Experimental determination of an unknown quantum state usually requires several incompatible measurements. However, it is also possible to determine the full quantum state from a single, repeated measurement. For this purpose, the quantum system whose state is to be determined is first coupled to a second quantum system (the "assistant") in such a way that part of the information in the quantum state is transferred to the assistant. The actual measurement is then performed on the enlarged system including the original system and the assistant. We discuss in detail the requirements of this procedure and experimentally implement it on a simple quantum system consisting of nuclear spins.
We show that, for any composite system with an arbitrary number of finite-dimensional subsystems, it is possible to directly measure the multipartite concurrence of pure states by detecting only one single factorizable observable, provided that two copies of the composite state are available. This result can be immediately put into practice in trapped-ion and entangled-photon experiments.
The theoretical foundations of a new general approach to the measurement problem of vibrational observables in trapped ion systems is reported. The method rests upon the introduction of a simple vibronic coupling structure appropriately conceived to link the internal ionic state measurement outcomes to the mean value of a motional variable of interest. Some applications are provided and discussed in detail, bringing to light the feasibility and the wide potentiality of the proposal.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Quantum Mechanics is the impossibility of measuring at the same time observables corresponding to non-commuting operators. This impossibility can be partially relaxed when considering joint or sequential weak values evaluation. Indeed, weak measurements have been a real breakthrough in the quantum measurement framework that is of the utmost interest from both a fundamental and an applicative point of view. Here we show how we realized, for the first time, a sequential weak value evaluation of two incompatible observables on a single photon.
We consider a hypothetical apparatus that implements measurements for arbitrary 4-local quantum observables A on n qubits. The apparatus implements the ``measurement algorithm'' after receiving a classical description of A. We show that a few precise measurements, applied to a basis state would provide a probabilistic solution of PSPACE problems. The error probability decreases exponentially with the number of runs if the measurement accuracy is of the order of the spectral gaps of A. Moreover, every decision problem which can be solved on a quantum computer in T time steps can be encoded into…
Measurement of an observable on a quantum system involves a probabilistic collapse of the quantum state and a corresponding measurement outcome. Lüders and von Neumann state update rules attempt to describe the above phenomenological observations. These rules are identical for a nondegenerate observable, but differ for a degenerate observable. While Lüders rule preserves superpositions within a degenerate subspace under a measurement of the corresponding degenerate observable, the von Neumann rule does not. Recently Hegerfeldt and Mayato [Phys. Rev. A, 85, 032116 (2012)] had formulated a proto…
Dynamic correlations of quantum observables are challenging to measure due to measurement backaction incurred at early times. Recent work [P. Uhrich et al., Phys. Rev. A, 96:022127 (2017)] has shown that ancilla-based noninvasive measurements are able to reduce this backaction, allowing for dynamic correlations of single-site spin observables to be measured. We generalise this result to correlations of arbitrary spin observables and extend the measurement protocol to simultaneous noninvasive measurements which allow for real and imaginary parts of correlations to be extracted from a single set…
In this paper I show that any $m$th-degree polynomial function of the elements of the density matrix $ρ$ can be determined by finding the expectation value of an observable on $m$ copies of $ρ$, without performing state tomography. Since a circuit exists which can approximate the measurement of any observable, in principle one can find a circuit which will estimate any such polynomial function by averaging over many runs. I construct some simple examples and compare these results to existing procedures.
The notion coexistence of quantum observables was introduced to describe the possibility of measuring two or more observables together. Here we survey the various different formalisations of this notion and their connections. We review examples illustrating the necessary degrees of unsharpness for two noncommuting observables to be jointly measurable (in one sense of the phrase). We demonstrate the possibility of measuring together (in another sense of the phrase) noncoexistent observables. This leads us to a reconsideration of the connection between joint measurability and noncommutativity of…
Measuring entanglement is a demanding task that usually requires full tomography of a quantum system, involving a number of observables that grows exponentially with the number of parties. Recently, it was suggested that adding a single ancillary qubit would allow for the efficient measurement of concurrence, and indeed any entanglement monotone associated to antilinear operations. Here, we report on the experimental implementation of such a device---an embedding quantum simulator---in photonics, encoding the entangling dynamics of a bipartite system into a tripartite one. We show that biparti…
Entanglement of formation is an important measure of quantum entanglement. We present an experimental way to measure the entanglement of formation for arbitrary dimensional pure states. The measurement only evolves local quantum mechanical observables.
