Phase Retrieval Using Unitary 2-Designs

We consider a variant of the phase retrieval problem, where vectors are replaced by unitary matrices, i.e., the unknown signal is a unitary matrix U, and the measurements consist of squared inner products |Tr(C*U)|^2 with unitary matrices C that are chosen by the observer. This problem has applications to quantum process tomography, when the unknown process is a unitary operation. We show that PhaseLift, a convex programming algorithm for phase retrieval, can be adapted to this matrix setting, using measurements that are sampled from unitary 4- and 2-designs. In the case of unitary 4-design measurements, we show that PhaseLift can reconstruct all unitary matrices, using a near-optimal number of measurements. This extends previous work on PhaseLift using spherical 4-designs. In the case of unitary 2-design measurements, we show that PhaseLift still works pretty well on average: it recovers almost all signals, up to a constant additive error, using a near-optimal number of measurements. These 2-design measurements are convenient for quantum process tomography, as they can be implemented via randomized benchmarking techniques. This is the first positive result on PhaseLift using 2-designs.Comment: 21 pages; v3: minor revisions, to appear at SampTA 2017; v2: rewritten to focus on phase retrieval, with new title, improved error bounds, and numerics; v1: original version, titled "Quantum Compressed Sensing Using 2-Designs

Direct Fidelity Estimation from Few Pauli Measurements

We describe a simple method for certifying that an experimental device prepares a desired quantum state ρ. Our method is applicable to any pure state ρ, and it provides an estimate of the fidelity between ρ and the actual (arbitrary) state in the lab, up to a constant additive error. The method requires measuring only a constant number of Pauli expectation values, selected at random according to an importance-weighting rule. Our method is faster than full tomography by a factor of d, the dimension of the state space, and extends easily and naturally to quantum channels

Pseudorandom States, Non-Cloning Theorems and Quantum Money

We propose the concept of pseudorandom states and study their constructions, properties, and applications. Under the assumption that quantum-secure one-way functions exist, we present concrete and efficient constructions of pseudorandom states. The non-cloning theorem plays a central role in our study---it motivates the proper definition and characterizes one of the important properties of pseudorandom quantum states. Namely, there is no efficient quantum algorithm that can create more copies of the state from a given number of pseudorandom states. As the main application, we prove that any family of pseudorandom states naturally gives rise to a private-key quantum money scheme.Comment: 20 page