A Geometric Approach to Quantum State Separation

Probabilistic quantum state transformations can be characterized by the degree of state separation they provide. This, in turn, sets limits on the success rate of these transformations. We consider optimum state separation of two known pure states in the general case where the known states have arbitrary a priori probabilities. The problem is formulated from a geometric perspective and shown to be equivalent to the problem of finding tangent curves within two families of conics that represent the unitarity constraints and the objective functions to be optimized, respectively. We present the corresponding analytical solutions in various forms. In the limit of perfect state separation, which is equivalent to unambiguous state discrimination, the solution exhibits a phenomenon analogous to a second order symmetry breaking phase transition. We also propose a linear optics implementation of separation which is based on the dual rail representation of qubits and single-photon multiport interferometry

Quantum change point

Sudden changes are ubiquitous in nature. Identifying them is of crucial importance for a number of applications in medicine, biology, geophysics, and social sciences. Here we investigate the problem in the quantum domain, considering a source that emits particles in a default state, until a point where it switches to another state. Given a sequence of particles emitted by the source, the problem is to find out where the change occurred. For large sequences, we obtain an analytical expression for the maximum probability of correctly identifying the change point when joint measurements on the whole sequence are allowed. We also construct strategies that measure the particles individually and provide an online answer as soon as a new particle is emitted by the source. We show that these strategies substantially underperform the optimal strategy, indicating that quantum sudden changes, although happening locally, are better detected globally.Comment: 4+8 pages, published version. New results added, including a theorem applicable to general multihypothesis discrimination problem

Beating noise with abstention in state estimation

We address the problem of estimating pure qubit states with non-ideal (noisy) measurements in the multiple-copy scenario, where the data consists of a number N of identically prepared qubits. We show that the average fidelity of the estimates can increase significantly if the estimation protocol allows for inconclusive answers, or abstentions. We present the optimal such protocol and compute its fidelity for a given probability of abstention. The improvement over standard estimation, without abstention, can be viewed as an effective noise reduction. These and other results are exemplified for small values of N. For asymptotically large N, we derive analytical expressions of the fidelity and the probability of abstention, and show that for a fixed fidelity gain the latter decreases with N at an exponential rate given by a Kulback-Leibler (relative) entropy. As a byproduct, we obtain an asymptotic expression in terms of this very entropy of the probability that a system of N qubits, all prepared in the same state, has a given total angular momentum. We also discuss an extreme situation where noise increases with N and where estimation with abstention provides a most significant improvement as compared to the standard approach

Quantum-limited metrology with product states

We study the performance of initial product states of n-body systems in generalized quantum metrology protocols that involve estimating an unknown coupling constant in a nonlinear k-body (k << n) Hamiltonian. We obtain the theoretical lower bound on the uncertainty in the estimate of the parameter. For arbitrary initial states, the lower bound scales as 1/n^k, and for initial product states, it scales as 1/n^(k-1/2). We show that the latter scaling can be achieved using simple, separable measurements. We analyze in detail the case of a quadratic Hamiltonian (k = 2), implementable with Bose-Einstein condensates. We formulate a simple model, based on the evolution of angular-momentum coherent states, which explains the O(n^(-3/2)) scaling for k = 2; the model shows that the entanglement generated by the quadratic Hamiltonian does not play a role in the enhanced sensitivity scaling. We show that phase decoherence does not affect the O(n^(-3/2)) sensitivity scaling for initial product states.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure