We derive schemes to measure the so-called weak values of quantum system observables by coupling of the system to a qubit meter system. We highlight, in particular, the meaning of the imaginary part of the weak values, and show how it can be measured directly on equal footing with the real part of the weak value. We present compact expressions for the weak value of single qubit observables and of product observables on qubit pairs. Experimental studies of the results are suggested with cold trapped ions.
We experimentally demonstrate in NMR a quantum interferometric multi-meter for extracting certain properties of unknown quantum states without resource to quantum tomography. It can perform direct state determinations, eigenvalue/eigenvector estimations, purity tests of a quantum system, as well as the overlap of any two unknown quantum states. Using the same device, we also demonstrate one-qubit quantum fingerprinting.
We present a scheme that allows integration of the Berry curvature and thus determination of the Chern number of a qubit eigenstate manifold. Our proposal continuously couples the qubit with a meter system while it explores a quasi-adiabatic path in the manifold. The accumulated change of one of the meter observables then provides an estimate of the Chern number. By varying the initial state of the meter, we explore the delicate interplay between the measurement precision and the disturbance of the qubit. A simple argument yields a correction factor that allows estimation of the Chern number, …
Quantum non Markovianity and quantum Darwinism are two phenomena linked by a common theme: the flux of quantum information between a quantum system and the quantum environment it interacts with. In this work, making use of a quantum collision model, a formalism initiated by Sudarshan and his school, we will analyse the efficiency with which the information about a single qubit gained by a quantum harmonic oscillator, acting as a meter, is transferred to a bosonic environment. We will show how, in some regimes, such quantum information flux is inefficient, leading to the simultaneous emergence …
We propose a realization of a charge parity meter based on two double quantum dots alongside a quantum point contact. Such a device is a specific example of the general class of mesoscopic quadratic quantum measurement detectors previously investigated by Mao et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 056803 (2004)]. Our setup accomplishes entangled state preparation by a current measurement alone, and allows the qubits to be effectively decoupled by pinching off the parity meter. Two applications of the parity meter are discussed: the measurement of Bell's inequality in charge qubits and the realization of…
The direct measurement of nonlocal properties of entangled quantum systems has been the subject of several recent experimental investigations. Of particular interest is the implementation of nonlocal measurements via indirect measurement schemes, which allow for greater flexibility in the control of the measurement strength. Building on previous results established in the bipartite case, we present a scheme to implement genuine nonlocal measurements of N-qubit systems with variable strength, using GHZ-like entangled qubit meters. This method can be applied to the joint measurement of commuting…
Quantum entanglement between spatially separated objects is one of the most intriguing phenomena in physics. The outcomes of independent measurements on entangled objects show correlations that cannot be explained by classical physics. Besides being of fundamental interest, entanglement is a unique resource for quantum information processing and communication. Entangled qubits can be used to establish private information or implement quantum logical gates. Such capabilities are particularly useful when the entangled qubits are spatially separated, opening the opportunity to create highly conne…
The concept of a modular value of an observable of a pre- and post-selected quantum system is introduced. It is similar in form and in some cases has a close connection to the weak value of an observable, but instead of describing an effective interaction when the coupling is weak, it describes a coupling of any strength but only to qubit meters. The generalization of the concept for a coupling of a composite system to a multi-qubit meter provides an explanation of some current experiments.
