A novel operational method for estimating the efficiency of quantum state tomography protocols is suggested. It is based on a-priori estimation of the quality of an arbitrary protocol by means of universal asymptotic fidelity distribution and condition number, which takes minimal value for better protocol. We prove the adequacy of the method both with numerical modeling and through the experimental realization of several practically important protocols of quantum state tomography.
It has previously been shown that quantum state tomography can be used to increase the key rate of quantum key distribution (QKD) for the special case of qubits (i.e.,d=2). Here, we consider the case of higher dimensions, i.e., qudits, and show that, for a prime number d>2, quantum state tomography can also improve the key rate of d-dimensional qudit-based QKD schemes, compared to the standard (d+1)-basis protocol. We apply our results to previous QKD experiments based on OAM (orbital angular momentum) encoding and demonstrate the advantage of tomography-based QKD protocols. Moreover, we compa…
We present a complete methodology for testing the performances of quantum tomography protocols. The theory is validated by several numerical examples and by the comparison with experimental results achieved with various protocols for whole families of polarization states of qubits and ququaters including pure, mixed, entangled and separable.
Quantum tomography is an important tool for obtaining information about the quantum state from experimental data. In this study, we conduct a comparative analysis of various quantum tomography protocols, including protocols based on highly symmetric sets of state vectors, on mutually unbiased bases (MUB), and two-level transformations. Using the universal distribution for the fidelity of quantum state tomography, we estimate the fidelity and efficiency of quantum measurements for qudits of various dimensions as applied to a set of random states uniformly distributed over the Haar measure.
We develop a practical quantum tomography protocol and implement measurements of pure states of ququarts realized with polarization states of photon pairs (biphotons). The method is based on an optimal choice of the measuring scheme's parameters that provides better quality of reconstruction for the fixed set of statistical data. A high accuracy of the state reconstruction (above 0.99) indicates that developed methodology is adequate.
A throughout study of statistical characteristics of fidelity in different protocols of quantum tomography is given. We consider protocols based on geometry of platonic solids and other polyhedrons with high degree of symmetry such as fullerene and its dual polyhedron. Characteristics of fidelity in different protocols are compared to the theoretical level of the minimum possible level of fidelity loss. Tomography of pure and mixed states in Hilbert spaces of different dimension is analyzed. Results of this work could be used for a better control of quantum gates and quantum states in quantum …
The polarizing multi-photon quantum states tomography with non-unit quantum efficiency of detectors is considered. A new quantum tomography protocol is proposed. This protocol considers events of losing photons of multi-photon quantum state in one or more channels among with n-fold coincidence events. The advantage of the proposed protocol compared with the standard n-fold coincidence protocol is demonstrated using the methods of statistical analysis.
We construct a practically implementable classical processing for the BB84 protocol and the six-state protocol that fully utilizes the accurate channel estimation method, which is also known as the quantum tomography. Our proposed processing yields at least as high key rate as the standard processing by Shor and Preskill. We show two examples of quantum channels over which the key rate of our proposed processing is strictly higher than the standard processing. In the second example, the BB84 protocol with our proposed processing yields a positive key rate even though the so-called error rate i…
A new qubit tomography protocol is introduced, based on a continuous positive operator valued measure, which is supported by the set of pure states, and equivariant under the symmetry group SO(3,R) of the qubit state space. Thus the sample data for the tomography protocol is a discrete set of points on the Bloch sphere obtained by a series of independent measurements on identical replicas of the qubit. Although the maximum likelihood estimator uniquely exists, it cannot be explicitly calculated. Instead, we present another convenient, simple estimator, show that it is unbiased and calculate it…
Adaptive techniques have important potential for wide applications in enhancing precision of quantum parameter estimation. We present a recursively adaptive quantum state tomography (RAQST) protocol for finite dimensional quantum systems and experimentally implement the adaptive tomography protocol on two-qubit systems. In this RAQST protocol, an adaptive measurement strategy and a recursive linear regression estimation algorithm are performed. Numerical results show that our RAQST protocol can outperform the tomography protocols using mutually unbiased bases (MUB) and the two-stage MUB adapti…
Reliable generation and measurement of triphoton states has yet to be achieved in laboratory. We give an overview of the problems in generating and measuring triphoton quantum states and analyze several protocols of quantum measurements, which allow for high precision of reconstruction when sizes of available statistical data samples are limited. The tomography procedure under investigation is based on root approach to state estimation. In particular, we use the generalized Fisher information matrix to assess the accuracy of the quantum state parameters measurement. We use tomographic protocol…
We investigate quantum state tomography (QST) for pure states and quantum process tomography (QPT) for unitary channels via $adaptive$ measurements. For a quantum system with a $d$-dimensional Hilbert space, we first propose an adaptive protocol where only $2d-1$ measurement outcomes are used to accomplish the QST for $all$ pure states. This idea is then extended to study QPT for unitary channels, where an adaptive unitary process tomography (AUPT) protocol of $d^2+d-1$ measurement outcomes is constructed for any unitary channel. We experimentally implement the AUPT protocol in a 2-qubit nucle…
We consider a variant of the BB84 protocol for quantum cryptography, the prototype of tomographically incomplete protocols, where the key is generated by one-way communication rather than the usual two-way communication. Our analysis, backed by numerical evidence, establishes thresholds for eavesdropping attacks on the raw data and on the generated key at quantum bit error rates of 10% and 6.15%, respectively. Both thresholds are lower than the threshold for unconditional security in the standard BB84 protocol.
Characterizing a quantum process is the critical first step towards applying such a process in a quantum information protocol. Full process characterization is known to be extremely resource-intensive, motivating the search for more efficient ways to extract salient information about the process. An example is the identification of "decoherence-free subspaces", in which computation or communications may be carried out, immune to the principal sources of decoherence in the system. Here we propose and demonstrate a protocol which enables one to directly identify a DFS without carrying out a full…
We examine the problem of finding the minimum number of Pauli measurements needed to uniquely determine an arbitrary $n$-qubit pure state among all quantum states. We show that only $11$ Pauli measurements are needed to determine an arbitrary two-qubit pure state compared to the full quantum state tomography with $16$ measurements, and only $31$ Pauli measurements are needed to determine an arbitrary three-qubit pure state compared to the full quantum state tomography with $64$ measurements. We demonstrate that our protocol is robust under depolarizing error with simulated random pure states. …
Tomography is an indispensable part of quantum computation as it enables diagnosis of a quantum process through state reconstruction. Existing tomographic protocols are based on determining expectation values of various Pauli operators which typically require single-qubit rotations. However, in realistic systems, qubits often develop some form of unavoidable stray coupling making it difficult to manipulate one qubit independent of its partners. Consequently, standard protocols applied to those systems result in unfaithful reproduction of the true quantum state. We have developed a protocol, ca…
We propose an efficient protocol to fully reconstruct a set of high-fidelity quantum gates. Usually, the efficiency of reconstructing high-fidelity quantum gates is limited by the sampling noise. Our protocol is based on a perturbative approach and has two stages. In the first stage, the initial part of noisy quantum gates is reconstructed by measuring traces of maps, and the trace can be measured by amplifying the noise in a way similar to randomised benchmarking and quantum spectral tomography. In the second stage, by amplifying the non-unital part using the unital part, we can efficiently r…
The error model of a quantum computer is essential for optimizing quantum algorithms to minimize the impact of errors using quantum error correction or error mitigation. Noise with temporal correlations, e.g. low-frequency noise and context-dependent noise, is common in quantum computation devices and sometimes even significant. However, conventional tomography methods have not been developed for obtaining an error model describing temporal correlations. In this paper, we propose self-consistent tomography protocols to obtain a model of temporally correlated errors, and we demonstrate that our…
We report an experimental realization of an adaptive quantum state tomography protocol. Our method takes advantage of a Bayesian approach to statistical inference and is naturally tailored for adaptive strategies. For pure states we observe close to 1/N scaling of infidelity with overall number of registered events, while best non-adaptive protocols allow for $1/\sqrt{N}$ scaling only. Experiments are performed for polarization qubits, but the approach is readily adapted to any dimension.
We introduce and demonstrate experimentally: (1) a framework called "gate set tomography" (GST) for self-consistently characterizing an entire set of quantum logic gates on a black-box quantum device; (2) an explicit closed-form protocol for linear-inversion gate set tomography (LGST), whose reliability is independent of pathologies such as local maxima of the likelihood; and (3) a simple protocol for objectively scoring the accuracy of a tomographic estimate without reference to target gates, based on how well it predicts a set of testing experiments. We use gate set tomography to characteriz…
We introduce the Singapore protocol, a qubit protocol for quantum key distribution that is fully tomographic, more efficient than other tomographic protocols, and very robust. Under ideal circumstances the efficiency is log_2(4/3)=0.415 key bits per qubit sent. This is 25% more than the efficiency of 1/3=0.333 for the standard six-state protocol, which sets the benchmark. We describe a simple two-way communication scheme that extracts 0.4 key bits per qubit and thus gets close to the information-theoretical limit. The noise thresholds that we report for a hierarchy of eavesdropping attacks dem…
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a quantum state tomography protocol that generalizes the Wallentowitz-Vogel-Banaszek-Wódkiewicz point-by-point Wigner function reconstruction. The full density operator of an arbitrary quantum state is efficiently reconstructed in the Fock basis, using semidefinite programming, after interference with a small set of calibrated coherent states. This new protocol is resource- and computationally efficient, is robust against noise, does not rely on approximate state displacements, and ensures the physicality of results.
Rigorous quantum state tomography for distributed quantum computing
Universidad de Concepción（康塞普西翁大学）；ICFO - Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology（ICFO-光子科学研究所，巴塞罗那科学与技术研究院）
The efficiency of Quantum Characterisation, Verification, and Validation (QCVV) protocols highly hinges on the agreement between the assumed noise model and the underlying error mechanisms. As a matter of fact, errors in Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) incorporate various aspects of context-dependability which are overlooked by the majority of the commonly used QCVV protocols. As QCVV protocols are indispensable when it comes to characterizing and evaluating quantum operations, there is a serious need for a detailed characterization taking into account such aspects. In this work, we address th…
Characterizing complex quantum systems is a vital task in quantum information science. Quantum tomography, the standard tool used for this purpose, uses a well-designed measurement record to reconstruct quantum states and processes. It is, however, notoriously inefficient. Recently, the classical signal reconstruction technique known as "compressed sensing" has been ported to quantum information science to overcome this challenge: accurate tomography can be achieved with substantially fewer measurement settings, thereby greatly enhancing the efficiency of quantum tomography. Here we show that …
The need to perform quantum state tomography on ever larger systems has spurred a search for methods that yield good estimates from incomplete data. We study the performance of compressed sensing (CS) and least squares (LS) estimators in a fast protocol based on continuous measurement on an ensemble of cesium atomic spins. Both efficiently reconstruct nearly pure states in the 16-dimensional ground manifold, reaching average fidelities FCS = 0.92 and FLS = 0.88 using similar amounts of incomplete data. Surprisingly, the main advantage of CS in our protocol is an increased robustness to experim…
Photons carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) are excellent qudits and are widely used in several applications, such as long distance quantum communication, $d$-dimensional teleportation and high-resolution imaging and metrology. All these protocols rely on quantum tomography to characterise the OAM state, which currently requires complex measurements involving spatial light modulators and mode filters. To simplify the measurement and characterisation of OAM states, here we apply a recent tomography protocol [Asadian et al., \pra {\bf 94}, 010301 (2016)]. Our scheme for OAM tomography in $d$…
The accurate and reliable characterization of quantum dynamical processes underlies efforts to validate quantum technologies, where discrimination between competing models of observed behaviors inform efforts to fabricate and operate qubit devices. We present a novel protocol for quantum channel discrimination that leverages advances in direct characterization of quantum dynamics (DCQD) codes. We demonstrate that DCQD codes enable selective process tomography to improve discrimination between entangling and correlated quantum dynamics. Numerical simulations show selective process tomography re…
The success of quantum information processing applications relies on accurate and efficient characterization of quantum states, especially nearly-pure states. In this work, we investigate a procedure for adaptive qubit state tomography which achieves $O(1/N)$ scaling in accuracy for large $N$. We analyze the performance of the adaptive protocol on the characterization of pure, mixed and nearly-pure states, and clarify the interplay between the purity of the state and the statistical fluctuations of the measurement results. Our results highlight the subtle difference between the characterizatio…
Demonstrating and Benchmarking Classical Shadows for Lindblad Tomography
Center for Quantum Devices, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学尼尔斯·玻尔研究所量子设备中心）；Center for the Mathematics of Quantum Theory, MATH Department, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学数学系量子理论数学中心）；NNF Quantum Computing Programme, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学尼尔斯·玻尔研究所NNF量子计算项目）；Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology（查尔姆斯理工大学微技术和纳米科学系）
Quantum tomography is the standard method of reconstructing the Wigner function of quantum states of light by means of balanced homodyne detection. The reconstruction quality strongly depends on the photodetectors quantum efficiency and other losses in the measurement setup. In this article we analyse in detail a protocol of enhanced quantum tomography, proposed by Leonhardt and Paul in 1994, which allows one to reduce the degrading effect of detection losses. It is based on phase sensitive parametric amplification, with the phase of the amplified quadrature being scanned synchronously with th…
Extracting information from quantum devices has long been a crucial problem in the field of quantum mechanics. By performing elaborate measurements, quantum state tomography, an important and fundamental tool in quantum science and technology, can be used to determine unknown quantum states completely. In this study, we explore methods to determine multi-qubit pure quantum states uniquely and directly. Two adaptive protocols are proposed, with their respective quantum circuits. Herein, two or three observables are sufficient, while the number of measurement outcomes is either the same as or fe…
In this article, we introduce a framework for Hamiltonian tomography of multi-qubit systems with random noise. We adopt the quantum quench protocol to reconstruct a many-body Hamiltonian by local measurements that are distorted by random unitary operators and time uncertainty. In particular, we consider a transverse field Ising Hamiltonians describing interactions of two spins $1/2$ and three-qubit Hamiltonians of a heteronuclear system within the radio-frequency field. For a sample of random Hamiltonians, we report the fidelity of reconstruction versus the amount of noise quantified by two pa…
As progress is made towards the first generation of error-corrected quantum computers, robust characterization and validation protocols are required to assess the noise environments of physical quantum processors. While standard coherence metrics and characterization protocols such as T1 and T2, process tomography, and randomized benchmarking are now ubiquitous, these techniques provide only partial information about the dynamic multi-qubit loss channels responsible for processor errors, which can be described more fully by a Lindblad operator in the master equation formalism. Here, we introdu…
As the variety of commercially available quantum computers continues to increase so does the need for tools that can characterize, verify and validate these computers. This work explores using quantum state tomography for characterizing the performance of individual qubits and develops a vector field visualization for presentation of the results. The proposed protocol is demonstrated in simulation and on quantum computing hardware developed by IBM. The results identify qubit performance features that are not reflected in the standard models of this hardware, indicating opportunities to improve…
The quantum measurement procedure based on the Lorentz transformation formalism and weak perturbation of the system is considered. In the simple case of a single-qubit it turns out that one can perform 4-dimension pseudo-rotation along with ordinary 3-dimension rotations on the Bloch sphere. These pseudo-rotations are similar to the Lorentz transformation in special relativity theory. The extension of the Lorentz transformation for many-qubit systems is also considered. The quantum measurement protocols based on the Lorentz transformation are proposed. It has been shown that these protocols ce…
The protocol of measurement the probability density of a rotated quadrature of microwave mode in an arbitrary quantum state is presented and numerically investigated. The protocol is adapted to the measuring procedure used in the CQED experiments. The method is based on measurement of integrated probability of detection of atoms - probes in the top working state from atoms flying via the cavity. Connection of random variables and is found, when is a qudrature phase. Connection of the tomogram and the tomogram is found. The protocol prescribes the rule of choice of problem parameters, such as i…
Quantum tomography makes it possible to obtain comprehensive information about certain logical elements of a quantum computer. In this regard, it is a promising tool for debugging quantum computers. The practical application of tomography, however, is still limited by systematic measurement errors. Their main source are errors in the quantum state preparation and measurement procedures. In this work, we investigate the possibility of suppressing these errors in the case of ion-based qudits. First, we will show that one can construct a quantum measurement protocol that contains no more than a s…
We propose a systematic procedure to optimize quantum state tomography protocols for continuous variable systems based on excitation counting preceded by a displacement operation. Compared with conventional tomography based on Husimi or Wigner function measurement, the excitation counting approach can significantly reduce the number of measurement settings. We investigate both informational completeness and robustness, and provide a bound of reconstruction error involving the condition number of the sensing map. We also identify the measurement settings that optimize this error bound, and demo…
