We study a dissipative quantum mechanical model of the projective measurement of a qubit. We demonstrate how a correspondence limit, damped quantum oscillator can realise chaotic-like or periodic trajectories that emerge in sympathy with the projection of the qubit state, providing a model of the measurement process.
We consider the apparatus in a quantum measurement process to be in a mixed state. We propose a simple upper bound on the probability of correctly distinguishing any number of mixed states. We use this to derive fundamental bounds on the efficiency of a measurement in terms of the temperature of the apparatus.
We study the extent to which the outcomes of a quantum measurement can be manipulated by changing the state of the measurement apparatus. The measurement process is modeled as decoherence induced by the experimenter, to gain knowledge about a particular system. The measurement apparatus is assumed to contain a large number of degrees of freedom, and the measurement outcomes are obtained by looking at the long interaction time limit. We study two cases which show contrasting behaviour. With a fixed axis coupling, the measurement is performed along the pointer basis with a high degree of robustn…
It is commonly believed that the most general type of a quantum-mechanical measurement is one described by a positive-operator valued measure (POVM). In the present paper, this statement is proven for any measurements on quantum systems with a finite-dimensional state space. The proof of POVM nature of an arbitrary measurement is carried out using a purely operational approach, which is fully ignorant about what is inside a measurement apparatus. The suggested approach gives also an opportunity to derive the Born rule.
We investigate the information provided about a specified distributed apparatus of n units in the measurement of a quantum state. It is shown that, in contrast to such measurement of a classical state, which is bounded by log (n+1) bits, the information in a quantum measurement is bounded by 3.7 x n^(1/2) bits. This means that the use of quantum apparatus offers an exponential advantage over classical apparatus.
Two types of quantum measurements, measuring the spins of an entangled pair and attempting to measure a spin at either of two positions, are analysed dynamically by apparatuses of the Curie-Weiss type. The outcomes comply with the standard postulates.
The effects of the measurement apparatus on quantum coherence are studied by considering a purely dephasing model of a qubit. The initial state is prepared from a thermal state of the whole system by performing a nonselective measurement on the qubit. The magnitude of the initial postmeasurement coherence is bounded by the value $1/2$, which is realized with special measurement schemes and in the low-temperature limit. The magnitude of coherence identically vanishes, increases or decreases with approximately constant velocity over a determined short time scale, according to the choice of the p…
We propose simple schemes that can perfectly identify projective measurement apparatus secretly chosen from a finite set. Entanglements are used in these schemes both to make possible the perfect identification and to improve the efficiency significantly. A brief discussion on the problem of how to appropriately define distance measures of measurements is also provided based on the results of identification.
Using the retrodictive approach of quantum physics, we show that the state retrodicted from the response of a measurement apparatus is a convenient tool to fully characterize its quantum properties. We translate in terms of this state some interesting aspects of the quantum behavior of a detector, such as the non-classicality or the non-gaussian character of its measurements. We also introduce estimators - the projectivity, the ideality, the fidelity or the detectivity of measurements perfomed by the apparatus - which directly follow from the retrodictive approach. Beyond their fundamental sig…
A measurement is deemed successful, if one can maximize the information gain by the measurement apparatus. Here, we ask if quantum coherence of the system imposes a limitation on the information gain during quantum measurement. First, we argue that the information gain in a quantum measurement is nothing but the coherent information or the distinct quantum information that one can send from the system to apparatus. We prove that the maximum information gain from a pure state, using a mixed apparatus is upper bounded by the initial coherence of the system. Further, we illustrate the measurement…
A complete apparatus is defined as reacting to every state of the measured system. Standard quantum mechanics of indistinguishable particles is shown to imply that apparatuses must be incomplete or else they would be drowned out by noise. Each quantum observable is then an abstract representation of many measurement apparatuses, each incomplete in a different way. Moreover, a measured system must be prepared in a state that is orthogonal to the states of all particles of the same type in the environment. This is the main purpose of preparations. A system so prepared is said to have a "separati…
We precise for the first time the quantum behavior of a measurement apparatus in the framework of the usual interpretation of quantum physics. We show how such a behavior can also be studied by the retrodiction of pre-measurement states corresponding to its responses. We translate in terms of these states some interesting properties of the behavior of an apparatus, such as the projectivity, the fidelity, the non-Gaussian character, or the non-classicality of measurements performed by this one. We also propose an experimental procedure allowing the tomography of these pre-measurement states for…
The claim that there is an inconsistency of quantum-classical dynamics [1] is investigated. We point out that a consistent formulation of quantum and classical dynamics which can be used to describe quantum measurement processes is already available in the literature [2]. An example in which a quantum system is interacting with a classical system is worked out using this formulation.
