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arXiv:quant-ph/0608113 · New Journal of Physics

Retrodictive fidelities for pure state postselectors

John Jeffers

Published Nov 9, 2006• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Two measures of fidelity are proposed for postselecting devices, the retrodictive conditional probability that the state in the measurement arm is the one indicated by the detectors, and the probability that the device produces the state that it would produce if working perfectly. The first is the natural quantity that one wishes to maximize to improve the device operation. The second corresponds more closely with the accurate operation of the device than the more usual overlap-based fidelity. The results are particularly applicable to the types of state preparation and logic gate operation in linear optical quantum computing.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/8/11/268

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Two measures of fidelity are proposed for postselecting devices, the retrodictive conditional probability that the state in the measurement arm is the one indicated by the detectors, and the probability that the device produces the state that it would produce if working perfectly. The first is the natural quantity that one wishes to maximize to improve the device operation. The second corresponds more closely with the accurate operation of the device than the more usual overlap-based fidelity. The results are particularly applicable to the types of state preparation and logic gate operation in linear optical quantum computing.
Two measures of fidelity are proposed for postselecting devices, the retrodictive conditional probability that the state in the measurement arm is the one indicated by the detectors, and the probability that the device produces the state that it would produce if working perfectly. The first is the natural quantity that one wishes to maximise to improve the device operation. The second corresponds more closely with the accurate operation of the device than the more usual overlap-based fidelity. The results are particularly applicable to the types of state preparation and logic gate operation in linear optical quantum computing.
Retrodictive quantum states are states that propagate backwards in time from a measurement event. Although retrodictive quantum mechanics appears to be very different from the usual predictive formalism, in that propagation of states into the past appears to violate causality, this is not so. Indeed causality is not manifest in the time direction of propagation of quantum states at all. Instead, causality is ensured by the different normalization conditions applied to the preparation and measurement device operators. It is this difference that introduces the arrow of time into quantum mechanics. Retrodictive states are useful for applications such as measurement, predictive quantum state engineering and quantum communication. Here we show how any optical retrodictive state that can be expressed to a good approximation in a finite‐dimensional Hilbert space can be generated from predictive coherent states, a lossless multiport device and photodetectors. The composition of the retrodictive state can be controlled by adjusting the input predictive coherent states. This allows, for example, projection synthesis for an optical state to be achieved with the exotic reciprocal binomial reference state replaced by a simple coherent state.
Given the result of a measurement on the output of a quantum optical communication channel, we show how to calculate a retrodictive state at the input. This state can be used by the receiver to determine the probability that any one of a given set of states was selected by the transmitter. We establish the remarkably simple result that retrodicting the prepared input signal for an attenuating (amplifying) channel corresponds to predicting the measured output signal for an amplifying (attenuating) channel.
We precise for the first time the quantum behavior of a measurement apparatus in the framework of the usual interpretation of quantum physics. We show how such a behavior can also be studied by the retrodiction of pre-measurement states corresponding to its responses. We translate in terms of these states some interesting properties of the behavior of an apparatus, such as the projectivity, the fidelity, the non-Gaussian character, or the non-classicality of measurements performed by this one. We also propose an experimental procedure allowing the tomography of these pre-measurement states for optical detectors. We illustrate the relevance of these new notions for measurements, by evaluating them for two detectors widely used in quantum optics: the avalanche photodiode and the homodyne detection.