arXiv:quant-ph/0310123 · Physical Review A
Reversibility of continuous-variable quantum cloning
Radim Filip, Jaromı́r Fiurášek, Petr Marek
Abstract
We analyze a reversibility of optimal Gaussian $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{1}2$ quantum cloning of a coherent state using only local operations on the clones and classical communication between them and propose a feasible experimental test of this feature. Performing Bell-type homodyne measurement on one clone and anticlone, an arbitrary unknown input state (not only a coherent state) can be restored in the other clone by applying appropriate local unitary displacement operation. We generalize this concept to a partial reversal of the cloning using only local operations and classical communication (LOCC) and we show that this procedure converts the symmetric cloner to an asymmetric cloner. Further, we discuss a distributed LOCC reversal in optimal $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{1}M$ Gaussian cloning of coherent states which transforms it to optimal $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{1}{M}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ cloning for ${M}^{\ensuremath{'}}<M.$ Assuming the quantum cloning as a possible eavesdropping attack on quantum communication link, the reversibility can be utilized to improve the security of the link even after the attack.