We quantify the usefulness of a bipartite quantum state in the ancilla-assisted channel discrimination of arbitrary quantum channels, formally defining a worst-case-scenario channel discrimination power for bipartite quantum states. We show that such a quantifier is deeply connected with the operator Schmidt decomposition of the state. We compute the channel discrimination power exactly for pure states, and provide upper and lower bounds for general mixed states. We show that highly entangled states can outperform any state that passes the realignment criterion for separability. Furthermore, while also unentangled states can be used in ancilla-assisted channel discrimination, we show that the channel discrimination power of a state is bounded by its quantum discord.
We consider the optimal discrimination of bipartite quantum states and provide an upper bound for the maximum success probability of optimal local discrimination. We also provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a measurement to realize the upper bound. We further establish a necessary and sufficient condition for this upper bound to be saturated. Finally, we illustrate our results using an example.
We address perfect discrimination of two separable states. When available states are restricted to separable states, we can theoretically consider a larger class of measurements than the class of measurements allowed in quantum theory. The framework composed of the class of separable states and the above extended class of measurements is a typical example of general probabilistic theories. In this framework, we give a necessary and sufficient condition to discriminate two separable pure states perfectly. In particular, we derive measurements explicitly to discriminate two separable pure states…
Unambiguous state discrimination of two mixed bipartite states via local operations and classical communications (LOCC) is studied and compared with the result of a scheme realized via global measurement. We show that the success probability of a global scheme for mixed-state discrimination can be achieved perfectly by the local scheme. In addition, we simulate this discrimination via a pair of pure entangled bipartite states. This simulation is perfect for local rather than global schemes due to the existence of entanglement and global coherence in the pure states. We also prove that LOCC pro…
Motivated by the recent discovery of a quantum Chernoff theorem for asymptotic state discrimination, we investigate the distinguishability of two bipartite mixed states under the constraint of local operations and classical communication (LOCC), in the limit of many copies. While for two pure states a result of Walgate et al. shows that LOCC is just as powerful as global measurements, data hiding states (DiVincenzo et al.) show that locality can impose severe restrictions on the distinguishability of even orthogonal states. Here we determine the optimal error probability and measurement to dis…
Distinguishability is a fundamental and operational task generally connected to information applications. In quantum information theory, from the postulates of quantum mechanics it often has an intrinsic limitation, which then dictates and also characterises capabilities of related information tasks. In this work, we consider discrimination between bipartite two-qubit unitary transformations by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) and its relations to entangling capabilities of given unitaries. We show that a pair of entangling unitaries which do not contain local parts, if they…
We investigate an optimization problem of finding quantum sequential measurements, which forms a wide class of state discrimination problems with the restriction that only sequential measurements are allowed. Sequential measurements from Alice to Bob on a bipartite system are considered. Using the fact that the optimization problem can be formulated as a problem with only Alice's measurement and is convex programming, we derive its dual problem and necessary and sufficient conditions for an optimal solution. In the problem we address, the output of Alice's measurement can be infinite or contin…
It has been recently shown (Bartlett et al. 2003) that information encoded into relative degrees of freedom enables communication without a common reference frame using entangled bipartite states. In this case the relative information stored in the two-qubit system is shared between the polarization degrees of freedom and the degree of entanglement. In the present article a specific state discrimination problem is envisioned where the degree of entanglement carries the only relative parameter, so that certain maximally entangled states are perfectly distinguishable, while discrimination of pro…
We prove that every entangled state is useful as a resource for the problem of minimum-error channel discrimination. More specifically, given a single copy of an arbitrary bipartite entangled state, it holds that there is an instance of a quantum channel discrimination task for which this state allows for a correct discrimination with strictly higher probability than every separable state.
