Near optimal discrimination of binary coherent signals via atom-light interaction

We study the discrimination of weak coherent states of light with significant overlaps by nondestructive measurements on the light states through measuring atomic states that are entangled to the coherent states via dipole coupling. In this way, the problem of measuring and discriminating coherent light states is shifted to finding the appropriate atom-light interaction and atomic measurements. We show that this scheme allows us to attain a probability of error extremely close to the Helstrom bound, the ultimate quantum limit for discriminating binary quantum states, through the simple Jaynes-Cummings interaction between the field and ancilla with optimized light-atom coupling and projective measurements on the atomic states. Moreover, since the measurement is nondestructive on the light state, information that is not detected by one measurement can be extracted from the post-measurement light states through subsequent measurements.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Entanglement transformation with no classical communication

We present an optimal scheme to realize the transformations between single copies of two bipartite entangled states without classical communication between the sharing parties. The scheme achieves the upper bound for the success probabilities [PRA 63, 022301 (2001), PRL 83, 1455 (1999)] of generating maximally entangled states if applied to entanglement concentration. Such strategy also dispenses with the interaction with an ancilla system in the implementation. We also show that classical communications are indispensable in realizing the deterministic transformations of a single bipartite entangled state. With a finite number of identical pairs of two entangled bosons, on the other hand, we can realize the deterministic transformation to any target entangled state of equal or less Schmidt rank through an extension of the scheme.Comment: published versio

A general approach to physical realization of unambiguous quantum-state discrimination

We present a general scheme to realize the POVMs for the unambiguous discrimination of quantum states. For any set of pure states it enables us to set up a feasible linear optical circuit to perform their optimal discrimination, if they are prepared as single-photon states. An example of unknown states discrimination is discussed as the illustration of the general scheme.Comment: 9 pages, Latex fil

Coherent states engineering with linear optics: Possible and impossible tasks

The general transformation of the product of coherent states $\prod_{i=1}^N|\alpha_i>$ to the output state $\prod_{i=1}^M|\beta_i>$ ($N=M$ or $N\neq M$), which is realizable with linear optical circuit, is characterized with a linear map from the vector $(\alpha^{\ast}_1,...,\alpha^{\ast}_N)$ to $(\beta^{\ast}_1,...,\beta^{\ast}_M)$. A correspondence between the transformations of a product of coherent states and those of a single photon state is established with such linear maps. It is convenient to apply this linear transformation method to design any linear optical scheme working with coherent states. The examples include message encoding and quantum database searching. The limitation of manipulating entangled coherent states with linear optics is also discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Optimum measurement for unambiguously discriminating two mixed states: General considerations and special cases

Based on our previous publication [U. Herzog and J. A. Bergou, Phys.Rev. A 71, 050301(R) (2005)] we investigate the optimum measurement for the unambiguous discrimination of two mixed quantum states that occur with given prior probabilities. Unambiguous discrimination of nonorthogonal states is possible in a probabilistic way, at the expense of a nonzero probability of inconclusive results, where the measurement fails. Along with a discussion of the general problem, we give an example illustrating our method of solution. We also provide general inequalities for the minimum achievable failure probability and discuss in more detail the necessary conditions that must be fulfilled when its absolute lower bound, proportional to the fidelity of the states, can be reached.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Physics:Conference Series (Proceedings of the 12th Central European Workshop on Quantum Optics, Ankara, June 2005