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Achieving quantum precision limit in adaptive qubit state tomography
The precision limit in quantum state tomography is of great interest not only
to practical applications but also to foundational studies. However, little is
known about this subject in the multiparameter setting even theoretically due
to the subtle information tradeoff among incompatible observables. In the case
of a qubit, the theoretic precision limit was determined by Hayashi as well as
Gill and Massar, but attaining the precision limit in experiments has remained
a challenging task. Here we report the first experiment which achieves this
precision limit in adaptive quantum state tomography on optical polarization
qubits. The two-step adaptive strategy employed in our experiment is very easy
to implement in practice. Yet it is surprisingly powerful in optimizing most
figures of merit of practical interest. Our study may have significant
implications for multiparameter quantum estimation problems, such as quantum
metrology. Meanwhile, it may promote our understanding about the
complementarity principle and uncertainty relations from the information
theoretic perspective.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures; titles changed and structure reorganise
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