Adaptiveness is a key principle in information processing including statistics and machine learning. We investigate the usefulness of adaptive methods in the framework of asymptotic binary hypothesis testing, when each hypothesis represents asymptotically many independent instances of a quantum channel, and the tests are based on using the unknown channel and observing outputs. Unlike the familiar setting of quantum states as hypotheses, there is a fundamental distinction between adaptive and non-adaptive strategies with respect to the channel uses, and we introduce a number of further variants of the discrimination tasks by imposing different restrictions on the test strategies. The following results are obtained: (1) We prove that for classical-quantum channels, adaptive and non-adaptive strategies lead to the same error exponents both in the symmetric (Chernoff) and asymmetric (Hoeffding, Stein) settings. (2) The first separation between adaptive and non-adaptive symmetric hypothesis testing exponents for quantum channels, which we derive from a general lower bound on the error probability for non-adaptive strategies; the concrete example we analyze is a pair of entanglement-breaking channels. (3)We prove, in some sense generalizing the previous statement, that for general channels adaptive strategies restricted to classical feed-forward and product state channel inputs are not superior in the asymptotic limit to non-adaptive product state strategies. (4) As an application of our findings, we address the discrimination power of an arbitrary quantum channel and show that adaptive strategies with classical feedback and no quantum memory at the input do not increase the discrimination power of the channel beyond non-adaptive tensor product input strategies.
It is well known that for the discrimination of classical and quantum channels in the finite, non-asymptotic regime, adaptive strategies can give an advantage over non-adaptive strategies. However, Hayashi [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 55(8), 3807 (2009)] showed that in the asymptotic regime, the exponential error rate for the discrimination of classical channels is not improved in the adaptive setting. We extend this result in several ways. First, we establish the strong Stein's lemma for classical-quantum channels by showing that asymptotically the exponential error rate for classical-quantum cha…
We propose a numerical algorithm for finding optimal measurements for quantum-state discrimination. The theory of the semidefinite programming provides a simple check of the optimality of the numerically obtained results.
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 quantum state discrimination sits neatly in the framework of Bayesian experimental design. In this setting, the two main branches of quantum state discrimination (minimal error and maximal confidence) simply correspond to two different utility functions. This view allows straightforward extensions and mixing of different discrimination tasks by examining the utility functions, and to describe multi-objective discrimination tasks. In addition, the probability of success and the total confidence are resource monotones quantifying the usefulness of measurements. We give general condi…
Research in non-orthogonal state discrimination has given rise to two conventional optimal strategies: unambiguous discrimination (UD) and minimum error (ME) discrimination. This paper explores the experimentally relevant range of measurement strategies between the two, where the rate of inconclusive results is minimized for a bounded-error rate. We first provide some constraints on the problem that apply to generalized measurements (POVMs). We then provide the theory for the optimal projective measurement (PVM) in this range. Through analytical and numerical results we investigate this family…
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 derive general discrimination of quantum states chosen from a certain set, given initial $M$ copies of each state, and obtain the matrix inequality, which describe the bound between the maximum probability of correctly determining and that of error. The former works are special cases of our results.
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…
The discrimination of quantum processes, including quantum states, channels, and superchannels, is a fundamental topic in quantum information theory. It is often of interest to analyze the optimal performance that can be achieved when discrimination strategies are restricted to a given subset of all strategies allowed by quantum mechanics. In this paper, we present a general formulation of the task of finding the maximum success probability for discriminating quantum processes as a convex optimization problem whose Lagrange dual problem exhibits zero duality gap. The proposed formulation can b…
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, w…
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…
How can one discriminate different inequivalent classes of multiparticle entanglement experimentally? We present an approach for the discrimination of an experimentally prepared state from the equivalence class of another state. We consider two possible measures for the discrimination strength of an observable. The first measure is based on the difference of expectation values, the second on the relative entropy of the probability distributions of the measurement outcomes. The interpretation of these measures and their usefulness for experiments with limited resources are discussed. In the cas…
In this paper, we discuss the problem of determining whether a quantum system is in a pure state, or in a mixed state. We apply two strategies to settle this problem: the unambiguous discrimination and the maximum confidence discrimination. We also proved that the optimal versions of both strategies are equivalent. The efficiency of the discrimination is also analyzed. This scheme also provides a method to estimate purity of quantum states, and Schmidt numbers of composed systems.