For distinguishing quantum states sampled from a fixed ensemble, the gap in bipartite and single-party distinguishability can be interpreted as a nonlocality of the ensemble. In this paper, we consider bipartite state discrimination in a composite system consisting of $N$ subsystems, where each subsystem is shared between two parties and the state of each subsystem is randomly sampled from a particular ensemble comprising the Bell states. We show that the success probability of perfectly identifying the state converges to $1$ as $N\rightarrow\infty$ if the entropy of the probability distributi…
The problem of quantum state discrimination, which is a foundational aspect of quantum information theory, and its relation to the theory of majorization are discussed. The purpose of this study is to review different approaches to the problem and analyze different cases of quantum-state discrimination, most importantly the discrimination of bipartite entangled quantum states under local operations and classical communication. Two partial results on using entanglement as a resource for quantum-state discrimination and discrimination with remaining entanglement is given. The important points ar…
We consider quantum-memory assisted protocols for discriminating quantum channels. We show that for optimal discrimination of memory channels, memory assisted protocols are needed. This leads to a new notion of distance for channels with memory. For optimal discrimination and estimation of sets of unitary channels memory-assisted protocols are not required.
A bipartite state which is secretly chosen from a finite set of known entangled pure states cannot be immediately useful in standard quantum information processing tasks. To effectively make use of the entanglement contained in this unknown state, we introduce a new way to locally manipulate the original quantum system: either identify the state successfully or distill some pure entanglement. Remarkably, if many copies are available, we show that any finite set of entangled pure states, whatever orthogonal or not, can be locally distinguished in this way, which further implies that pure entang…
We provide a simple example that illustrates the advantage of adaptive over non-adaptive strategies for quantum channel discrimination. In particular, we give a pair of entanglement-breaking channels that can be perfectly discriminated by means of an adaptive strategy that requires just two channel evaluations, but for which no non-adaptive strategy can give a perfect discrimination using any finite number of channel evaluations.
We show that every entangled state provides an advantage in bi- and multi-channel discrimination that singles out its degree of entanglement, quantified in terms of its Schmidt number and of the corresponding robustness measures.
We solve the problem of discriminating with minimum error probability two given Pauli channels. We show that, differently from the case of discrimination between unitary transformations, the use of entanglement with an ancillary system can strictly improve the discrimination, and any maximally entangled state allows to achieve the optimal discrimination. We also provide a simple necessary and sufficient condition in terms of the structure of the channels for which the ultimate minimum error probability can be achieved without entanglement assistance. When such a condition is satisfied, the opt…
A collection of quantum channels is called incompatible if they cannot be obtained as marginals from a single channel. No-cloning theorem is the most prominent instance of incompatibility of quantum channels. We show that every collection of incompatible channels can be more useful than compatible ones as preprocessings in a state discrimination task with multiple ensembles of states. This is done by showing that the robustness of channel incompatibility which is a measure for incompatibility of channels exactly quantifies the maximum advantage in the state discrimination. We also show that in…
We study the power of measurements implementable with local quantum operations and classical communication (or LOCC measurements for short) in the setting of quantum channel discrimination. More precisely, we consider discrimination procedures that attempt to identify an unknown channel, chosen uniformly from two known alternatives, that take the following form: (i) the input to the unknown channel is prepared in a possibly entangled state with an ancillary system, (ii) the unknown channel is applied to the input system, and (iii) an LOCC measurement is performed on the output and ancillary sy…
We introduce and study norms in the space of hermitian operators, obtained from base norms in positively generated subspaces. These norms are closely related to discrimination of so-called generalized quantum channels, including quantum states, channels and networks. We further introduce generalized quantum decision problems and show that the maximal average payoff of decision procedures is again given by these norms. We also study optimality of decision procedures, in particular, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition under which an optimal 1-tester for discrimination of quantum chann…
With the purpose to introduce a useful tool for researches concerning foundations of quantum mechanics and applications to quantum technologies, here we study three quantumness quantifiers for bipartite optical systems: one based on sub-shot-noise correlations, one related to antibunching and one springing from entanglement determination. The specific cases of parametric down conversion seeded by thermal, coherent and squeezed states are discussed in detail.
For minimum-error channel discrimination tasks that involve only unitary channels, we show that sequential strategies may outperform the parallel ones. Additionally, we show that general strategies that involve indefinite causal order are also advantageous for this task. However, for the task of discriminating a uniformly distributed set of unitary channels that forms a group, we show that parallel strategies are, indeed, optimal, even when compared to general strategies. We also show that strategies based on the quantum switch cannot outperform sequential strategies in the discrimination of u…
We consider the problem of optimally discriminating two Pauli channels in the minimax strategy, maximizing the smallest of the probabilities of correct identification of the channel. We find the optimal input state at the channel and show the conditions under which using entanglement strictly enhances distinguishability. We finally compare the minimax strategy with the Bayesian one.
