Unsharp measurements are increasingly important for foundational insights in quantum theory and quantum information applications. Here, we report an experimental implementation of unsharp qubit measurements in a sequential communication protocol, based on a quantum random access code. The protocol involves three parties; the first party prepares a qubit system, the second party performs operations which return both a classical and quantum outcome, and the latter is measured by the third party. We demonstrate a nearly-optimal sequential quantum random access code that outperforms both the best possible classical protocol and any quantum protocol which utilises only projective measurements. Furthermore, while only assuming that the involved devices operate on qubits and that detected events constitute a fair sample, we demonstrate the noise-robust characterisation of unsharp measurements based on the sequential quantum random access code. We apply this characterisation towards quantifying the degree of incompatibility of two sequential pairs of quantum measurements.
Robust device-independent characterization of sharpness and incompatibility of unsharp instruments
College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Ocean University of China（中国海洋大学物理与电子工程学院）；China Mobile (Suzhou) Software Technology Company Limited（中国移动（苏州）软件技术有限公司）；Engineering Research Center of Advanced Marine Physical Instruments and Equipment (Ministry of Education), Ocean University of China（中国海洋大学教育部先进海工装备工程研究中心）；Qingdao Key Laboratory of Advanced Optoelectronics, Ocean University of China（中国海洋大学青岛先进光电学重点实验室）
We obtain a formal characterization of the compatibility or otherwise of a set of positive-operator-valued measures (POVMs) via their Naimark extensions. We show that a set of POVMs is jointly measurable if and only if there exists a single Naimark extension, specified by a fixed ancilla state on the same ancilla Hilbert space, that maps them to a set of commuting projective measurements (PVMs). We use our result to obtain an easily checkable sufficient condition for the compatibility of a pair of dichotomic observables in any dimension. This in turn leads to a characterization of the compatib…
Standard Leggett and Garg inequalities (SLGIs) were formulated for testing the incompatibility between the classical worldview of macrorealism and quantum mechanics. In recent times, various other formulations, such as Wigner form of LGIs (WLGIs), entropic LGIs (ELGIs) and the no-signaling in time (NSIT) condition have also been proposed. It is also recently argued that no set of SLGIs can provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for macrorealism but a suitable conjunction of NSIT conditions provides the same. In this paper, we first provide a comparative study of the various formulatio…
We derive entropic uncertainty relations for successive generalized measurements by using general descriptions of quantum measurement within two {distinctive operational} scenarios. In the first scenario, by merging {two successive measurements} into one we consider successive measurement scheme as a method to perform an overall {composite} measurement. In the second scenario, on the other hand, we consider it as a method to measure a pair of jointly measurable observables by marginalizing over the distribution obtained in this scheme. In the course of this work, we identify that limits on one…
Chained correlation inequalities involving pairwise correlations of qubit observables in the equatorial plane are constructed based on the positivity of a sequence of moment matrices. When a jointly measurable set of fuzzy POVMs is employed in first measurement of every pair of sequential measurements, the chained pairwise correlations do not violate the classical bound imposed by the moment matrix positivity. We identify that incompatibility of measurements is only necessary, but not sufficient, in general, for the violation of the inequality. On the other hand, there exists a one-to-one equi…
Leggett Garg inequalities (LGIs) provide an elegant way for probing the incompatibility between the notion of macrorealism and quantum mechanics. For unitary dynamics, the optimal quantum violation of a LGI is constrained by the Lüders bound. In this paper, we have studied two formulations of LGIs in a three-time LG scenarios, viz., the standard LGIs and third-order LGIs both for unbiased and biased measurement settings. We show that if the system evolves under a non-unitary quantum channel between two measurements, the quantum violations of both forms of LGIs exceed their respective Lüders bo…
The notion of incompatibility of measurements in quantum theory is in stark contrast with the corresponding classical perspective, where all physical observables are jointly measurable. It is of interest to examine if the results of two or more measurements in the quantum scenario can be perceived from a classical point of view or they still exhibit non-classical features. Clearly, commuting observables can be measured jointly using projective measurements and their statistical outcomes can be discerned classically. However, such simple minded association of compatibility of measurements with …
The task of state discrimination for a set of mutually orthogonal pure states is trivial if one has access to the corresponding sharp (projection-valued) measurement, but what if we are restricted to an unsharp measurement? Given that any realistic measurement device will be subject to some noise, such a problem is worth considering. In this paper we consider minimum error state discrimination for mutually orthogonal states with a noisy measurement. We show that by considering repetitions of commutative Lüders measurements on the same system we are able to increase the probability of successfu…
We review the notion of complementarity of observables in quantum mechanics, as formulated and studied by Paul Busch and his colleagues over the years. In addition, we provide further clarification on the operational meaning of the concept, and present several characterisations of complementarity - some of which new - in a unified manner, as a consequence of a basic factorisation lemma for quantum effects. We work out several applications, including the canonical cases of position-momentum, position-energy, number-phase, as well as periodic observables relevant to spatial interferometry. We cl…