Fast and accurate measurement is a highly desirable, if not vital, feature of quantum computing architectures. In this work we investigate the usefulness of adaptive measurements in improving the speed and accuracy of qubit measurement. We examine a particular class of quantum computing architectures, ones based on qubits coupled to well controlled harmonic oscillator modes (reminiscent of cavity-QED), where adaptive schemes for measurement are particularly appropriate. In such architectures, qubit measurement is equivalent to phase discrimination for a mode of the electromagnetic field, and w…
We consider the sequential quantum channel discrimination problem using adaptive and non-adaptive strategies. In this setting the number of uses of the underlying quantum channel is not fixed but a random variable that is either bounded in expectation or with high probability. We show that both types of error probabilities decrease to zero exponentially fast and, when using adaptive strategies, the rates are characterized by the measured relative entropy between two quantum channels, yielding a strictly larger region than that achievable by non-adaptive strategies. Allowing for quantum memory,…
In this work we study the problem of single-shot discrimination of von Neumann measurements, which we associate with measure-and-prepare channels. There are two possible approaches to this problem. The first one is simple and does not utilize entanglement. We focus only on the discrimination of classical probability distributions, which are outputs of the channels. We find necessary and sufficient criterion for perfect discrimination in this case. A more advanced approach requires the usage of entanglement. We quantify the distance between two measurements in terms of the diamond norm (called …
Global versus Local Discrimination of Locally Implementable Multipartite Unitaries
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram（印度科学教育研究所特里凡得琅分校）；Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar（印度技术学院布巴内斯瓦尔分校）；S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences（S.N. 玻色基础科学国家中心）
The impossibility of deterministic and error-free discrimination among nonorthogonal quantum states lies at the core of quantum theory and constitutes a primitive for secure quantum communication. Demanding determinism leads to errors, while demanding certainty leads to some inconclusiveness. One of the most fundamental strategies developed for this task is the optimal unambiguous measurement. It encompasses conclusive results, which allow for error-free state retrodictions with the maximum success probability, and inconclusive results, which are discarded for not allowing perfect identificati…
There are fundamental limits to the accuracy with which one can determine the state of a quantum system. I give an overview of the main approaches to quantum state discrimination. Several strategies exist. In quantum hypothesis testing, a quantum system is prepared in a member of a known, finite set of states, and the aim is to guess which one with the minimum probability of error. Error free discrimination is also sometimes possible, if we allow for the possibility of obtaining inconclusive results. If no prior information about the state is provided, then it is impractical to try to determin…
Efficiently Computable Strategies and Limits for Bosonic Channel Discrimination
School of Science, STEM College, RMIT University（斯威本科技大学理学院STEM学院）；Scuola Normale Superiore（比萨高等师范学院）；Korteweg–de Vries Institute for Mathematics, University of Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹大学科特韦格-德弗里斯数学研究所）；Mathematical Quantum Information RIKEN Hakubi Research Team, RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute (PRI) and RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing (RQC)（理科院系量子信息RIKEN Hakubi研究团队，理化学研究所前沿研究院（PRI）和理化学研究所量子计算中心（RQC））；School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University（康奈尔大学电气与计算机工程学院）
We address the problem of discriminating with minimal error probability two given quantum operations. We show that the use of entangled input states generally improves the discrimination. For Pauli channels we provide a complete comparison of the optimal strategies where either entangled or unentangled input states are used.