We discuss a measurement-based implementation of a controlled-NOT (CNOT) quantum gate. Such a gate has recently been discussed for free electron qubits. Here we extend this scheme for qubits encoded in product states of two (or more) spins-1/2 or in equivalent systems. The key to such an extension is to find a feasible qubit-parity meter. We present a general scheme for reducing this qubit-parity meter to a local spin-parity measurement performed on two spins, one from each qubit. Two possible realizations of a multiparticle CNOT gate are further discussed: electron spins in double quantum dot…
The stochastic evolution of quantum systems during measurement is arguably the most enigmatic feature of quantum mechanics. Measuring a quantum system typically steers it towards a classical state, destroying any initial quantum superposition and any entanglement with other quantum systems. Remarkably, the measurement of a shared property between non-interacting quantum systems can generate entanglement starting from an uncorrelated state. Of special interest in quantum computing is the parity measurement, which projects a register of quantum bits (qubits) to a state with an even or odd total …
The implementation of weak-value amplification requires the pre- and post-selection of states of a quantum system, followed by the observation of the response of the meter, which interacts weakly with the system. Data acquisition from the meter is conditioned to successful post-selection events. Here we derive an optimal post-selection procedure for estimating the coupling constant between system and meter, and show that it leads both to weak-value amplification and to the saturation of the quantum Fisher information, under conditions fulfilled by all previously reported experiments on the amp…
In the late 80s, a curious effect suggested by Aharanov, Albert and Vaidman opened up new vistas regarding quantum measurements on weakly coupled systems. There, a combination of a "weak" finite interaction together with a "strong" post-selection measurement leads to an anomalous effect, namely the mean value of a spin-1/2 particle in the $z-$direction lies outside the conventional spectrum of $\pm$1. In this paper, we investigate the quantum control of the weak value amplification of a qubit system coupled to a meter, via a second non-interacting qubit, initially quantum correlated with the f…
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…
We introduce a two-qubit engine that is powered by entangling operations and projective local quantum measurements. Energy is extracted from the detuned qubits coherently exchanging a single excitation. This engine, which uses the information and back-action of the measurement, is generalized to an N-qubit chain. We show that by gradually increasing the energy splitting along the chain, the initial low energy of the first qubit can be up-converted deterministically to an arbitrarily high energy at the last qubit by successive neighbor swap operations and local measurements. Modeling the local …
A weak value is an effective description of the influence of a pre and post-selected 'principal' system on another 'meter' system to which it is weakly coupled. Weak values can describe anomalously large deflections of the meter, and deflections in otherwise unperturbed variables: this motivates investigation of the potential benefits of the protocol in precision metrology. We present a visual interpretation of weak value experiments in phase space, enabling an evaluation of the effects of three types of detector noise as 'Fisher information efficiency' functions. These functions depend on the…
We put forward a new fiber optic sensor for measuring linear velocity with picometer/second sensitivity with Weak-value amplification based on generalized Sagnac effect [Phys. Rev. Lett.\textbf{93}, 143901(2004)].The generalized Sagnac effect was first introduced by Yao et al, which included the Sagnac effect of rotation as a special case and suggested a new fiber optic sensor for measuring linear motion with nanoscale sensitivity. By using a different scheme to perform the Sagnac interferometer with the probe in momentum space, we have demonstrated the new weak measure protocol to detect the …
We present an interferometric technique for measuring ultra-small tilts. The information of a tilt in one of the mirrors of a modified Sagnac interferometer is carried by the phase difference between the counter propagating laser beams. Using a small misalignment of the interferometer, orthogonal to the plane of the tilt, a bimodal (or two-fringe) pattern is induced in the beam's transverse power distribution. By tracking the mean of such a distribution, using a split detector, a sensitive measurement of the phase is performed. With 1.2 mW of continuous-wave laser power, the technique has a sh…
We present an indirect two-qubit parity meter in planar circuit quantum electrodynamics, realized by discrete interaction with an ancilla and a subsequent projective ancilla measurement with a dedicated, dispersively coupled resonator. Quantum process tomography and successful entanglement by measurement demonstrate that the meter is intrinsically quantum non-demolition. Separate interaction and measurement steps allow commencing subsequent data qubit operations in parallel with ancilla measurement, offering time savings over continuous schemes.
This paper starts with a brief review of the topic of strong and weak pre- and post-selected (PPS) quantum measurements, as well as weak values, and afterwards presents original work. In particular, we develop a nonperturbative theory of weak PPS measurements of an arbitrary system with an arbitrary meter, for arbitrary initial states. New and simple analytical formulas are obtained for the average and the distribution of the meter pointer variable, which hold to all orders in the weak value. In the case of a mixed preselected state, in addition to the standard weak value, an associated weak v…
An adiabatic method for a single-shot non-demolition measurement of the phase qubit is suggested. The qubit is inductively coupled to a low-frequency resonator, which in turn is connected with a classical measurement device (phase meter). The resonator drives adiabatic oscillations of the supercurrent in the qubit loop. The back reaction of the qubit loop on the resonator depends on the qubit state. Measuring the phase shift of the resonator's oscillations one can determine the state of the qubit. Numerical computations with available experimental parameters show that the phase difference betw…
The viability of quantum communication schemes rely on sending quantum states of light over long distances. However, transmission loss can degrade the signal strength, adding noise. Heralded noiseless amplification of a quantum signal can provide a solution by enabling longer direct transmission distances and by enabling entanglement distillation. The central idea of heralded noiseless amplification---a conditional modification of the probability distribution over photon number of an optical quantum state---is suggestive of a parallel with weak measurement: in a weak measurement, learning part…
In this letter, we present a new procedure to determine completely the complex modular values of arbitrary observables of pre- and post-selected ensembles, which works experimentally for all measurement strengths and all post-selected states. This procedure allows us to discuss the physics of modular and weak values in interferometric experiments involving a qubit meter. We determine both the modulus and the argument of the modular value for any measurement strength in a single step, by controlling simultaneously the visibility and the phase in a quantum eraser interference experiment. Modular…
We implemented a joint weak measurement of the trajectories of two photons in a photonic version of Hardy's experiment. The joint weak measurement has been performed via an entangled meter state in polarization degrees of freedom of the two photons. Unlike Hardy's original argument in which the contradiction is inferred by retrodiction, our experiment reveals its paradoxical nature as preposterous values actually read out from the meter. Such a direct observation of a paradox will give us a new insight into the spooky action of quantum mechanics.
We present a method for detecting electromagnetic (EM) modes that couple to a superconducting qubit in a circuit-QED architecture. Based on measurement-induced dephasing, this technique allows the measurement of modes that have a high quality factor (Q) and may be difficult to detect through standard transmission and reflection measurements at the device ports. In this scheme the qubit itself acts as a sensitive phase meter, revealing modes that couple to it through measurements of its coherence time. Such modes are indistinguishable from EM modes that do not couple to the qubit using a vector…
The need for larger mK cooling platforms is being driven by the desire to host ever growing numbers of cryogenic qubits in quantum computing platforms. As part of the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center at Fermilab funded through the Department of Energy under the National Quantum Initiative, we are developing a cryogenic platform capable of reaching millikelvin temperatures in an experimental volume of 2 meters diameter by approximately 1.5 meters in height. The platform is intended to host a three-dimensional qubit architecture based on superconducting radiofrequency acceler…
In our Letter we proposed a scheme for nondeterministic quantum nondemolition (QND) measurement of the polarization of a single photon--a photonic qubit--using linear optics and photodetection. The scheme works with nonunit probability, but success is heralded by the detection of a single photon in the meter output. We provided an experimental demonstration of this scheme and introduced three universally applicable fidelity measures--the measurement fidelity F_M, the quantum state preparation fidelity F_QSP, and the QND fidelity F_QND--to quantify its performance. The claim of Kok and Munro in…
We demonstrate the conditional reversal of a weak (partial-collapse) quantum measurement on a photonic qubit. The weak quantum measurement causes a nonunitary transformation of a qubit which is subsequently reversed to the original state after a successful reversing operation. Both the weak measurement and the reversal operation are implemented linear optically. The state recovery fidelity, determined by quantum process tomography, is shown to be over 94% for partial-collapse strength up to 0.9. We also experimentally study information gain due to the weak measurement and discuss the role of t…
In distributed quantum information processing, flying photons entangle matter qubits confined in cavities. However, when a matter qubit is homogeneously broadened, the strong-coupling regime of cavity QED is typically required, which is hard to realize in actual experimental setups. Here, we show that a high-fidelity entanglement operation is possible even in the weak-coupling regime in which dampings (dephasing, spontaneous emission, and cavity leakage) overwhelm the coherent coupling between a qubit and the cavity. Our proposal enables distributed quantum information processing to be perform…
Acquiring information about an unknown qubit in a superposition of two states is essential in any computation process. Quantum measurement, or sharp measurement, is usually used to read the information contents of that unknown qubit system. Quantum measurement is an irreversible operation that makes the superposition collapses to one of the two possible states in a probabilistic way. In this paper, a quantum algorithm will be proposed to read the information in an unknown qubit without applying sharp measurement on that qubit. The proposed algorithm will use a quantum feedback control scheme b…
Current quantum computer technology is sufficient to realize weak measurements and the corresponding concept of weak values. We demonstrate how the weak value anomaly can be tested, along with consistency and simultaneity of weak values, using only discrete degrees of freedom. All you need is a quantum computer with two--or better, three--qubits. We also give an interpretation of the weak value as an effective field strength in a postselected spin measurement.
