General quantum measurements are represented by instruments. In this paper the mathematical formalization is given of the idea that an instrument is a channel which accepts a quantum state as input and produces a probability and an a posteriori state as
While a positive operator valued measure gives the probabilities in a quantum measurement, an instrument gives both the probabilities and the a posteriori states. By interpreting the instrument as a quantum channel and by using the monotonicity theorem for relative entropies many bounds on the classical information extracted in a quantum measurement are obtained in a unified manner. In particular, it is shown that such bounds can all be stated as inequalities between mutual entropies. This approach based on channels gives rise to a unified picture of known and new bounds on the classical information (Holevo's, Shumacher-Westmoreland-Wootters', Hall's, Scutaru's bounds, a new upper bound and a new lower one). Some examples clarify the mutual relationships among the various bounds.
While a positive operator valued measure gives the probabilities in a quantum measurement, an instrument gives both the probabilities and the a posteriori states. By interpreting the instrument as a quantum channel and by using the monotonicity theorem for relative entropies many bounds on the classical information extracted in a quantum measurement are obtained in a unified manner. In particular, it is shown that such bounds can all be stated as inequalities between mutual entropies. This approach based on channels gives rise to a unified picture of known and new bounds on the classical information (the bounds by Holevo, by Shumacher, Westmoreland and Wootters, by Hall, by Scutaru, a new upper bound and a new lower one). Some examples clarify the mutual relationships among the various bounds.
Until now we have treated measurement apparatuses as devices taking quantum systems as their inputs and producing measurement outcomes as outputs. At this level of description, measurement apparatuses are fully described by observables, as discussed in Chapter 3. The measurement outcome distribution is determined by the particular input state and the observable describing the measurement device. In this chapter we explore a mathematical framework suitable for the description of measurement apparatuses for which, in addition to the measurement outcomes, the measured systems are available after the measurement is performed. In such cases we may try to obtain more information on the system by measuring some other observable, or, perhaps by filtering out some preferred output states we may use our measurement apparatus as a preparator. Clearly, in this kind of situation we need a description of measurement apparatuses that is more detailed than that of observables. Therefore, two more refined concepts, measurement models and instruments , will be investigated in this chapter. There is no customary name for a measurement model. As used here, it was first formalized in a general way by Ozawa [106], [107] who referred to the measurement process . A comprehensive general reference on quantum measurements is the monograph by Busch et al. [35], where measurement models are called premeasurements . Some other authors use the term indirect measurements . Three levels of description of measurements It is convenient to think of three levels of description when considering measurements.
We consider the communication systems sending the classical (Shannon) information through the quantum channel. The classical information source X is represented with symbols and their a priori probabilities At a transmitter, each symbol is modulated to a quantum state and detected at a receiver by the quantum mechanically generalized measurement, so-called the probability operator-valued measure Here we call a detection operator since it represents a detection process deciding a received signal to be ‘j’. The detection operator is no-negative, and resolution of identity, where is the identity operator on the signal Hilbert space spanned by signal quantum states. This detection process can be regarded as a quantum channel characterized by the conditional probability defined as follows:
Quantum instruments describe both the classical outcome and the updated quantum state in a measurement process. To do this in a non-trivial way, instruments must have the capability to interact coherently with the state that they measure. Here, we develop a resource theory for instruments. We consider a relevant quantifier of the separation between interactive and non-interactive instruments and show that it admits three distinct operational interpretations in terms of quantum information tasks. These concern (i) the preservation of maximally entangled states after a local measurement, (ii) the average ability to preserve random states after measurement, and (iii) the ability to recover the classical information generated from measuring half of a maximally entangled state. We also introduce a natural set of allowed operations and show that the third task fully characterises the resource content of instruments. Our general framework reproduces as special cases established resource theories for channels and measurements.