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 fewer than those in existing methods. Additionally, experiments on the IBM 5-qubit quantum computer, as well as numerical investigations, demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed protocols.
We propose a technique for performing quantum state tomography of photonic polarization-encoded multi-qubit states. Our method uses a single rotating wave plate, a polarizing beam splitter and two photon-counting detectors per photon mode. As the wave plate rotates, the photon counters measure a pseudo-continuous signal which is then Fourier transformed. The density matrix of the state is reconstructed using the relationship between the Fourier coefficients of the signal and the Stokes' parameters that represent the state. The experimental complexity, i.e. different wave plate rotation frequen…
A new method of quantum state tomography for quantum information processing is described. The method based on two-dimensional Fourier transform technique involves detection of all the off-diagonal elements of the density matrix in a two-dimensional experiment. All the diagonal elements are detected in another one-dimensional experiment. The method is efficient and applicable to a wide range of spin systems. The proposed method is explained using a 2 qubit system and demonstrated by tomographing arbitrary complex density matrices of 2 and 4 qubit systems using simulations.
Some properties of the fractional Fourier transform, which is used in information processing, are presented in connection with the tomography transform of optical signals. Relation of the Green function of the quantum harmonic oscillator to the fractional Fourier transform is elucidated.
Quantum state tomography and other measures of the global properties of a quantum state are indispensable tools in understanding many body physics through quantum simulators. Unfortunately, the number of experimental measurements of the system required to estimate these global quantities scales exponentially with system size. Here, we consider the use of random-axis measurements for quantum state tomography and state purity estimation. We perform a general analysis of the statistical deviation in such methods for any given algorithm. We then propose a simple protocol which relies on single-pul…
For any finite dimensional Hilbert space, we construct explicitly five orthonormal bases such that the corresponding measurements allow for efficient tomography of an arbitrary pure quantum state. This means that such measurements can be used to distinguish an arbitrary pure state from any other state, pure or mixed, and the pure state can be reconstructed from the outcome distribution in a feasible way. The set of measurements we construct is independent of the unknown state, and therefore our results provide a fixed scheme for pure state tomography, as opposed to the adaptive (state dependen…
We show that a generic $N$-qudit pure quantum state is uniquely determined by only $2$ of its $\lceil\frac{N+1}{2}\rceil$-particle reduced density matrices. Therefore we give a method to uniquely determine a generic $N$-qudit pure state of dimension $D=d^N$ with $O(D)$ local measurements, which is an improvement comparing with the previous known approach using $O(D\log^2 D)$ or $O(D\log D)$ measurements.
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. …
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…
We discuss quantum state tomography via a stepwise reconstruction of the eigenstates of the mixed states produced in experiments. Our method is tailored to the experimentally relevant class of nearly pure states or simple mixed states, which exhibit dominant eigenstates and thus lend themselves to low-rank approximations. The developed scheme is applicable to any pure-state tomography method, promoting it to mixed-state tomography. Here, we demonstrate it with machine learning-inspired pure-state tomography based on neural-network representations of quantum states. The latter have been shown t…
The results of quantum process tomography on a three-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance quantum information processor are presented, and shown to be consistent with a detailed model of the system-plus-apparatus used for the experiments. The quantum operation studied was the quantum Fourier transform, which is important in several quantum algorithms and poses a rigorous test for the precision of our recently-developed strongly modulating control fields. The results were analyzed in an attempt to decompose the implementation errors into coherent (overall systematic), incoherent (microscopically de…
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…
The deployment of intermediate- and large-scale quantum devices necessitates the development of efficient full state tomographical techniques for quantum benchmarks. Here, we introduce a matrix filling-based method for tomography of pure quantum states, called the matrix-completion quantum state tomography. This method requires only 2n + 1 local Pauli operators and minimal post-processing for n-qubit states. Numerical results show that our method is highly efficient on superconducting real quantum devices and achieves better fidelity estimates of multiqubit quantum states as compared to contem…
Quantum state tomography (QST) aims at estimating a quantum state from averaged quantum measurements made on copies of the state. Most quantum algorithms rely on QST at some point and it is a well explored topic in the literature, mostly for mixed states. In this paper we focus on the QST of a pure quantum state using parallel unentangled measurements. Pure states are a small but useful subset of all quantum states, their tomography requires fewer measurements and is essentially a phase recovery problem. Parallel unentangled measurements are easy to implement in practice because they allow the…
Entangled pure-states, Werner-states and generalized mixed-states of any structure, spanning a 2x2 Hilbert space are created by a novel high-brilliance universal source of polarization-entangled photon pairs. The violation of a Bell inequality has been tested for the first time with a pure-state, indeed a conceptually relevant ideal condition, and with Werner-states. The generalized ''maximally entangled mixed states'' (MEMS) were also synthetized for the first time and their exotic properties investigated by means of a quantum tomographic technique.
We study the possibility of performing quantum state tomography via equidistant states. This class of states allows us to propose a non-symmetric informationally complete POVM based tomographic scheme. The scheme is defined for odd dimensions and involves an inversion which can be analytically carried out by Fourier transform.