Using numerical simulations, we show that two coupled qubits can amplify a weak signal about hundredfold. This can be achieved if the two qubits are biased simultaneously by this weak signal and a strong pump signal, both of which having frequencies close to the inter-level transitions in the system. The weak signal strongly affects the spectrum generated by the strong pumping drive by producing and controlling mixed harmonics with amplitudes of the order of the main harmonic of the strong drive. We show that the amplification is robust with respect to noise, with an intensity of the order of …
The possibility of recovering and protecting the entanglement of accelerated 2-qubit and 2-qutrit systems is discussed using weak-reverse measurements. The accelerated partial entangled states are more responsive to be protected than the accelerated maximum entangled states. The accelerated coded local information in qutrit system is more robust than that encoded in a 2-qubit system, and it can be conserved even for larger values of accelerations. Meanwhile, the non-accelerated information in qubit system is not affected by the local operation compared with that depicted on qutrit system. For …
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme for implementation of a maximally entangling quantum controlled-Z gate between two weakly interacting systems. We conditionally enhance the interqubit coupling by quantum interference. Both before and after the interqubit interaction, one of the qubits is coherently coupled to an auxiliary quantum system, and finally it is projected back onto qubit subspace. We experimentally verify the practical feasibility of this technique by using a linear optical setup with weak interferometric coupling between single-photon qubits. Our procedure is unive…
We demonstrate an exact mapping of a class of models of two interacting qubits in thermal reservoirs to two separate spin-bath problems. Based on this mapping, exact numerical simulations of the qubits dynamics can be performed, beyond the weak system-bath coupling limit. Given the time evolution of the system, we study, in a numerically exact way, the dynamics of entanglement between pair of qubits immersed in boson thermal baths, showing a rich phenomenology, including an intermediate oscillatory behavior, the entanglement sudden birth, sudden death, and revival. We find that stationary enta…
The spin-coherent-state positive-operator-valued-measure (POVM) is a fundamental measurement in quantum science, with applications including tomography, metrology, teleportation, benchmarking, and measurement of Husimi phase space probabilities. We prove that this POVM is achieved by collectively measuring the spin projection of an ensemble of qubits weakly and isotropically. We apply this in the context of optimal tomography of pure qubits. We show numerically that through a sequence of weak measurements of random directions of the collective spin component, sampled discretely or in a continu…
Traditional uncertainty relations dictate a minimal amount of noise in incompatible projective quantum measurements. However, not all measurements are projective. Weak measurements are minimally invasive methods for obtaining partial state information without projection. Recently, weak measurements were shown to obey an uncertainty relation cast in terms of entropies. We experimentally test this entropic uncertainty relation with strong and weak measurements of a superconducting transmon qubit. A weak measurement, we find, can reconcile two strong measurements' incompatibility, via backaction …
We propose a new quantum secret sharing scheme using a single non-entangled qubit. In the scheme, by transmitting a qubit to the next party sequentially, a sender can securely transmit a secret message to $N$ receivers who could only decode the message cooperatively after randomly shuffling the polarization of the qubit. We explain this quantum secret sharing scheme into the one between a sender and two receivers, and generalize the scheme between a sender and $N$ receivers. Since our scheme is capable of using a faint coherent pulse as a qubit, it is experimentally feasible within current tec…
Generating on-demand maximally entangled states is one of the corner stones for quantum information processing. Parity measurements can serve to create Bell states and have been implemented via an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer among others. However, the entanglement generation is necessarily harmed by measurement induced dephasing processes in one of the two parity subspace. In this work, we propose two different schemes of continuous feedback for a parity measurement. They enable us to avoid both the measurement-induced dephasing process and the experimentally unavoidable dephasing, …
So far, super quantum discord has been calculated explicitly only for Bell-diagonal states and expressions for more general quantum states are not known. In this paper, we derive explicit expressions for super quantum discord for a larger class of two-qubit states, namely, a 4-parameter family of two-qubit states. We observe that, weak measurements obtain more quantumness of correlations than strong measurements. As an application, the dynamic behavior of the super quantum discord under decoherence channel is investigated. We find that, the super quantum discord decreases monotonically as a fu…