A no-signalling channel transforming quantum systems in Alice's and Bob's laboratories is compatible with two different causal structures: (A < B) Alice's output causally precedes Bob's input and (B< A) Bob's output causally precedes Alice's input. I show that a quantum superposition of circuits operating within these two causal structures enables the perfect discrimination between no-signalling channels that can not be perfectly distinguished by any ordinary circuit.
In this work, we consider optimal state discrimination for a quantum system that interacts with an environment, i.e., states evolve under a quantum channel. We show the conditions on a quantum channel and an ensemble of states such that a measurement for optimal state discrimination is preserved. In particular, we show that when an ensemble of states with equal {\it a priori} probabilities is given, an optimal measurement can be preserved over any quantum channel by applying local operations and classical communication, that is, by manipulating the quantum states before and after the channel a…
We present an instance of a task of minimum-error discrimination of two qubit-qubit quantum channels for which a sequential strategy outperforms any parallel strategy. We then establish two new classes of strategies for channel discrimination that involve indefinite causal order and show that there exists a strict hierarchy among the performance of all four strategies. Our proof technique employs a general method of computer-assisted proofs. We also provide a systematic method for finding pairs of channels that showcase this phenomenon, demonstrating that the hierarchy between the strategies i…
Dynamics of many-qubit systems, that may correspond to computational processing with quantum systems, can be efficiently and generally approximated by a sequence of two- and single-qubit gates. In practical applications, however, a quantum gate prepared as a unitary transformation may appear as a noisy channel and consequently may inhibit quantum advantages. In this work, we apply the scheme of channel discrimination to detect if a quantum gate that is actually realized is unitary or noisy. We show that a two-qubit unitary transformation and its noisy counterpart can be optimally discriminated…
We find optimality conditions for testers in discrimination of quantum channels. These conditions are obtained using semidefinite programming and are similar to optimality conditions for POVMs obtained by Holevo for ensembles of quantum states. We get a simple condition for existence of an optimal tester with any given input state with maximal Schmidt rank, in particular with a maximally entangled input state and we show the pitfalls of using input states with not maximal Schmidt rank. In case when maximally entangled state is not the optimal input state an error estimate is obtained. The resu…
A bipartite quantum channel represents the interaction between systems, generally allowing for exchange of information. A special class of bipartite channels are the no-signaling ones, which do not allow communication. In Ref. [1] it has been conjectured that all no-signaling channels are mixtures of entanglement-breaking and localizable channels, which require only local operations and entanglement. Here we provide the general realization scheme, giving a counterexample to the conjecture.
We show that the quantum discord and the measurement induced non-locality (MiN) in a bipartite quantum state is invariant under the action of a local quantum channel if and only if the channel is invertible. In particular, these quantities are invariant under a local unitary channel.
Quantum hypothesis testing is an important tool for quantum information processing. Two main strategies have been widely adopted: in a minimum error discrimination strategy, the average error probability is minimized; while in an unambiguous discrimination strategy, an inconclusive decision (abstention) is allowed to vanish any possibility of errors when a conclusive result is obtained. In both scenarios, the testing between quantum states are relatively well-understood, for example, the ultimate limits of the performance are established decades ago; however, the testing between quantum channe…
We consider the problem of unambiguous (error-free) discrimination of N linearly independent pure quantum states with prior probabilities, where the goal is to find a measurement that maximizes the average probability of success. We derive an upper bound on the optimal average probability of success using a result on optimal local conversion between two bipartite pure states. We prove that an optimal measurement in general saturates our bound. In the exceptional cases we show that the bound is tight, but not always optimal.