Measurement in quantum mechanics is generally described as an irreversible process that perturbs the wavefunction describing a quantum system. In this work we establish a formal connection between the measurement description within the Copenhagen interpretation (i.e., through the collapse of the wavefunction) compared versus a picture in which the system and the measurement apparatus are considered as a whole. We first consider a projective measurement. In this limiting case, the natural requirements of consistency and equivalence between the two pictures lead to the rigorous definition of con…
We consider a multi-level system coupled to a bosonic measurement apparatus. We derive exact expressions for the time-dependent expectation values of a large class of physically relevant observables that depend on degrees of freedom of both sytems. We find that, for this class, though the two systems become entangled as a result of their interaction, they appear classically correlated for long enough times. The unique corresponding separable state is determined explicitly. To better understand the physical parameters that control the time scale of this effective disentanglement process, we stu…
State of a $d$-dimensional quantum system can only be inferred by performing an informationally complete measurement with $m\geqslant d^2$ outcomes. However, an experimentally accessible measurement can be informationally incomplete. Here we show that a single informationally incomplete measuring apparatus is still able to provide all the information about the quantum system if applied several times in a row. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for such a measuring apparatus and give illustrative examples for qubits, qutrits, general $d$-level systems, and composite systems of $n$ q…
In the context of the quantum mechanical modelling of a measurement process using the Stern-Gerlach setup, we critically examine the relationship between the notion of `distinguishability' of apparatus states defined in terms of the inner product and spatial separation among the emerging wave packets. We show that, in general, the mutual orthogonality of these wave packets does not necessarily imply their unambiguous spatial separation even in the asymptotic limit. A testable scheme is formulated to quantify such departures from `idealness' for a range of relevant parameters.
We analyze a quantum measurement where the apparatus is initially in a mixed state. We show that the amount of information gained in a measurement is not equal to the amount of entanglement between the system and the apparatus, but is instead equal to the degree of classical correlations between the two. As a consequence, we derive an uncertainty-like expression relating the information gain in the measurement and the initial mixedness of the apparatus. Final entanglement between the environment and the apparatus is also shown to be relevant for the efficiency of the measurement.
Quantum measurement is a physical process. A system and an apparatus interact for a certain time period (measurement time), and during this interaction, information about an observable is transferred from the system to the apparatus. In this study, we quantify the energy fluctuation of the quantum apparatus required for this physical process to occur autonomously. We first examine the so-called standard model of measurement, which is free from any non-trivial energy-time uncertainty relation, to find that it needs an external system that switches on the interaction between the system and the a…
Heisenberg's uncertainty relation for measurement noise and disturbance states that any position measurement with noise epsilon brings the momentum disturbance not less than hbar/2epsilon. This relation holds only for restricted class of measuring apparatuses. Here, Heisenberg's uncertainty relation is generalized to a relation that holds for all the possible quantum measurements, from which conditions are obtained for measuring apparatuses to satisfy Heisenberg's relation. In particular, every apparatus with the noise and the disturbance statistically independent from the measured object is p…
We implement Feynman's suggestion that the only missing notion needed for the puzzle of Quantum Measurement is the statistical mechanics of amplifying apparatus. We define a thermodynamic limit of quantum amplifiers which is a classically describable system in the sense of Bohr, and define macroscopic pointer variables for the limit system. Then we derive the probabilities of Quantum Measurement from the deterministic Schroedinger equation by the usual techniques of Classical Statistical Mechanics.