The problem of the experimental determination of the amount of entanglement of a bipartite pure state is addressed. We show that measuring a single observable does not suffice to determine the entanglement of a given unknown pure state of two particles. Possible minimal local measuring strategies are discussed and a comparison is made on the basis of their best achievable precision.
Contextuality is a central property in comparative analysis of classical, quantum, and supercorrelated systems. We examine and compare two well-motivated approaches to contextuality. One approach ("contextuality-by-default") is based on the idea that one and the same physical property measured under different conditions (contexts) is represented by different random variables. The other approach is based on the idea that while a physical property is represented by a single random variable irrespective of its context, the joint distributions of the random variables describing the system can invo…
A complete theory of overmeasurement by measuring refinements of observables is presented. It encompasses a wider set of functions of observ- ables (coarsenings) . Thus the theory has a broad potential application.It is applied to a thorough investigation of simultaneous measurements. In partic- ular, the set of all simultaneous measurements for a given pair of compatible observables is determined.
We introduce the quantum indirect estimation theory, which provides a general framework to address the problem of which ensemble averages can be estimated by means of an available set of measuring apparatuses, e. g. estimate the ensemble average of an observable by measuring other observable. A main ingredient in this approach is that of informationally complete (infocomplete in short) measurements, which allow to estimate the ensemble average of any arbitrary system operator, as for quantum tomography. This naturally leads to the more stringent concept of AB-informationally complete measureme…
Quantum mechanics predicts the joint probability distributions of the outcomes of simultaneous measurements of commuting observables, but the current formulation lacks the operational definition of simultaneous measurements. In order to provide foundations of joint statistics of local general measurements on entangled systems in a general theoretical framework, the question is answered as to under what condition the outputs of two measuring apparatuses satisfy the joint probability formula for simultaneous measurements of their observables. For this purpose, all the possible state changes caus…
We discuss a surprisingly simple scheme for accounting (and removal) of error in observables determined from quantum algorithms. A correction to the value of the observable is calculated by first measuring the observable with all error sources active and subsequently measuring the observable with each error source removed separately. We apply this scheme to the variational quantum eigensolver, simulating the calculation of the ground state energy of equilibrium H$_2$ and LiH in the presence of several noise sources, including amplitude damping, dephasing, thermal noise, and correlated noise. W…
Measurements of single-mode phase observables are studied in the spirit of the quantum theory of measurement. We determine the minimal measurement models of phase observables and consider methods of measuring such observables by using a double homodyne detector. We show that, in principle, the canonical phase distribution of the signal state can be measured via double homodyne detection by first processing the state using a two-mode unitary channel.
The recently established universal uncertainty principle revealed that two nowhere commuting observables can be measured simultaneously in some state, whereas they have no joint probability distribution in any state. Thus, one measuring apparatus can simultaneously measure two observables that have no simultaneous reality. In order to reconcile this discrepancy, an approach based on quantum logic is proposed to establish the relation between quantum reality and measurement. We provide a language speaking of values of observables independent of measurement based on quantum logic and we construc…
We define a complete measurement of a quantum observable (POVM) as a measurement of the maximally refined version of the POVM. Complete measurements give information from the multiplicities of the measurement outcomes and can be viewed as state preparation procedures. We show that any POVM can be measured completely by using sequential measurements or maximally refinable instruments. Moreover, the ancillary space of a complete measurement can be chosen to be minimal.
We consider a solvable model of a laser-interferometer measuring a weak classical force. The model takes into account dissipation of the energy by transfer to the environment at zero temperature. The sensitivity (the signal-to-noise ratio) of the device is defined as the corresponding ratio between the mean value and the variance of a certain observable. We analyze the dependence of the sensitivity upon the duration of the measurement and the photon number. For parameters typical for the LIGO project, we discuss numerical estimates.
We prove necessary and sufficient conditions for the informational completeness of an arbitrary set of Gaussian observables on continuous variable systems with finite number of degrees of freedom. In particular, we show that an informationally complete set either contains a single informationally complete observable, or includes infinitely many observables. We show that for a single informationally complete observable, the minimal outcome space is the phase space, and the observable can always be obtained from the quantum optical $Q$-function by linear postprocessing and Gaussian convolution, …
I consider a thought experiment measuring the decoherence for quasiclassical superpositions of gravitational field. A version of the hole argument allows to prove that a covariant (background-free) theory is completely unable to define the outcome of this experiment and is therefore not viable. Instead, the results of experiments of this type allow to reconstruct a common background shared by all superposed gravitational fields.
