Optimal cloning for two pairs of orthogonal states

We study the optimal cloning transformation for two pairs of orthogonal states of two-dimensional quantum systems, and derive the corresponding optimal fidelities.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Behavior of Quantum Correlations under Local Noise

We characterize the behavior of quantum correlations under the influence of local noisy channels. Intuition suggests that such noise should be detrimental for quantumness. When considering qubit systems, we show for which channel this is indeed the case: the amount of quantum correlations can only decrease under the action of unital channels. However, non-unital channels (e.g. such as dissipation) can create quantum correlations for some initially classical state. Furthermore, for higher-dimensional systems even unital channels may increase the amount of quantum correlations. Thus, counterintuitively, local decoherence can generate quantum correlations.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Analysis of quantum error correction with symmetric hypergraph states

Graph states have been used to construct quantum error correction codes for independent errors. Hypergraph states generalize graph states, and symmetric hypergraph states have been shown to allow for the correction of correlated errors. In this paper, it is shown that symmetric hypergraph states are not useful for the correction of independent errors, at least for up to 30 qubits. Furthermore, error correction for error models with protected qubits is explored. A class of known graph codes for this scenario is generalized to hypergraph codes.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures; corrected number of figures; 16.02.2018: removed minor inconsistencies in font choice, added supplemental files 23.02.2018: added journal re

Large-scale quantum networks based on graphs

Society relies and depends increasingly on information exchange and communication. In the quantum world, security and privacy is a built-in feature for information processing. The essential ingredient for exploiting these quantum advantages is the resource of entanglement, which can be shared between two or more parties. The distribution of entanglement over large distances constitutes a key challenge for current research and development. Due to losses of the transmitted quantum particles, which typically scale exponentially with the distance, intermediate quantum repeater stations are needed. Here we show how to generalise the quantum repeater concept to the multipartite case, by fully describing large-scale quantum networks, i.e. network nodes and their long-distance links, in the language of graphs and graph states. This unifying approach comprises both the distribution of multipartite entanglement across the network, and the protection against errors via encoding. The correspondence to graph states also provides a tool for optimising the architecture of quantum networks.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, revised text and new results regarding the optimisation of quantum network

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution with quantum memories

We generalize measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution [ H.-K. Lo, M. Curty, and B. Qi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 130503 (2012) ] to the scenario where the Bell-state measurement station contains also heralded quantum memories. We find analytical formulas, in terms of device imperfections, for all quantities entering in the secret key rates, i.e., the quantum bit error rate and the repeater rate. We assume either single-photon sources or weak coherent pulse sources plus decoy states. We show that it is possible to significantly outperform the original proposal, even in presence of decoherence of the quantum memory. Our protocol may represent the first natural step for implementing a two-segment quantum repeater