1,720,994 research outputs found
Observable measure of quantum coherence in finite dimensional systems
Quantum coherence is the key resource for quantum technology, with applications in quantum optics, information processing, metrology, and cryptography. Yet, there is no universally efficient method for quantifying coherence either in theoretical or in experimental practice. I introduce a framework for measuring quantum coherence in finite dimensional systems. I define a theoretical measure which satisfies the reliability criteria established in the context of quantum resource theories. Then, I present an experimental scheme implementable with current technology which evaluates the quantum coherence of an unknown state of a d-dimensional system by performing two programmable measurements on an ancillary qubit, in place of the O(d2) direct measurements required by full state reconstruction. The result yields a benchmark for monitoring quantum effects in complex systems, e.g., certifying nonclassicality in quantum protocols and probing the quantum behavior of biological complexes
An axiomatic measure of one-way quantum information
I introduce an algorithm to detect one-way quantum information between two interacting quantum systems, i.e. the direction and orientation of the information transfer in arbitrary quantum dynamics. I then build an information-theoretic quantifier of one-way information which satisfies a set of desirable axioms. In particular, it correctly evaluates whether correlation implies one-way quantum information, and when the latter is transferred between uncorrelated systems. In the classical scenario, the quantity measures information transfer between random variables. I also generalize the method to identify and rank concurrent sources of quantum information flow in many-body dynamics, enabling to reconstruct causal patterns in complex networks
How Difficult is it to Prepare a Quantum State?
Consider a quantum system prepared in an input state. One wants to drive it into a target state. Assuming classical states and operations as free resources, I identify a geometric cost function which quantifies the difficulty of the protocol in terms of how different it is from a classical process. The quantity determines a lower bound to the number of commuting unitary transformations required to complete the task. I then discuss the link between the quantum character of a state preparation and the amount of coherence and quantum correlations that are created in the target state
Interpreting quantum discord in quantum metrology
Multipartite quantum systems show properties which do not admit a classical explanation. In particular, even nonentangled states can enjoy a kind of quantum correlations called quantum discord. I discuss some recent results on the role of quantum discord in metrology. Given an interferometric phase estimation protocol where the Hamiltonian is initially unknown to the experimentalist, the quantum discord of the probe state quantifies the minimum precision of the estimation. This provides a physical interpretation to a widely investigated information-theoretic quantity
Information Geometry of Quantum Resources
I review recent works showing that information geometry is a useful framework to characterize quantum coherence and entanglement. Quantum systems exhibit peculiar properties which cannot be justified by classical physics, e.g. quantum coherence and quantum correlations. Once confined to thought experiments, they are nowadays created and manipulated by exerting an exquisite experimental control of atoms, molecules and photons. It is important to identify and quantify such quantum features, as they are deemed to be key resources to achieve supraclassical performances in computation and communication protocols. The information geometry viewpoint elucidates the advantage provided by quantum superpositions in phase estimation. Also, it enables to link measures of coherence and entanglement to observables, which can be evaluated in a laboratory by a limited number of measurements
Interplay between computable measures of entanglement and other quantum correlations
Composite quantum systems can be in generic states characterized not only by entanglement but also by more general quantum correlations. The interplay between these two signatures of nonclassicality is still not completely understood. In this work we investigate this issue, focusing on computable and observable measures of such correlations: entanglement is quantified by the negativity N, while general quantum correlations are measured by the (normalized) geometric quantum discord DG. For two-qubit systems, we find that the geometric discord reduces to the squared negativity on pure states, while the relationship DGN2 holds for arbitrary mixed states. The latter result is rigorously extended to pure, Werner, and isotropic states of two-qudit systems for arbitrary d, and numerical evidence of its validity for arbitrary states of a qubit and a qutrit is provided as well. Our results establish an interesting hierarchy, which we conjecture to be universal, between two relevant and experimentally friendly nonclassicality indicators. This ties in with the intuition that general quantum correlations should at least contain and in general exceed entanglement on mixed states of composite quantum systems. © 2011 American Physical Society
Quantum discord for general two-qubit states: Analytical progress
We present a reliable algorithm to evaluate quantum discord for general two-qubit states, amending and extending an approach recently put forward for the subclass of X states. A closed expression for the discord of arbitrary states of two qubits cannot be obtained, as the optimization problem for the conditional entropy requires the solution to a pair of transcendental equations in the state parameters. We apply our algorithm to run a numerical comparison between quantum discord and an alternative, computable measure of nonclassical correlations, namely, the geometric discord. We identify the extremally nonclassically correlated two-qubit states according to the (normalized) geometric discord, at a fixed value of the conventional quantum discord. The latter cannot exceed the square root of the former for systems of two qubits. © 2011 American Physical Society
Observable measure of bipartite quantum correlations
We introduce a measure Q of bipartite quantum correlations for arbitrary two-qubit states, expressed as a state-independent function of the density matrix elements. The amount of quantum correlations can be quantified experimentally by measuring the expectation value of a small set of observables on up to four copies of the state, without the need for a full tomography. We extend the measure to 2×d systems, providing its explicit form in terms of observables and applying it to the relevant class of multiqubit states employed in the deterministic quantum computation with one quantum bit model. The number of required measurements to determine Q in our scheme does not increase with d. Our results provide an experimentally friendly framework to estimate quantitatively the degree of general quantum correlations in composite systems. © 2012 American Physical Society
Witnessing multipartite entanglement by detecting asymmetry
The characterization of quantum coherence in the context of quantum information theory and its interplay with quantum correlations is currently subject of intense study. Coherence in a Hamiltonian eigenbasis yields asymmetry, the ability of a quantum system to break a dynamical symmetry generated by the Hamiltonian. We here propose an experimental strategy to witness multipartite entanglement in many-body systems by evaluating the asymmetry with respect to an additive Hamiltonian. We test our scheme by simulating asymmetry and entanglement detection in a three-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) diagonal state
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