Seeded SU(1,1) interferometry for Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography
ICFO – Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology（光子科学研究所，巴塞罗那科技研究所）；Department of Signal Theory and Communications, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya（信号理论与通信系，加泰罗尼亚理工大学）
Finding the least measurement settings to determine an arbitrary pure state has been long known as the Pauli problem. In the fixed measurement scheme four orthonormal bases are required even though there are far less parameters in a pure state. Peres conjectured that two unbiased bases suffice to determine a pure state up to some finite ambiguities. Here we shall at first prove Peres conjecture in the case of $d=3,4$, namely, two unbiased measurements determine a pure state up to to 6 and 16 candidates for a qutrit and ququad, respectively. And then, taking Peres' conjecture for established, w…
Recent work has revealed that the wave function of a pure state can be measured directly and that complementary knowledge of a quantum system can be obtained simultaneously by weak measurements. However, the original scheme applies only to pure states, and it is not efficient because most of the data are discarded by post-selection. Here, we propose tomography schemes for pure states and for mixed states via weak measurements, and our schemes are more efficient because we do not discard any data. Furthermore, we demonstrate that any matrix element of a general state can be directly read from a…
To obtain a complete description of a quantum system, one usually employs standard quantum state tomography, which however requires exponential number of measurements to perform and hence is impractical when the system's size grows large. In this work, we introduce a self-learning tomographic scheme based on the variational hybrid quantum-classical method. The key part of the scheme is a learning procedure, in which we learn a control sequence capable of driving the unknown target state coherently to a simple fiducial state, so that the target state can be directly reconstructed by applying th…
It is shown how it is possible to reconstruct the initial state of a one-dimensional system by measuring sequentially two conjugate variables. The procedure relies on the quasi-characteristic function, the Fourier-transform of the Wigner quasi-probability. The proper characteristic function obtained by Fourier-transforming the experimentally accessible joint probability of observing "position" then "momentum" (or vice versa) can be expressed as a product of the quasi-characteristic function of the two detectors and that, unknown, of the quantum system. This allows state reconstruction through …
Quantum Optical Coherence Tomography (Q-OCT) is a non-classical equivalent of Optical Coherence Tomography and is able to provide a twofold axial resolution increase and immunity to resolution-degrading dispersion. The main drawback of Q-OCT are artefacts which are additional elements that clutter an A-scan and lead to a complete loss of structural information for multilayered objects. Whereas there are successful methods for artefact removal in Time-domain Q-OCT, no such scheme has been devised for Fourier-domain Q-OCT (Fd-Q-OCT), although the latter modality - through joint spectrum detectio…
The quantum Fourier transform (QFT) has been implemented on a three bit nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) quantum computer, providing a first step towards the realization of Shor's factoring and other quantum algorithms. Implementation of the QFT is presented with fidelity measures, and state tomography. Experimentally realizing the QFT is a clear demonstration of NMR's ability to control quantum systems.
By using a generalization of the optical tomography technique we describe the dynamics of a quantum system in terms of equations for a purely classical probability distribution which contains complete information about the system.
Quantum Optical Coherence Tomography (Q-OCT) presents many advantages over its classical counterpart, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT): it provides an increased axial resolution and is immune to even orders of dispersion. The core of Q-OCT is quantum interference of negatively correlated entangled photon pairs obtained in a Hong-Ou-Mandel configuration. This two-photon interference can be observed in the time domain in the form of dips or in the Fourier domain by means of a joint spectrum. The latter approach proved to be practical in the sense that it alleviated the requirement posed on lig…
A powerful tool for studying geometrical problems in Hilbert space is developed. In particular, we study the quantum pure state tomography problem in finite dimensions from the point of view of dynamical systems and bifurcations theory. First, we introduce a generalization of the Hellinger metric for probability distributions which allows us to find a geometrical interpretation of the quantum state tomography problem. Thereafter, we prove that every solution to the state tomography problem is an attractive fixed point of the so-called physical imposition operator. Additionally, we demonstrate …
We study the problem of quantum-state tomography under the assumption that the state of the system is close to pure. In this context, an efficient measurements that one typically formulates uniquely identify a pure state from within the set of other pure states. In general such measurements are not robust in the presence of measurement noise and other imperfections, and therefore are less practical for tomography. We argue here that state tomography experiments should instead be done using measurements that can distinguish a pure state from {\em any} other quantum state, of any rank. We show t…
We discuss the tomography of $N$-qubit states using collective measurements. The method is exact for symmetric states, whereas for not completely symmetric states the information accessible can be arranged as a mixture of irreducible SU(2) blocks. For the fully symmetric sector, the reconstruction protocol can be reduced to projections onto a canonically chosen set of pure states.
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.
We establish methods for quantum state tomography based on compressed sensing. These methods are specialized for quantum states that are fairly pure, and they offer a significant performance improvement on large quantum systems. In particular, they are able to reconstruct an unknown density matrix of dimension d and rank r using O(rd log^2 d) measurement settings, compared to standard methods that require d^2 settings. Our methods have several features that make them amenable to experimental implementation: they require only simple Pauli measurements, use fast convex optimization, are stable a…
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.