Typical quantum gate tomography protocols struggle with a self-consistency problem: the gate operation cannot be reconstructed without knowledge of the initial state and final measurement, but such knowledge cannot be obtained without well-characterized gates. A recently proposed technique, known as randomized benchmarking tomography (RBT), sidesteps this self-consistency problem by designing experiments to be insensitive to preparation and measurement imperfections. We implement this proposal in a superconducting qubit system, using a number of experimental improvements including implementing…
Tomography of the two qubit density matrix shared by Alice and Bob is an essential ingredient for guaranteeing an acceptable margin of confidentiality during the establishment of a secure fresh key through the Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) scheme. We show how the Singapore protocol for key distribution is optimal from this point of view, due to the fact that it is based on so called SIC POVM qubit tomography which allows the most accurate full tomographic reconstruction of an unknown density matrix on the basis of a restricted set of experimental data. We illustrate with the help of experimen…
In quantum physics, all measured observables are subject to statistical uncertainties, which arise from the quantum nature as well as the experimental technique. We consider the statistical uncertainty of the so-called sampling method, in which one estimates the expectation value of a given observable by empirical means of suitable pattern functions. We show that if the observable can be written as a function of a single directly measurable operator, the variance of the estimate from the sampling method equals to the quantum mechanical one. In this sense, we say that the estimate is on the qua…
We review experimental work on the measurement of the quantum state of optical fields, and the relevant theoretical background. The basic technique of optical homodyne tomography is described with particular attention paid to the role played by balanced homodyne detection in this process. We discuss some of the original single-mode squeezed-state measurements as well as recent developments including: other field states, multimode measurements, array detection, and other new homodyne schemes. We also discuss applications of state measurement techniques to an area of scientific and technological…
The original two-way continuous-variable quantum-key-distribution (CV QKD) protocols [S. Pirandola, S. Mancini, S. Lloyd, and S. L. Braunstein, Nature Physics 4, 726 (2008)] give the security against the collective attack on the condition of the tomography of the quantum channels. We propose a family of new two-way CV QKD protocols and prove their security against collective entangling cloner attacks without the tomography of the quantum channels. The simulation result indicates that the new protocols maintain the same advantage as the original two-way protocols whose tolerable excess noise su…
It is generally assumed that every process in quantum physics can be described mathematically by a completely positive map. However, experimentally reconstructed processes are not necessarily completely positive due to statistical or systematic errors. In this paper, we introduce a test for discriminating statistical from systematic errors which is necessary to interpret experimentally reconstructed, non-completely positive maps.Wedemonstrate the significance of the test using several examples given by experiments and simulations. In particular, we demonstrate experimentally how an initial cor…
We provide a review of the experimental and theoretical research in the field of quantum tomography with an emphasis on recently developed adaptive protocols. Several statistical frameworks for adaptive experimental design are discussed. We argue in favor of the Bayesian approach, highlighting both its advantages for a statistical reconstruction of unknown quantum states and processes, and utility for adaptive experimental design. The discussion is supported by an analysis of several recent experimental implementations and numerical recipes.
Crosstalk is a leading source of failure in multiqubit quantum information processors. It can arise from a wide range of disparate physical phenomena, and can introduce subtle correlations in the errors experienced by a device. Several hardware characterization protocols are able to detect the presence of crosstalk, but few provide sufficient information to distinguish various crosstalk errors from one another. In this article we describe how gate set tomography, a protocol for detailed characterization of quantum operations, can be used to identify and characterize crosstalk errors in quantum…
Several Bayesian estimation based heuristics have been developed to perform quantum state tomography (QST). Their ability to quantify uncertainties using region estimators and include a priori knowledge of the experimentalists makes this family of methods an attractive choice for QST. However, specialized techniques for pure states do not work well for mixed states and vice versa. In this paper, we present an adaptive particle filter (PF) based QST protocol which improves the scaling of fidelity compared to nonadaptive Bayesian schemes for arbitrary multi-qubit states. This is due to the proto…
