Entanglement at distance: qubits versus continuous variables

We consider the problem of obtaining maximally entangled photon states at distance in the presence of loss. We compare the efficiency of two different schemes in establishing $N$ shared ebits: i) $N$ single ebit states with the qubit encoded on polarization; ii) a single continuous variable entangled state (emode) assisted by optimal local operation and classical communication (LOCC) protocol in order to obtain a $2^N$-dimensional maximally entangled state, with qubits encoded on the photon number.Comment: 5 pages. 4 eps files. Use fortschritte.sty (included

Purification of noisy quantum measurements

We consider the problem of improving noisy quantum measurements by suitable preprocessing strategies making many noisy detectors equivalent to a single ideal detector. For observables pertaining to finite-dimensional systems (e.g. qubits or spins) we consider preprocessing strategies that are reminiscent of quantum error correction procedures and allows one to perfectly measure an observable on a single quantum system for increasing number of inefficient detectors. For measurements of observables with unbounded spectrum (e.g. photon number, homodyne and heterodyne detection), the purification of noisy quantum measurements can be achieved by preamplification as suggested by H. P. Yuen [1].Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures; minor correction

Joint estimation of real squeezing and displacement

We study the problem of joint estimation of real squeezing and amplitude of the radiation field, deriving the measurement that maximizes the probability density of detecting the true value of the unknown parameters. More generally, we provide a solution for the problem of estimating the unknown unitary action of a nonunimodular group in the maximum likelihood approach. Remarkably, in this case the optimal measurements do not coincide with the so called square-root measurements. In the case of squeezing and displacement we analyze in detail the sensitivity of estimation for coherent states and displaced squeezed states, deriving the asymptotic relation between the uncertainties in the joint estimation and the corresponding uncertainties in the optimal separate measurements of squeezing and displacement. A two-mode setup is also analyzed, showing how entanglement between optical modes can be used to approximate perfect estimation.Comment: 14 pages, 3 eps figures; a section has been added with new results in terms of Heisenberg uncertainty relations for the joint measuremen

Informationally complete measurements on bipartite quantum systems: comparing local with global measurements

Informationally complete measurements allow the estimation of expectation values of any operator on a quantum system, by changing only the data-processing of the measurement outcomes. In particular, an informationally complete measurement can be used to perform quantum tomography, namely to estimate the density matrix of the quantum state. The data-processing is generally nonunique, and can be optimized according to a given criterion. In this paper we provide the solution of the optimization problem which minimizes the variance in the estimation. We then consider informationally complete measurements performed over bipartite quantum systems focusing attention on universally covariant measurements, and compare their statistical efficiency when performed either locally or globally on the two systems. Among global measurements we consider the special case of Bell measurements, which allow to estimate the expectation of a restricted class of operators. We compare the variance in the three cases: local, Bell, and unrestricted global--and derive conditions for the operators to be estimated such that one type of measurement is more efficient than the other. In particular, we find that for factorized operators and Bell projectors the Bell measurement always performs better than the unrestricted global measurement, which in turn outperforms the local one. For estimation of the matrix elements of the density operator, the relative performances depend on the basis on which the state is represented, and on the matrix element being diagonal or off-diagonal, however, with the global unrestricted measurement generally performing better than the local one.Comment: 8 pages, no figure