Multipartite entanglement has been widely regarded as key resources in distributed quantum computing, for instance, multi-party cryptography, measurement based quantum computing, quantum algorithms. It also plays a fundamental role in quantum phase transitions, even responsible for transport efficiency in biological systems. Certifying multipartite entanglement is generally a fundamental task. Since an $N$ qubit state is parameterized by $4^N-1$ real numbers, one is interested to design a measurement setup that reveals multipartite entanglement with as little effort as possible, at least witho…
The article undertakes the problem of pure state estimation from projective measurements based on photon counting. Two generic frames for qubit tomography are considered -- one composed of the elements of the SIC-POVM and the other defined by the vectors from the mutually unbiased bases (MUBs). Both frames are combined with the method of least squares in order to reconstruct a sample of input qubits with imperfect measurements. The accuracy of each frame is quantified by the average fidelity and purity. The efficiency of the frames is compared and discussed. The method can be generalized to hi…
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 measure the joint Q-function of a multi-spatial-mode field using a charge-coupled device array detector in an unbalanced heterodyne configuration. The intensity pattern formed by interference between a weak signal field and a strong local oscillator is resolved using Fourier analysis and used to reconstruct quadrature amplitude statistics for 22 spatial modes simultaneously. The local oscillator and signal propagate at an angle of 12 mrad thus shifting the classical noise to modes that do not overlap with the signal. In this configuration, balanced detection is not necessary.
Optimal generalized measurements for state estimation are well understood. However, practical quantum state tomography is typically performed using a fixed set of projective measurements and the question of how to choose these measurements has been largely unexplored in the literature. In this work we develop theoretical asymptotic bounds for the average fidelity of pure qubit tomography using measurement sets whose axes correspond to vertices of Platonic solids. We also present complete simulations of maximum likelihood tomography for mixed qubit states using the Platonic solid measurements. …
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.
Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is the most common approach to quantum state tomography. In this letter, we investigate whether it is also optimal in any sense. We show that MLE is an inadmissible estimator for most of the commonly used metrics of accuracy, i.e., some other estimator is more accurate for every true state. MLE is inadmissible for fidelity, mean squared error (squared Hilbert-Schmidt distance), and relative entropy. We prove that almost any estimator that can report both pure states and mixed states is inadmissible. This includes MLE, compressed sensing (nuclear-norm regular…
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…
We introduce a fast and accurate heuristic for adaptive tomography that addresses many of the limitations of prior methods. Previous approaches were either too computationally intensive or tailored to handle special cases such as single qubits or pure states. By contrast, our approach combines the efficiency of online optimization with generally applicable and well-motivated data-processing techniques. We numerically demonstrate these advantages in several scenarios including mixed states, higher-dimensional systems, and restricted measurements.
Quantum tomography is a critically important tool to evaluate quantum hardware, making it essential to develop optimized measurement strategies that are both accurate and efficient. We compare a variety of strategies using nearly pure test states. Those that are informationally complete for all states are found to be accurate and reliable even in the presence of errors in the measurements themselves, while those designed to be complete only for pure states are far more efficient but highly sensitive to such errors. Our results highlight the unavoidable tradeoffs inherent to quantum tomography.
We develop a technique for single qubit quantum state tomography using the mathematical setup of generalized quantization scheme for games. In our technique Alice sends an unknown pure quantum state to Bob who appends it with |0><0| and then applies the unitary operators on the appended quantum state and finds the payoffs for Alice and himself. It is shown that for a particular set of unitary operators these elements become equal to Stokes parameters for an unknown quantum state. In this way an unknown quantum state can be measured and reconstructed. Strictly speaking this technique is not a g…
A special algorithm for the Fourier-transform Ghost Imaging (GI) scheme is discussed based on the Compressive Sampling (CS) theory. Though developed mostly in real space, CS algorithm could also be used for the Fourier spectrum reconstruction of pure phase object by setting a proper sensing matrix. This could find its application in diffraction imaging of X-ray, neutron and electron with higher efficiency and resolution. Simulation and experiment results are also presented to prove the feasibility.
We obtain sufficient conditions on kernels of quantum states under which Wigner functions, optical quantum tomograms and linking their formulas are correctly defined. Our approach is based upon the Sobolev embedding theorem. The transition probability formula and the fractional Fourier transform are discussed in this framework.
The tomographic reconstruction of the state of a quantum-mechanical system is an essential component in the development of quantum technologies. We present an overview of different tomographic methods for determining the quantum-mechanical density matrix of a single qubit: (scaled) direct inversion, maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), minimum Fisher information distance, and Bayesian mean estimation (BME). We discuss the different prior densities in the space of density matrices, on which both MLE and BME depend, as well as ways of including experimental errors and of estimating tomography er…
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 …
Using the existing classification of all alternatives to the measurement postulates of quantum theory we study the properties of bi-partite systems in these alternative theories. We prove that in all these theories the purification principle is violated, meaning that some mixed states are not the reduction of a pure state in a larger system. This allows us to derive the measurement postulates of quantum theory from the structure of pure states and reversible dynamics, and the requirement that the purification principle holds. The violation of the purification principle implies that there is so…
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…