The need of discriminating between different quantum states is a fundamental issue in Quantum Information and Communication. The actual realization of generally optimal strategies in this task is often limited by the need of supplemental resources and very complex receivers. We have experimentally implemented two discrimination schemes in a minimum-error scenario based on a receiver featured by a network structure and a dynamical processing of information. The first protocol implemented in our experiment, directly inspired to a recent theoretical proposal, achieves binary optimal discriminatio…
We consider a special form of state discrimination in which after the measurement we are given additional information that may help us identify the state. This task plays a central role in the analysis of quantum cryptographic protocols in the noisy-storage model, where the identity of the state corresponds to a certain bit string, and the additional information is typically a choice of encoding that is initially unknown to the cheating party. We first provide simple optimality conditions for measurements for any such problem, and show upper and lower bounds on the success probability. For a c…
We study a broad class of quantum process discrimination problems that can handle many optimization strategies such as the Bayes, Neyman-Pearson, and unambiguous strategies, where each process can consist of multiple time steps and can have an internal memory. Given a collection of candidate processes, our task is to find a discrimination strategy, which may be adaptive and/or entanglement-assisted, that maximizes a given objective function subject to given constraints. Our problem can be formulated as a convex problem. Its Lagrange dual problem with no duality gap and necessary and sufficient…
We assess the resources needed to identify a reversible quantum gate among a finite set of alternatives, including in our analysis both deterministic and probabilistic strategies. Among the probabilistic strategies we consider unambiguous gate discrimination, where errors are not tolerated but inconclusive outcomes are allowed, and we prove that parallel strategies are sufficient to unambiguously identify the unknown gate with minimum number of queries. This result is used to provide upper and lower bounds on the query complexity and on the minimum ancilla dimension. In addition, we introduce …
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…
Measurements approaching the ultimate quantum limits of sensitivity are central in quantum information processing, quantum metrology, and communication. Quantum measurements to discriminate multiple states at the single-photon level are essential for optimizing information transfer in low-power optical communications and quantum communications, and can enhance the capabilities of many quantum information protocols. Here, we theoretically investigate and experimentally demonstrate the discrimination of multiple coherent states of light with sensitivities surpassing the quantum noise limit (QNL)…
Strategies to optimally discriminate between quantum states are critical in quantum technologies. We present an experimental demonstration of minimum error discrimination between entangled states, encoded in the polarization of pairs of photons. Although the optimal measurement involves projecting onto entangled states, we use a result of Walgate et al. to design an optical implementation employing only local polarization measurements and feed-forward, which performs at the Helstrom bound. Our scheme can achieve perfect discrimination of orthogonal states and minimum error discrimination of no…
We investigate optimal discrimination between two projective quantum measurements on a single qubit. We consider scenario where the measurement that should be identified can be performed twice and we show that adaptive discrimination strategy, entangled probe states, and feed-forward all help to increase the probability of correct identification of the measurement. We also experimentally demonstrate the studied discrimination strategies and test their performance. The employed experimental setup involves projective measurements on polarization states of single photons and preparation of requir…
School of Data Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen（香港中文大学（深圳）数据科学学院）；Institute for Quantum Information, RWTH Aachen University（亚琛工业大学量子信息研究所）
One of the most fundamental results in quantum information theory is that no measurement can perfectly discriminate between non-orthogonal quantum states. In this work, we investigate quantum advantages for discrimination tasks over noncontextual theories by considering a maximum confidence measurement that unifies different strategies of quantum state discrimination, including minimum-error and unambiguous discrimination. We first show that maximum confidence discrimination, as well as unambiguous discrimination, contains contextual advantages. We then consider a semi-device independent scena…
This expository article gives an overview of the theory of hypothesis testing of quantum states in finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. Optimal measurement strategy for testing binary quantum hypotheses, which result in minimum error probability, is discussed. Collective and individual adaptive measurement strategies in testing hypotheses in the multiple copy scenario, with various upper and lower bounds on error probability, are outlined. A brief account on quantum channel discrimination and the role of entangled states in achieving enhanced precision in the task of channel discrimination is gi…
The phenomenon of nonlocality without entanglement(NLWE) arises in discriminating multi-party quantum separable states. Recently, it has been found that the post-measurement information about the prepared subensemble can lock or unlock NLWE in minimum-error discrimination of non-orthogonal separable states. Thus, it is natural to ask whether the availability of the post-measurement information can influence on the occurrence of NLWE even in other state-discrimination strategies. Here, we show that the post-measurement information can be used to lock as well as unlock the occurrence of NLWE in …
It is a fundamental consequence of the superposition principle for quantum states that there must exist non-orthogonal states, that is states that, although different, have a non-zero overlap. This finite overlap means that there is no way of determining with certainty in which of two such states a given physical system has been prepared. We review the various strategies that have been devised to discriminate optimally between non-orthogonal states and some of the optical experiments that have been performed to realise these.
