We investigate the extent to which ``interaction-free'' measurements perturb the state of quantum systems. We show that the absence of energy exchange during the measurement is not a sufficient criterion to preserve that state, as the quantum system is subject to measurement dependent decoherence. While it is possible in general to design interaction-free measurement schemes that do preserve that state, the requirement of quantum coherence preservation rapidly leads to a very low efficiency. Our results, which have a simple interpretation in terms of ``which-way'' arguments, open up the way to novel quantum non-demolition techniques.
We define the coherence non-activating measurement as the positive operator-valued measurement which gives the same result whether or not the coherence in a quantum state is destroyed. A connection is built between the coherence activating ability of a measurement and its ability to steer quantum states when coherence non-activating measurement is free. Then we study the quantum discord based on coherence non-activating measurement and its behavior under local incoherent operations. Our results contribute to the study of resource non-activating condition, which is a complementary to the well-s…
We investigate the average coherence with respect to a complete set of complementary measurements. By using a Wigner-Yanase skew information-based coherence measure introduced in [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{96}, 022130, 2017], we evaluate the average coherence of a state with respect to any complete set of mutually unbiased measurements and general symmetric informationally complete measurements, respectively. We also establish analytically the relations among these average coherences.
In this work we investigate how to quantify the coherence of quantum measurements. First, we establish a resource theoretical framework to address the coherence of measurement and show that any statistical distance can be adopted to define a coherence monotone of measurement. For instance, the relative entropy fulfills all the required properties as a proper monotone. We specifically introduce a coherence monotone of measurement in terms of off-diagonal elements of Positive-Operator-Valued Measure (POVM) components. This quantification provides a lower bound on the robustness of measurement-co…
The standard quantum coherence theory is defined with respect to an orthonormal basis of a Hilbert space. Recently, Bischof, Kampermann and Bru% ß generalized the notion of coherence into the case of general measurements, and also, they established a rigorous resource theory of coherence with respect to general measurements. In this paper, we propose such a coherence measure with respect to general measurements via quantum Fisher information, and provide an application of this measure.
Quantum measurement is a class of quantum channels that sends quantum states to classical states. We set up resource theories of quantum coherence and quantum entanglement for quantum measurements and find relations between them. For this, we conceive a relative entropy type quantity to account for the quantum resources of quantum measurements. The quantum coherence of a quantum measurement can be converted into the entanglement in a bipartite quantum measurement through coherence-non generating transformations. Conversely, a quantum entanglement monotone of quantum measurements induces a quan…
Quantum measurement not only can destroy coherence but also can create it. Here, we estimate the maximum amount of coherence, one can create under a complete non-selective measurement process. For our analysis, we consider projective as well as POVM measurements. Based on our observations, we characterize the measurement processes into two categories, namely, the measurements with the ability to induce coherence and the ones without this ability. Our findings also suggest that the more POVM elements present in a measurement that acts on the quantum system, the less will be its coherence creati…
We present a direct measurement of the spatiotemporal coherence of parametric down-conversion in the range of negative group-velocity dispersion. In this case, the frequency-angular spectra are ring-shaped and temporal coherence is coupled to spatial coherence. Correspondingly, the lack of coherence due to spatial displacement can be compensated with the introduction of time delay. We show a simple technique, based on a modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer, which allowed us to measure time coherence and near-field space coherence simultaneously, with complete control of both variables. This te…
Quantum coherence and non-Markovianity of an atom in dissipative cavity under weak measurement are investigated in this work. We find that, the quantum coherence obviously depends on the atomic initial state, the strength of the weak measurement and its reversal, the atom-cavity coupling constant and the non-Markovian effecct. The more obvious the weak measurement effect is, the better the protection of coherence is. The quantum coherence is preserved more efficiently for lager the atom-cavity coupling. The stronger the non-Markovian effect, the more slowly the coherence reduces. This is, the …
Quantum coherence with respect to orthonormal bases has been studied extensively in the past few years. Recently, Bischof, et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 110402 (2019)] generalized it to the case of general positive operator-valued measure (POVM) measurements. Such POVM-based coherence, including the block coherence as a special case, have significant operational interpretations in quantifying the advantage of quantum states in quantum information processing. In this work we first establish an alternative framework for quantifying the block coherence and provide several block coherence measures…