We study a configuration of devices that includes (1) a source of some unknown bipartite quantum state that is claimed to be the Bell state $Φ^+$ and (2) two commuting but otherwise unknown measurement apparatus, one on each side, that are each claimed to execute an orthogonal measurement at an angle $θ\in \{0, π/8, π/4\}$ that is chosen by the user. We show that, if the nine distinct probability distributions that are generated by the self checking configuration, one for each pair of angles, are consistent with the specifications, the source and the two measurement apparatus are guaranteed to…
We propose a quantum device that can approximate any projective measurement on a qubit. The desired measurement basis is selected by the quantum state of a "program register". The device is optimized with respect to maximal average fidelity (assuming uniform distribution of measurement bases). An interesting result is that if one uses two qubits in the same state as a program the average fidelity is higher than if he/she takes the second program qubit in the orthogonal state (with respect to the first one). The average information obtainable by the proposed measurements is also calculated and …
A measuring apparatus is described by quantum mechanics while it interacts with the quantum system under observation, and then it must be given a classical description so that the result of the measurement appears as objective reality. Alternatively, the apparatus may always be treated by quantum mechanics, and be measured by a second apparatus which has such a dual description. This article examines whether these two different descriptions are mutually consistent. It is shown that if the dynamical variable used in the first apparatus is represented by an operator of the Weyl-Wigner type (for …
Similarly to quantum states, also quantum measurements can be "mixed", corresponding to a random choice within an ensemble of measuring apparatuses. Such mixing is equivalent to a sort of hidden variable, which produces a noise of purely classical nature. It is then natural to ask which apparatuses are "indecomposable", i. e. do not correspond to any random choice of apparatuses. This problem is interesting not only for foundations, but also for applications, since most optimization strategies give optimal apparatuses that are indecomposable. Mathematically the problem is posed describing each…
When a measurement is made on a system that is not in an eigenstate of the measured observable, it is often assumed that some conservation law has been violated. Discussions of the effect of measurements on conserved quantities often overlook the possibility of entanglement between the measured system and the preparation apparatus. The preparation of a system in any particular state necessarily involves interaction between the apparatus and the system. Since entanglement is a generic result of interaction, as shown by Gemmer and Mahler[1], and by Durt[2,3] one would expect some nonzero entangl…
An experimental set-up for the measurement of the Casimir effect at separations larger than a few microns is presented. The apparatus is based on a mechanical resonator and uses a homodyne detection technique to sense the Casimir force in the plane-parallel configuration. First measurements in the 3-10 micrometer range show an unexpected large force probably due to patch effects.
Finding a physically consistent approach to modelling interactions between classical and quantum systems is a highly nontrivial task. While many proposals based on various mathematical formalisms have been made, most of these efforts run into difficulties of one sort or another. One of the first detailed descriptions was given by Sudarshan and his collaborators who, motivated by the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, proposed a Hilbert space formulation of classical-quantum interactions which made use of the Koopman-von Neumann description of classical systems. Here we use the approach …
We consider the interaction of a quantum system (spin-1/2) with a macroscopic quantum apparatus (harmonic oscillator) which in turn is coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators. Exact solutions of the Markovian Master equation show that the reduced density matrix of the system-apparatus combine decoheres to a statistical mixture where up and down spins eventually correlate with pointer states of the apparatus. For the zero temperature bath these pointer states turn out to be coherent states of the harmonic oscillator for arbitrary initial states of the apparatus. For a high temperature bath po…
We illustrate through numerical results a number of features of environment-induced decoherence under a broad class of apparatus-environment interactions in quantum measurements wherein the reduced system-apparatus density matrix evolves towards the nearest separable state and, in addition, there occurs a mixing in relevant groups of apparatus microstates (see below). The resulting final state is unique and correctly embodies the measurement statistics even in the absence of environment-induced superselection because of energy differences between these groups of states. The partial transpose r…
A dynamical model for the collapse of the wave function in a quantum measurement process is proposed by considering the interaction of a quantum system (spin-1/2) with a macroscopic quantum apparatus interacting with an environment in a dissipative manner. The dissipative interaction leads to decoherence in the superposition states of the apparatus, making its behaviour classical in the sense that the density matrix becomes diagonal with time. Since the apparatus is also interacting with the system, the probabilities of the diagonal density matrix are determined by the state vector of the syst…
The measurement apparatus proposed in the titled paper, "Energy-Time Uncertainty Relations in Quantum Measurements" [Found. Phys. 46, 1522-1550 (2016)] was examined. A simple proof was presented for the non-existence of the apparatus.
By quantum calibration we name an experimental procedure apt to completely characterize an unknown measurement apparatus by comparing it with other calibrated apparatuses. Here we show how to achieve the calibration of an arbitrary measuring apparatus, by using it in conjunction with a ``tomographer'' in a correlation setup with an input bipartite system. The method is robust to imperfections of the tomographer, and works for practically any input state of the bipartite system.
We present a simple information-disturbance tradeoff relation valid for any general measurement apparatus: The disturbance between input and output states is lower bounded by the information the apparatus provides in distinguishing these two states.