We consider two different optimized measurement strategies for the discrimination of nonorthogonal quantum states. The first is conclusive discrimination with a minimum probability of inferring an erroneous result, and the second is unambiguous, i. e. error-free, discrimination with a minimum probability of getting an inconclusive outcome, where the measurement fails to give a definite answer. For distinguishing between two mixed quantum states, we investigate the relation between the minimum error probability achievable in conclusive discrimination, and the minimum failure probability that ca…
This paper studies the difficulty of discriminating between an arbitrary quantum channel and a "replacer" channel that discards its input and replaces it with a fixed state. We show that, in this particular setting, the most general adaptive discrimination strategies provide no asymptotic advantage over non-adaptive tensor-power strategies. This conclusion follows by proving a quantum Stein's lemma for this channel discrimination setting, showing that a constant bound on the Type I error leads to the Type II error decreasing to zero exponentially quickly at a rate determined by the maximum rel…
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…
Quantum hypothesis testing is a central task in the entire field of quantum information theory. Understanding its ultimate limits will give insight into a wide range of quantum protocols and applications, from sensing to communication. Although the limits of hypothesis testing between quantum states have been completely clarified by the pioneering works of Helstrom in the 70s, the more difficult problem of hypothesis testing with quantum channels, i.e., channel discrimination, is less understood. This is mainly due to the complications coming from the use of input entanglement and the possibil…
Distinguishing different quantum states is a fundamental task having practical applications for information processing. Despite the efforts devoted so far, however, strategies for optimal discrimination are known only for specific examples. We here consider the problem of minimum-error quantum state discrimination where the average error is attempted to be minimized. We show the general structure of minimum-error state discrimination as well as useful properties to derive analytic solutions. Based on the general structure, we present a geometric formulation of the problem, which can be applied…
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…
In the task of discriminating between nonorthogonal quantum states from multiple copies, the key parameters are the error probability and the resources (number of copies) used. Previous studies have considered the task of minimizing the average error probability for fixed resources. Here we introduce a new state discrimination task: minimizing the average resources for a fixed admissible error probability. We show that this new task is not performed optimally by previously known strategies, and derive and experimentally test a detection scheme that performs better.
Distinguishing physical processes is one of the fundamental problems in quantum physics. Although distinguishability of quantum preparations and quantum channels have been studied considerably, distinguishability of quantum measurements remains largely unexplored. We investigate the problem of single-shot discrimination of quantum measurements using two strategies, one based on single quantum systems and the other one based on entangled quantum systems. First, we formally define both scenarios. We then construct sets of measurements (including non-projective) in arbitrary finite dimensions tha…
The present paper studies an operator norm that captures the distinguishability of quantum strategies in the same sense that the trace norm captures the distinguishability of quantum states or the diamond norm captures the distinguishability of quantum channels. Characterizations of its unit ball and dual norm are established via strong duality of a semidefinite optimization problem. A full, formal proof of strong duality is presented for the semidefinite optimization problem in question. This norm and its properties are employed to generalize a state discrimination result of Ref. [GW05]. The …
