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arXiv:quant-ph/0410207 · Physical Review A

Reexamination of optimal quantum state estimation of pure states

A. Hayashi, T. Hashimoto, M. Horibe

Published Sep 21, 2005• 77 citations
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Abstract

A direct derivation is given for the optimal mean fidelity of quantum state estimation of a $d$-dimensional unknown pure state with its $N$ copies given as input, which was first obtained by Hayashi in terms of an infinite set of covariant positive operator valued measures (POVM's) and by Bru\ss{} and Macchiavello establishing a connection to optimal quantum cloning. An explicit condition for POVM measurement operators for optimal estimators is obtained, by which we construct optimal estimators with finite POVMs using exact quadratures on a hypersphere. These finite optimal estimators are not generally universal, where universality means the fidelity is independent of input states. However, any optimal estimator with finite POVM for $M(>N)$ copies is universal if it is used for $N$ copies as input.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.72.032325

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A direct derivation is given for the optimal mean fidelity of quantum state estimation of a ddd-dimensional unknown pure state with its NNN copies given as input, which was first obtained by Hayashi in terms of an infinite set of covariant positive operator valued measures (POVM's) and by Bru\ss{} and Macchiavello establishing a connection to optimal quantum cloning. An explicit condition for POVM measurement operators for optimal estimators is obtained, by which we construct optimal estimators with finite POVMs using exact quadratures on a hypersphere. These finite optimal estimators are not generally universal, where universality means the fidelity is independent of input states. However, any optimal estimator with finite POVM for M(>N)M(>N)M(>N) copies is universal if it is used for NNN copies as input.
Quantum state cloning is the task of approximately producing additional copies of an unknown quantum state from a finite number of input copies. The optimal cloning fidelity is known exactly for pure states, but no comparable characterization is known for general mixed states. We determine the optimal asymptotic copy complexity for ddd-dimensional states of rank at most rrr: producing MMM additional copies with worst-case fidelity at least 1−ε1-\varepsilon1−ε requires and is achievable with N=Θ(Mrd/ε)N=Θ(Mrd/\varepsilon)N=Θ(Mrd/ε) input copies. Remarkably, the lower bound already holds for a family of states with a fixed flat spectrum, while the matching upper bound is achieved by random purification followed by optimal pure-state cloning. For M=1M=1M=1, we further show that high-fidelity tomography can be coherently converted into cloning with comparable error, revealing an operational origin of the matching cloning and tomography complexities.
A direct derivation is given for the optimal mean fidelity of quantum state estimation of a d-dimensional unknown pure state with its N copies given as input, which was first obtained by Bruss and Macchiavello by establishing a connection to optimal quantum cloning. An explicit condition for POVM measurement operators for optimal estimators is obtained, by which we show optimal estimators with finite POVM exist but not generally universal, where universality means the fidelity is independent of input states. However any optimal estimator for M(>N) copies is universal if it is used for N copies as input.
We derive a tight upper bound for the fidelity of a universal $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}M$ qubit cloner, valid for any $M\ensuremath{\ge}N$, where the output of the cloner is required to be supported on the symmetric subspace. Our proof is based on the concatenation of two cloners and the connection between quantum cloning and quantum state estimation. We generalize the operation of a quantum cloner to mixed and/or entangled input qubits described by a density matrix supported on the symmetric subspace of the constituent qubits. We also extend the validity of optimal state estimation methods to inputs of this kind.
We extend the concept of probabilistic unambiguous discrimination of quantum states to quantum state estimation. We consider a scenario where the measurement device can output either an estimate of the unknown input state or an inconclusive result. We present a general method how to evaluate the maximum fidelity achievable by the probabilistic estimation strategy. We illustrate our method on two explicit examples: estimation of a qudit from a pair of conjugate qudits and phase covariant estimation of a qubit from N copies. We show that by allowing for inconclusive results it is possible to reach estimation fidelity higher than that achievable by the best deterministic estimation strategy.
We study the problem of universal quantum cloning – taking several identical copies of a pure but unknown quantum state and producing further copies. While it is well known that it is impossible to perfectly reproduce the state, how well the copies can be cloned can be quantified using the fidelity. We examine how individual fidelities can be traded against each other, and how different fidelity measures can be incorporated. The broadly applicable formalism into which we transform the cloning problem is described as a series of quadratic constraints which are amenable to mathematical and computational scrutiny. As such, we reproduce all known results on optimal universal cloning, and push the recent results on asymmetric cloning much further, giving new trade-off relations between fidelities for broad classes of optimal cloning machines. We also provide substantial evidence that motivates why other parameter ranges (number of input copies) have not, and will not, yield to similar analysis.