A model of quantum measurement is proposed, which aims to describe statistical mechanical aspects of this phenomenon, starting from a purely Hamiltonian formulation. The macroscopic measurement apparatus is modeled as an ideal Bose gas, the order parameter of which, that is, the amplitude of the condensate, is the pointer variable. It is shown that properties of irreversibility and ergodicity breaking, which are inherent in the model apparatus, ensure the appearance of definite results of the measurement, and provide a dynamical realization of wave-function reduction or collapse. The measureme…
We present a hitherto unknown fundamental limitation to a basic measurement: that of the position of a quantum object when the total momentum of the object and apparatus is conserved. This result extends the famous Wigner-Araki-Yanase (WAY) theorem, and shows that accurate position measurements are only practically feasible if there is a large momentum uncertainty in the apparatus.
A well-recognised open conceptual problem in relativistic quantum field theory concerns the relation between measurement and causality. Naive generalisations of quantum measurement rules can allow for superluminal signalling ('impossible measurements'). This raises the problem of delineating physically allowed quantum measurements and operations. We analyse this issue in a recently proposed framework in which local measurements (in possibly curved spacetime) are described physically by coupling the system to a probe. We show that the state-update rule in this setting is consistent with causali…
A quantum measuring instrument is constructed that utilises symmetry breaking to enhance a microscopic signal. The entire quantum system consists of a system-apparatus-environment triad that is composed of a small set of spin-1/2 particles. The apparatus is a ferromagnet that measures the $z$-component of a single spin. A full quantum many-body calculation allows for a careful examination of the loss of phase coherence, the formation and amplification of system-apparatus correlations, the irreversibility of registration, the fault tolerance, and the bias of the device.
A thermally isolated quantum system undergoes unitary evolution by interacting with an external work source. The two-point energy measurement (TPM) protocol defines the work exchanged between the system and the work source by performing ideal energy measurements on the system before, and after, the unitary evolution. However, the ideal energy measurements used in the TPM protocol ultimately result from a unitary coupling with a measurement apparatus, which requires an interaction with an external work source. For the TPM protocol to be self-consistent, we must be able to perform the TPM protoc…
We provide an argument to infer stationary entanglement between light and a mechanical oscillator based on continuous measurement of light only. We propose an experimentally realizable scheme involving an optomechanical cavity driven by a resonant, continuous-wave field operating in the non-sideband-resolved regime. This corresponds to the conventional configuration of an optomechanical position or force sensor. We show analytically that entanglement between the mechanical oscillator and the output field of the optomechanical cavity can be inferred from the measurement of squeezing in (general…
A general discussion is given for first-kind (FK) and quantum non-demolition (QND) measurements. The general conditions for these measurements are derived, including the most general one (called the weak condition), an intermediate one, and the strongest one. The weak condition indicates that we can realize a FK or QND measuring apparatus of wide classes of observables by allowing the apparatus to have a finite response range. A recently-proposed QND photodetector using an electron interferometer is an example of such apparatus.
Maximum likelihood estimation is applied to the determination of an unknown quantum measurement. The measuring apparatus performs measurements on many different quantum states and the positive operator-valued measures governing the measurement statistics are then inferred from the collected data via Maximum-likelihood principle. In contrast to the procedures based on linear inversion, our approach always provides physically sensible result. We illustrate the method on the case of Stern-Gerlach apparatus.
We show that information gain in a qubit measurement is optimal under a Von Neumann measurement. For an initially mixed apparatus kept in touch with a qubit, the conditions for achieving the equality sign of Holevo bound on the information accessible to apparatus are derived. These constraints can be identified as the conditions for the optimization of information gain in a qubit measurement. At the end, we will generalize the idea to qudit measurements using a phase-shift gate.
We work out an exactly solvable hamiltonian model which retains all the features of realistic quantum measurements. In order to use an interaction process involving a system and an apparatus as a measurement, it is necessary that the apparatus is macroscopic. This implies to treat it with quantum statistical mechanics. The relevant time scales of the process are exhibited. It begins with a very rapid disappearance of the off-diagonal blocks of the overall density matrix of the tested system and the apparatus. Possible recurrences are hindered by the large size of the latter. On a much larger t…
In quantum mechanics, pointer states are eigenstates of the observable of the measurement apparatus that represent the possible positions of the display pointer of the equipment. The origin of this concept lies in attempts to fill the blanks in the Everett's relative-state interpretation, and to make it a fully valid description of physical reality. To achieve this, it was necessary to consider not only the main system interacting with the measurement apparatus (like von Neumann and Everett did) but also the role of the environment in eliminating correlations between different possible measure…
The measurement of a quantum system becomes itself a quantum-mechanical process once the apparatus is internalized. That shift of perspective may result in different physical predictions for a variety of reasons. We present a model describing both system and apparatus and consisting of a harmonic oscillator coupled to a field. The equation of motion is a quantum stochastic differential equation. By solving it we establish the conditions ensuring that the two perspectives are compatible, in that the apparatus indeed measures the observable it is ideally supposed to.