In Quantum Physics it is not always possible to directly perform the measurement of an obsevable; in some of these cases, however, its value can be {\sl detected}, i.e. it can be inferred by measuring {\sl another} observable characterized by perfect correlation with the observable of interest. Though a {\sl detection} is often interpreted as a {\sl measurement} of the detected observable, we prove that the two concepts cannot be identified in Quantum Physics. Furthermore, we establish what meaning and role can be ascribed to detections coherently with Quantum Theory.
Assuming a well-behaving quantum-to-classical transition, measuring large quantum systems should be highly informative with low measurement-induced disturbance, while the coupling between system and measurement apparatus is "fairly simple" and weak. Here, we show that this is indeed possible within the formalism of quantum mechanics. We discuss an example of estimating the collective magnetization of a spin ensemble by simultaneous measuring three orthogonal spin directions. For the task of estimating the direction of a spin-coherent state, we find that the average guessing fidelity and the sy…
We present a protocol that allows us to obtain the concurrence of any two qubit pure state by performing a minimal and optimal tomography of one of the subsystems through measuring a single observable of an ancillary four dimensional qudit. An implementation for a system of trapped ions is also proposed, which can be achieved with present day experimental techniques.
In Quantum Physics there are circumstances where the direct measurement of particular observables encounters diffculties; in some of these cases, however, its value can be evaluated, i.e. it can be inferred by measuring another observable characterized by perfect correlation with the observable of interest. Though an evaluation is often interpreted as a measurement of the evaluated observable, we prove that the two concepts cannot be identified in Quantum Physics, because the identifcation yields contradictions. Then, we establish the conceptual status of evaluations in Quantum Theory and the …
Homodyne tomography provides a way for measuring generic field-operators. Here we analyze the determination of the most relevant quantities: intensity, field, amplitude and phase. We show that tomographic measurements are affected by additional noise in comparison with the direct detection of each observable by itself. The case of of coherent states has been analyzed in details and earlier estimations of tomographic precision are critically discussed.
We show that the ground-state quantum correlations of an Ising model can be detected by monitoring the time evolution of a single spin alone, and that the critical point of a quantum phase transition is detected through a maximum of a suitably defined observable. A proposed implementation with trapped ions realizes an experimental probe of quantum phase transitions which is based on quantum correlations and scalable for large system sizes.
We show that there are informationally complete joint measurements of two conjugated observables on a finite quantum system, meaning that they enable to identify all quantum states from their measurement outcome statistics. We further demonstrate that it is possible to implement a joint observable as a sequential measurement. If we require minimal noise in the joint measurement, then the joint observable is unique. If the dimension d is odd, then this observable is informationally complete. But if d is even, then the joint observable is not informationally complete and one has to allow more no…
For theoretical approach of quantum measurements it is proposed a set of reconsidered conjectures. The proposed approach implies linear functional transformations for probability density and current but preserves the expressions for operators of observables. The measuring uncertainties appear as changes in the probabilistic estimators of observables.