The outcomes of a series of measurements, made on a quantum system, form a sequence of random events which occur in a particular order. The system, together with a meter or meters, can be seen as following the paths of a stochastic network connecting all possible outcomes. The paths are shaped from the virtual paths of the system, and the corresponding probabilities are determined by the measuring devices employed. If the measurements are highly accurate, the virtual paths become "real", and the mean values of a quantity (a functional) is directly related to the frequencies with which the path…
The creation of a quantum network requires the distribution of coherent information across macroscopic distances. We demonstrate the entanglement of two superconducting qubits, separated by more than a meter of coaxial cable, by designing a joint measurement that probabilistically projects onto an entangled state. By using a continuous measurement scheme, we are further able to observe single quantum trajectories of the joint two-qubit state, confirming the validity of the quantum Bayesian formalism for a cascaded system. Our results allow us to resolve the dynamics of continuous projection on…
For systems of controllable qubits, we provide a method for experimentally obtaining a useful class of multitime correlators using sequential generalized measurements of arbitrary strength. Specifically, if a correlator can be expressed as an average of nested (anti)commutators of operators that square to the identity, then that correlator can be determined exactly from the average of a measurement sequence. As a relevant example, we provide quantum circuits for measuring multiqubit out-of-time-order correlators using optimized control-Z or ZX-90 two-qubit gates common in superconducting trans…
Many quantum measurements, such as photodetection, can be destructive. In photodetection, when the detector clicks a photon has been absorbed and destroyed. Yet the lack of a click also gives information about the presence or absence of a photon. In monitoring the emission of photons from a source, one decomposes the strong measurement into a series of weak measurements, which describe the evolution of the state during the measurement process. Motivated by this example of destructive photon detection, a simple model of destructive weak measurements using qubits was studied in [1]. It has shown…
For continuous weak measurement of qubits, we obtain exact expressions for weak values (WVs) from the post-selection restricted average of measurement outputs, by using both the quantumtrajectory- equation (QTE) and quantum Bayesian approach. The former is applicable to short-time weak measurement, while the latter can relax the measurement strength to finite. We find that even in the "very" weak limit the result can be essentially different from the one originally proposed by Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman (AAV), in a sense that our result incorporates non-perturbative correction which could be…
It has been shown that any generalized measurement can be decomposed into a sequence of weak measurements corresponding to a stochastic process. However, the weak measurements may require almost arbitrary unitaries, which are unlikely to be realized by any real measurement device. Furthermore, many measurement processes are destructive, like photon counting procedures that terminate once all photons are consumed. One cannot expect to have full control of the evolution of a state under such destructive measurements, and the possible unitaries allow only a limited set of weak measurements. In th…
With the assistance of weak cross-Kerr nonlinearities, we introduce an optical scheme to fuse two small-size polarization entangled W states into a large-scale W state without qubit loss, i.e.,$\mathrm{W}_{n+m}$ state can be generated from an $n$-qubit W state and a $m$-qubit W state. To complete the fusion task, two polarization entanglement processes and one spatial entanglement process are applied. The fulfillments of the above processes are contributed by a cross-Kerr nonlinear interaction between the signal photons and a coherent state via Kerr media. We analyze the resource cost and the …
We analyze the information that one can learn about the state of a quantum two-level system, i.e. a qubit, when probed weakly by a nearby detector. In particular, we focus on the case when the qubit Hamiltonian and the qubit's operator being probed by the detector do not commute. Because the qubit's state keeps evolving while being probed and because the measurement data is mixed with a detector-related background noise, one might expect the detector to fail in this case. We show, however, that under suitable conditions and by proper analysis of the measurement data useful information about th…
