5,586 research outputs found
Measuring measurement--disturbance relationships with weak values
Using formal definitions for measurement precision {\epsilon} and disturbance
(measurement backaction) {\eta}, Ozawa [Phys. Rev. A 67, 042105 (2003)] has
shown that Heisenberg's claimed relation between these quantities is false in
general. Here we show that the quantities introduced by Ozawa can be determined
experimentally, using no prior knowledge of the measurement under investigation
--- both quantities correspond to the root-mean-squared difference given by a
weak-valued probability distribution. We propose a simple three-qubit
experiment which would illustrate the failure of Heisenberg's
measurement--disturbance relation, and the validity of an alternative relation
proposed by Ozawa
Entanglement of identical particles and reference phase uncertainty
We have recently introduced a measure of the bipartite entanglement of
identical particles, E_P, based on the principle that entanglement should be
accessible for use as a resource in quantum information processing. We show
here that particle entanglement is limited by the lack of a reference phase
shared by the two parties, and that the entanglement is constrained to
reference-phase invariant subspaces. The super-additivity of E_P results from
the fact that this constraint is weaker for combined systems. A shared
reference phase can only be established by transferring particles between the
parties, that is, with additional nonlocal resources. We show how this nonlocal
operation can increase the particle entanglement.Comment: 8 pages, no figures. Invited talk given at EQIS'03, Kyoto, September,
2003. Minor typos corrected, 1 reference adde
The pointer basis and the feedback stabilization of quantum systems
The dynamics for an open quantum system can be `unravelled' in infinitely
many ways, depending on how the environment is monitored, yielding different
sorts of conditioned states, evolving stochastically. In the case of ideal
monitoring these states are pure, and the set of states for a given monitoring
forms a basis (which is overcomplete in general) for the system. It has been
argued elsewhere [D. Atkins et al., Europhys. Lett. 69, 163 (2005)] that the
`pointer basis' as introduced by Zurek and Paz [Phys. Rev. Lett 70,
1187(1993)], should be identified with the unravelling-induced basis which
decoheres most slowly. Here we show the applicability of this concept of
pointer basis to the problem of state stabilization for quantum systems. In
particular we prove that for linear Gaussian quantum systems, if the feedback
control is assumed to be strong compared to the decoherence of the pointer
basis, then the system can be stabilized in one of the pointer basis states
with a fidelity close to one (the infidelity varies inversely with the control
strength). Moreover, if the aim of the feedback is to maximize the fidelity of
the unconditioned system state with a pure state that is one of its conditioned
states, then the optimal unravelling for stabilizing the system in this way is
that which induces the pointer basis for the conditioned states. We illustrate
these results with a model system: quantum Brownian motion. We show that even
if the feedback control strength is comparable to the decoherence, the optimal
unravelling still induces a basis very close to the pointer basis. However if
the feedback control is weak compared to the decoherence, this is not the case
Characterization of a qubit Hamiltonian using adaptive measurements in a fixed basis
We investigate schemes for Hamiltonian parameter estimation of a two-level
system using repeated measurements in a fixed basis. The simplest (Fourier
based) schemes yield an estimate with a mean square error (MSE) that decreases
at best as a power law ~N^{-2} in the number of measurements N. By contrast, we
present numerical simulations indicating that an adaptive Bayesian algorithm,
where the time between measurements can be adjusted based on prior measurement
results, yields a MSE which appears to scale close to \exp(-0.3 N). That is,
measurements in a single fixed basis are sufficient to achieve exponential
scaling in N.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Published versio
Entanglement under restricted operations: Analogy to mixed-state entanglement
We show that the classification of bi-partite pure entangled states when
local quantum operations are restricted yields a structure that is analogous in
many respects to that of mixed-state entanglement. Specifically, we develop
this analogy by restricting operations through local superselection rules, and
show that such exotic phenomena as bound entanglement and activation arise
using pure states in this setting. This analogy aids in resolving several
conceptual puzzles in the study of entanglement under restricted operations. In
particular, we demonstrate that several types of quantum optical states that
possess confusing entanglement properties are analogous to bound entangled
states. Also, the classification of pure-state entanglement under restricted
operations can be much simpler than for mixed-state entanglement. For instance,
in the case of local Abelian superselection rules all questions concerning
distillability can be resolved.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; published versio
ROM-based computation: quantum versus classical
We introduce a model of computation based on read only memory (ROM), which
allows us to compare the space-efficiency of reversible, error-free classical
computation with reversible, error-free quantum computation. We show that a
ROM-based quantum computer with one writable qubit is universal, whilst two
writable bits are required for a universal classical ROM-based computer. We
also comment on the time-efficiency advantages of quantum computation within
this model.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, minor corrections + section 5 substantially
change
Adaptive single-shot phase measurements: The full quantum theory
The phase of a single-mode field can be measured in a single-shot measurement
by interfering the field with an effectively classical local oscillator of
known phase. The standard technique is to have the local oscillator detuned
from the system (heterodyne detection) so that it is sometimes in phase and
sometimes in quadrature with the system over the course of the measurement.
This enables both quadratures of the system to be measured, from which the
phase can be estimated. One of us [H.M. Wiseman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4587
(1995)] has shown recently that it is possible to make a much better estimate
of the phase by using an adaptive technique in which a resonant local
oscillator has its phase adjusted by a feedback loop during the single-shot
measurement. In Ref.~[H.M. Wiseman and R.B. Killip, Phys. Rev. A 56, 944] we
presented a semiclassical analysis of a particular adaptive scheme, which
yielded asymptotic results for the phase variance of strong fields. In this
paper we present an exact quantum mechanical treatment. This is necessary for
calculating the phase variance for fields with small photon numbers, and also
for considering figures of merit other than the phase variance. Our results
show that an adaptive scheme is always superior to heterodyne detection as far
as the variance is concerned. However the tails of the probability distribution
are surprisingly high for this adaptive measurement, so that it does not always
result in a smaller probability of error in phase-based optical communication.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures (concatenated), Submitted to Phys. Rev.
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