In quantum theory, a physical observable is represented by a Hermitian operator as it admits real eigenvalues. This stems from the fact that any measuring apparatus that is supposed to measure a physical observable will always yield a real number. However, reality of eigenvalue of some operator does not mean that it is necessarily Hermitian. There are examples of non-Hermitian operators which may admit real eigenvalues under some symmetry conditions. However, in general, given a non-Hermitian operator, its average value in a quantum state is a complex number and there are only very limited met…
Experimental characterizations of a quantum system involve the measurement of expectation values of observables for a preparable state |psi> of the quantum system. Such expectation values can be measured by repeatedly preparing |psi> and coupling the system to an apparatus. For this method, the precision of the measured value scales as 1/sqrt(N) for N repetitions of the experiment. For the problem of estimating the parameter phi in an evolution exp(-i phi H), it is possible to achieve precision 1/N (the quantum metrology limit) provided that sufficient information about H and its spectrum is a…
We explore the relation between entanglement entropy of quantum many body systems and the distribution of corresponding, properly selected, observables. Such a relation is necessary to actually measure the entanglement entropy. We show that in general, the Shannon entropy of the probability distribution of certain symmetry observables gives a lower bound to the entropy. In some cases this bound is saturated and directly gives the entropy. We also show other cases in which the probability distribution contains enough information to extract the entropy: we show how this is done in several exampl…
Heisenberg's uncertainty relations for measurement quantify how well we can jointly measure two complementary observables and have attracted much experimental and theoretical attention recently. Here we provide an exact tradeoff between the worst-case errors in measuring jointly two observables of a qubit, i.e., all the allowed and forbidden pairs of errors, especially asymmetric ones, are exactly pinpointed. For each pair of optimal errors we provide an optimal joint measurement that is realizable without introducing any ancilla and entanglement. Possible experimental implementations are disc…
In quantum mechanics, measurements cause wavefunction collapse that yields precise outcomes, for non-commuting observables such as position and momentum Heisenberg's uncertainty principle limits the intrinsic precision of a state. Although theoretical work has demonstrated the possibility to perform simultaneous non-commuting measurements and has revealed the limits on measurement outcomes, only recently has the dynamics of the quantum state been discussed. To realize this unexplored regime, we simultaneously apply two continuous quantum non-demolition probes of non-commuting observables to a …
Nonlocal measurement, or instantaneous measurement of nonlocal observables, is a considerably difficult task even for a simple form of product observable since relativistic causality prohibits interaction between spacelike separate subsystems. Following a recent proposal for effectively creating the von Neumann measurement Hamiltonian of nonlocal observables [Brodutch and Cohen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 070404 (2016)], here we report a proof-of-principle demonstration of nonlocally measuring a product observable using linear optics without the violation of relativistic causality. Our scheme provi…
We present a reformulation of quantum mechanics in terms of probability measures and functions on a general classical sample space and in particular in terms of probability densities and functions on phase space. The basis of our proceeding is the existence of so-called statistically complete observables and the duality between the state spaces and the spaces of the observables, the latter holding in the quantum as well as in the classical case. In the phase-space context, we further discuss joint position-momentum observables, Hilbert spaces of infinitely differentiable functions on phase spa…
I propose a scheme for reconstructing the weak value of an observable without the need for weak measurements. The post-selection in weak measurements is replaced by an initial projector measurement. The observable can be measured using any form of interaction, including projective measurements. The reconstruction is effected by measuring the change in the expectation value of the observable due to the projector measurement. The weak value may take nonclassical values if the projector measurement disturbs the expectation value of the observable.
While the novel applications of weak values have recently attracted wide attention, weak measurement, the usual way to extract weak values, suffers from risky approximations and severe quantum noises. In this paper, we show that the weak-value information can be obtained exactly in strong measurement with postselections, via measuring the coupling-deformed pointer observables, i.e., the observables selected according to the coupling strength. With this approach, we keep all the advantages claimed by weak-measurement schemes and at the same time solve some widely criticized problems thereof, su…
Quantum mechanics predicts the joint probability distribution of the outcomes of simultaneous measurements of commuting observables, but, in the state of the art, has lacked the operational definition of simultaneous measurements. The question is answered as to when the consecutive applications of measuring apparatuses give a simultaneous measurement of their observables. For this purpose, all the possible state reductions caused by measurements of an observable is also characterized by their operations.
The extended semantic realism (ESR) model recently worked out by one of the authors embodies the mathematical formalism of standard (Hilbert space) quantum mechanics in a noncontextual framework, reinterpreting quantum probabilities as conditional instead of absolute. We provide here a Hilbert space representation of the generalized observables introduced by the ESR model that satisfy a simple physical condition, propose a generalization of the projection postulate, and suggest a possible mathematical description of the measurement process in terms of evolution of the compound system made up o…
The polarization analysis of quantized probe light transmitted through an atomic ensemble has been used to prepare entangled collective atomic states. In a "balanced" detection configuration, where the difference signal from two detection ports is analyzed, the continuous monitoring of a component of the Stokes field vector provides a means for conditional projective measurements on the atomic system. Here, we make use of classical driving fields, in the pulsed regime, and of an "unbalanced" detection setup (single detector) where the effective photon number of scattered photons is the detecte…
We put forward a method that allows the experimental determination of the entire spatial mode spectrum of any arbitrary monochromatic wave field in a plane normal to its propagation direction. For coherent optical fields, our spatial spectrum analyzer can be implemented with a small number of benchmark refractive elements embedded in a single Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We detail an efficient setup for measuring in the Hermite-Gaussian mode basis. Our scheme should also be feasible in the context of atom optics for analyzing the spatial profiles of macroscopic matter waves.
