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arXiv:quant-ph/9812035 · Physical Review A

Strategies and networks for state-dependent quantum cloning

Anthony Chefles, Stephen Mark Barnett

Published Jul 1, 1999• 65 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

State-dependent cloning machines that have so far been considered either deterministically copy a set of states approximately or probablistically copy them exactly. In considering the case of two equiprobable pure states, we derive the maximum global fidelity of N approximate clones given M initial exact copies, where $N>M$. We also consider strategies that interpolate between approximate and exact cloning. A tight inequality is obtained that expresses a trade-off between the global fidelity and success probability. This inequality is found to tend, in the limit $N\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{}\ensuremath{\infty}$, to a known inequality that expresses the trade-off between error and inconclusive result probabilities for state-discrimination measurements. Quantum-computational networks are also constructed for the kinds of cloning machine we describe. For this purpose, we introduce two gates: the distinguishability transfer and state separation gates. Their key properties are described and we show how they may be decomposed into basic operations.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.60.136

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State-dependent cloning machines that have so far been considered either deterministically copy a set of states approximately or probablistically copy them exactly. In considering the case of two equiprobable pure states, we derive the maximum global fidelity of N approximate clones given M initial exact copies, where N>MN>MN>M. We also consider strategies that interpolate between approximate and exact cloning. A tight inequality is obtained that expresses a trade-off between the global fidelity and success probability. This inequality is found to tend, in the limit N\ensuremath→\ensuremath∞N\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{}\ensuremath{\infty}N\ensuremath→\ensuremath∞, to a known inequality that expresses the trade-off between error and inconclusive result probabilities for state-discrimination measurements. Quantum-computational networks are also constructed for the kinds of cloning machine we describe. For this purpose, we introduce two gates: the distinguishability transfer and state separation gates. Their key properties are described and we show how they may be decomposed into basic operations.
Unambiguous discrimination and exact cloning reduce the square-overlap between quantum states, exemplifying the more general type of procedure we term state separation . We obtain the maximum probability with which two equiprobable quantum states can be separated by an arbitrary degree, and find that the established bounds on the success probabilities for discrimination and cloning are special cases of this general bound. The latter also gives the maximum probability of successfully producing N exact copies of a quantum system whose state is chosen secretly from a known pair, given M initial realizations of the state, where N > M . We also discuss the relationship between this bound and that on unambiguous state discrimination.
Unambiguous discrimination and exact cloning reduce the square-overlap between quantum states, exemplifying the more general type of procedure we term state separation. We obtain the maximum probability with which two equiprobable quantum states can be separated by an arbitrary degree, and find that the established bounds on the success probabilities for discrimination and cloning are special cases of this general bound. The latter also gives the maximum probability of successfully producing N exact copies of a quantum system whose state is chosen secretly from a known pair, given M initial realizations of the state, where N > M. We also discuss the relationship between this bound and that on unambiguous state discrimination.
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.
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.
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.
Due to the no-cloning theorem, the unknown quantum state can only be cloned approximately or exactly with some probability. There are two types of cloners: universal and state-dependent cloner. The optimal universal cloner has been found and can be viewed as a special state-dependent quantum cloner that has no information about the states. In this paper, we investigate the state-dependent cloning when the state set contains more than two states. We get some bounds of the global fidelity for these processes. This method is not dependent on the number of the states contained in the state set. It is also independent of the numbers of copying.