We determine a fundamental upper bound on the performance of any adaptive protocol for discrimination or estimation of a channel which has an unknown parameter encoded in the state of its environment. Since our approach relies on the principle of data processing, the bound applies to a variety of discrimination measures, including quantum relative entropy, hypothesis testing relative entropy, Rényi relative entropy, fidelity, and quantum Fisher information. We apply the upper bound to thermal (amplifier) channels with a known transmissivity (gain) but unknown excess noise. In these cases, we f…
We study discrimination of m quantum measurements in the scenario when the unknown measurement with n outcomes can be used only once. We show that ancilla-assisted discrimination procedures provide a nontrivial advantage over simple (ancilla-free) schemes for perfect distinguishability and we prove that inevitably m <= n. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions of perfect distinguishability of general binary measurements. We show that the optimization of the discrimination of projective qubit measurements and their mixtures with white noise is equivalent to the discrimination of specific…
We address extended systems interacting with classical fluctuating environments and analyze the use of quantum probes to discriminate local noise, described by independent fluctuating fields, from common noise, corresponding to the interaction with a common one. In particular, we consider a bipartite system made of two non interacting harmonic oscillators and assess discrimination strategies based on homodyne detection, comparing their performances with the ultimate bounds on the error probabilities of quantum-limited measurements. We analyze in details the use of Gaussian probes, with emphasi…
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…
It is well-known that the action of a quantum channel on a state can be represented, using an auxiliary space, as the partial trace of an associated bipartite state. Recently, it was observed that for the bipartite state associated with the optimal average input of the channel, the entanglement of formation is simply the entropy of the reduced density matrix minus the Holevo capacity. It is natural to ask if every bipartite state can be associated with some channel in this way. We show that the answer is negative.
Single-shot quantum channel discrimination is a fundamental task in quantum information theory. It is well known that entanglement with an ancillary system can help in this task, and furthermore that an ancilla with the same dimension as the input of the channels is always sufficient for optimal discrimination of two channels. A natural question to ask is whether the same holds true for the output dimension. That is, in cases when the output dimension of the channels is (possibly much) smaller than the input dimension, is an ancilla with dimension equal to the output dimension always sufficien…
The class of quantum states known as Werner states have several interesting properties, which often serve to illuminate unusual properties of quantum information. Closely related to these states are the Holevo-Werner channels whose Choi matrices are Werner states. Exploiting the fact that these channels are teleportation covariant, and therefore simulable by teleportation, we compute the ultimate precision in the adaptive estimation of their channel-defining parameter. Similarly, we bound the minimum error probability affecting the adaptive discrimination of any two of these channels. In this …
The fine-grained uncertainty relation can be used to discriminate among classical, quantum and super-quantum correlations based on their strength of nonlocality, as has been shown for bipartite and tripartite systems with unbiased measurement settings. Here we consider the situation when two and three parties, respectively, choose settings with bias for playing certain non-local games. We show analytically that while the fine-grained uncertainty principle is still able to distinguish classical, quantum and super-quantum correlations for biased settings corresponding to certain ranges of the bi…
Steering is the entanglement-based quantum effect that embodies the "spooky action at a distance" disliked by Einstein and scrutinized by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. Here we provide a necessary and sufficient characterization of steering, based on a quantum information processing task: the discrimination of branches in a quantum evolution, which we dub subchannel discrimination. We prove that, for any bipartite steerable state, there are instances of the quantum subchannel discrimination problem for which this state allows a correct discrimination with strictly higher probability than in ab…
We propose a scheme by using the feed-forward control (FFC) to realize a better effect of discrimination of two nonorthogonal states after passing a noise channel based on the minimum- error (ME) discrimination. We show that the application of our scheme can highly improve the effect of discrimination compared with the ME discrimination without the FFC for any pair of nonorthogonal states and any degree of amplitude damping (AD). Especially, the effect of our optimal discrimination can reach that of the two initial nonorthogonal pure states in the presence of the noise channel in a determinist…
We first investigate the one-shot static entanglement cost to simulate a bipartite quantum channel under the set of non-entangling channels. The lower bound on the static entanglement cost is given by the generalized robustness of the target channel as well as the robust-generating power of the channel, which implies that the cost necessary to generate a bipartite quantum channel might not be retrievable in general. Next, we conceive a set of quantum channels that extends the set of non-entangling channels. We find out that the one-shot static entanglement cost under the extended set of channe…