We investigate the notion of quantumness based on the non-commutativity of the algebra of observables and introduce a measure of quantumness based on the mutual incompatibility of quantum states. We show that such a quantity can be experimentally measured with an interferometric setup and that, when an arbitrary bipartition of a given composite system is introduced, it detects the one-way quantum correlations restricted to one of the two subsystems. We finally show that, by combining only two projective measurements and carrying out the interference procedure, our measure becomes an efficient …
Unsolved controversies about uncertainty relations and quantum measurements still persists nowadays. They originate around the shortcomings regarding the conventional interpretation of uncertainty relations. Here we show that the respective shortcomings disclose veridic and unavoidable facts which require the abandonment of the mentioned interpretation. So the primitive uncertainty relations appear as being either thought fictions or fluctuations formulae. Subsequently we reveal that the conventional approaches of quantum measurements are grounded on incorrect premises. We propose a new approa…
Srinivas [Commun. Math. Phys. 71 (1980), 131-158] proposed a postulate in quantum mechanics that extends the von Neumann-Lueders collapse postulate to observables with continuous spectrum. His collapse postulate does not determine a unique state change, but depends on a particular choice of an invariant mean. To clear the physical significance of employing different invariant means, we construct different measuring processes of the same observable satisfying the Srinivas collapse postulate corresponding to any given invariant means. Our construction extends the von Neumann type measuring proce…
In this study, we investigate quantum nonseparability between an observed system and a measuring apparatus, or multiple measuring apparatuses. We show that the physical meaning of the outcome of the measuring apparatus obtained by weak measurement with a post-selection differs critically from that without any post-selection. In this study, the nonseparability plays the essential role, which is shown to be the same in a simultaneous conventional von Neumann-type measurement of multiple observables. From this viewpoint, we suggest a new concept, known as {\it simultaneous readability}, which is …
Physical quantities are assumed to take real values, which stems from the fact that an usual measuring instrument that measures a physical observable always yields a real number. Here we consider the question of what will happen if physical observables are allowed to take complex values. In this paper, we show that by allowing observables in the Bell inequality to take complex values, a classical physical theory can actually get the same upper bound of the Bell expression as quantum theory. Also, by extending the real field to the quaternionic field, we can puzzle out the GHZ problem using loc…
We present methods for evaluating the rate of change in quantities during quantum evolution due to coupling to the environment (dissipation hereafter). The protocol is based on repeating a given quantum circuit (or quantum operation) twice, thrice, and so on, and measuring an expectation value after each number of repetitions. We start by applying this method for measuring the rate of purity changes in quantum circuits. This provides direct information on the quality of the circuit. Furthermore, the presented scheme enables to distill the dissipative contribution in the changes of quantities s…
Heisenberg uncertainty relation in quantum mechanics sets the limit on the measurement precision of non-commuting observables, which prevents us from measuring them accurately at the same time. In some applications, however, the information are embedded in two or more non-commuting observables. On the other hand, quantum entanglement allows us to infer through Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations two conjugate observables with precision better than what is allowed by Heisenberg uncertainty relation. With the help of the newly developed SU(1,1) interferometer, we implement a scheme to measure j…
We propose a general construction of an observable measuring the time of occurence of an effect in quantum theory. Time delay in potential scattering is computed as a straightforward application.
A detailed theory of quantum premeasurement dynamics is presented in which a unitary composite-system operator that contains the relevant object-measuring-instrument interaction brings about the final premeasurement state. It does not include collapse, and it does not consider the environment. It is assumed that a discrete degenerate or non-degenerate observable is measured. Premeasurement is defined by the calibration condition, which requires that every initially statistically sharp value of the measured observable has to be detected with statistical certainty by the measuring instrument. Th…
We show that measurements of finite duration performed on an open two-state system can protect the initial state from a phase-noisy environment, provided the measured observable does not commute with the perturbing interaction. When the measured observable commutes with the environmental interaction, the finite-duration measurement accelerates the rate of decoherence induced by the phase noise. For the description of the measurement of an observable that is incompatible with the interaction between system and environment, we have found an approximate analytical expression, valid at zero temper…