A model of a quantum measurement process is presented: a system consisting of a qubit in a superposition interacts with a measuring apparatus consisting of a N qubit state. Looking at the emerging, effective description of the apparatus given by the action of a coarse-graining channel, we have been able to recover information about the superposition coefficients of the system.We have also been able to visualize the death of quantum correlations between system and apparatus and the death of quantum coherences in the apparatus' effective state, in the limit of a strong coarse-graining action - a…
The measurement of a spin-$\half$ is modeled by coupling it to an apparatus, that consists of an Ising magnetic dot coupled to a phonon bath. Features of quantum measurements are derived from the dynamical solution of the measurement, regarded as a process of quantum statistical mechanics. Schrödinger cat terms involving both the system and the apparatus, die out very quickly, while the registration is a process taking the apparatus from its initially metastable state to one of its stable final states. The occurrence of Born probabilities can be inferred at the macroscopic level, by looking at…
We consider the energy-driven stochastic state vector reduction equation for the density matrix, which for pure state density matrices can be written in two equivalent forms. We use these forms to discuss the decoupling of the noise terms for independent subsystems, and to construct ``environmental'' stochastic density matrices whose time-independent expectations are the usual quantum statistical distributions. We then consider a measurement apparatus weakly coupled to an external environment, and show that in mean field (Hartree) approximation the stochastic equation separates into independen…
Niels Bohr proposed that the outcome of the measurement becomes objective and real, and, hence, classical, when its results can be communicated by classical means. In this work we revisit Bohr's postulate using modern tools from the quantum information theory. We find a full confirmation of Bohr's idea: if a measurement device is in a nonclassical state, the measurement results cannot be communicated perfectly by classical means. In this case some part of information in the measurement apparatus is lost in the process of communication: the amount of this lost information turns out to be the qu…
The kind of information provided by a measurement is determined in terms of the correlation established between observables of the apparatus and the measured system. Using the framework of quantum measurement theory, necessary and sufficient conditions for a measurement interaction to produce strong correlations are given and are found to be related to properties of the final object and apparatus states. These general results are illustrated with reference to the standard model of the quantum theory of measurement.
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 …
The inhibition of the decay of a quantum system by frequent measurements is known as quantum Zeno effect. Beyond the limit of projective measurements, the interplay between the unitary dynamics of the system and the coupling to a measurement apparatus becomes relevant. We explore this interplay by considering a quantum particle moving on a one-dimensional chain. A local measurement by coupling to an apparatus with a two-dimensional Hilbert space detects the presence of the particle on a specific chain site. The decay of the population is studied analytically for a two-site chain and numericall…
We will give a new model for measurements of a quantum system such that the measuring apparatuses are described by a unital separable non-type I nuclear simple C$^*$-algebra equipped with certain unital endomorphisms and pure states. An interaction between the quantum system and the apparatus is specified by a unitary associated with the combined system as before. Magnifying to the classical level some aspects of the quantum system so captured in the apparatus is explicitly done by applying the endomorphism; then the resulting state is the superposition of {\em phases} with weights. Nature wil…
Given the state of a quantum system, one can calculate the expectation value of any observable of the system. However, the inverse problem of determining the state by performing different measurements is not a trivial task. In various experimental setups it is reasonably straightforward to reconstruct the state of a quantum system employing linear tomographic technique. In this way the elements of the density matrix can be linearly related to a set of measured quantities. But since different observables of a quantum system are not commuting with each other, one often has to perform series of s…
Weak measurements with imaginary weak values are reexamined in light of recent experimental results. The shift of the meter, due to the imaginary part of the weak value, is derived via the probability of postselection, which allows considering the meter as a distribution of a classical variable. The derivation results in a simple relation between the change in the distribution and its variance. By applying this relation to several experimental results, in which the meter involved the time and frequency domains, it is shown to be especially suitable for scenarios of that kind. The practical and…