measurement on an enlarged Hilbert space is effectively identical to an LOCC measurement on H. Therefore, our necessary condition for LOCC demonstrates directly that a higher success probability is attainable for each of these problems using general separable measurements as compared to that which is possible with any finite-round LOCC protocol.