Coherence is a fundamental resource in quantum information processing, which can be certified by a coherence witness. Due to the imperfection of measurement devices, a conventional coherence witness may lead to fallacious results. We show that the conventional witness could mistake an incoherent state as a state with coherence due to the inaccurate settings of measurement bases. In order to make the witness result reliable, we propose a measurement-device-independent coherence witness scheme without any assumptions on the measurement settings. We introduce the decoy-state method to significant…
The effects of the measurement apparatus on quantum coherence are studied by considering a purely dephasing model of a qubit. The initial state is prepared from a thermal state of the whole system by performing a nonselective measurement on the qubit. The magnitude of the initial postmeasurement coherence is bounded by the value $1/2$, which is realized with special measurement schemes and in the low-temperature limit. The magnitude of coherence identically vanishes, increases or decreases with approximately constant velocity over a determined short time scale, according to the choice of the p…
Coherence is the most fundamental quantum feature in quantum mechanics. For a bipartite quantum state, if a measurement is performed on one party, the other party, based on the measurement outcomes, will collapse to a corresponding state with some probability and hence gain the average coherence. It is shown that the average coherence is not less than the coherence of its reduced density matrix. In particular, it is very surprising that the extra average coherence (and the maximal extra average coherence with all the possible measurements taken into account) is upper bounded by the classical c…
Coherence is a cornerstone of quantum theory and a prerequisite for the advantage of quantum technologies. In recent work, the notion of coherence with respect to a general quantum measurement (POVM) was introduced and embedded into a resource-theoretic framework that generalizes the standard resource theory of coherence. In particular, POVM-incoherent (free) states and operations were established. In this work, we explore features of this framework which arise due to the rich structure of POVMs compared to projective measurements. Moreover, we introduce a rigorous, probabilisitic framework fo…
We address measurement-based generation of quantum coherence in continuous variable systems. We consider Gaussian measurements performed on Gaussian states and focus on two scenarios. In the first one, we assume an initially correlated bipartite state shared by two parties and study how correlations may be exploited to remotely create quantum coherence via measurement back-action. In particular, we focus on conditional states with zero first moments, so as to address coherence due to properties of the covariance matrix. We consider different classes of bipartite states with incoherent marginal…
Measurements can be considered as a genuine example of processes that crush quantum coherence. In the case of an observable with degeneracy, the formulations of Lüders and von Neumann are known. These pictures postulate the two different states of a system immediately following the act of measurement. Hence, they are associated with divers variants of coherence losses during the measurement. Recent studies have focused on several ways to characterize quantum coherence appropriately. One of the existing types of quantifier is based on quantum $α$-divergences of the Tsallis type. In this paper, …
We find that all measures of coherence are frozen for an initial state in a strictly incoherent channel if and only if the relative entropy of coherence is frozen for the state. Our finding reveals the existence of measure-independent freezing of coherence, and provides an entropy-based dynamical condition in which the coherence of an open quantum system is totally unaffected by noise.
The conventional coherence is defined with respect to a fixed orthonormal basis, i.e., to a von Neumann measurement. Recently, generalized quantum coherence with respect to general positive operator-valued measurements (POVMs) has been presented. Several well-defined coherence measures, such as the relative entropy of coherence $C_{r}$, the $l_{1}$ norm of coherence $C_{l_{1}}$ and the coherence $C_{T,α}$ based on Tsallis relative entropy with respect to general POVMs have been obtained. In this work, we investigate the properties of $C_{r}$, $l_{1}$ and $C_{T,α}$. We estimate the upper bounds…
Coherence and entanglement are fundamental properties of quantum systems, promising to power the near future quantum computers, sensors and simulators. Yet, their experimental detection is challenging, usually requiring full reconstruction of the system state. We show that one can extract quantitative bounds to the relative entropy of coherence and the coherent information, coherence and entanglement quantifiers respectively, by a limited number of purity measurements. The scheme is readily implementable with current technology to verify quantum computations in large scale registers, without c…
Quantum coherence and quantum correlations lie in the center of quantum information science, since they both are considered as fundamental reasons for significant features of quantum mechanics different from classical mechanics. We present a group of complementary relations for quantum coherence and quantum correlations; specifically, we focus on thermal discord and conditional information in scenarios of multiple measurements. We show that the summation of quantum coherence quantified in different bases has a lower bound, resulting from entropic uncertainty relations with multiple measurement…
The recently established resource theory of quantum coherence allows for a quantitative understanding of the superposition principle, with applications reaching from quantum computing to quantum biology. While different quantifiers of coherence have been proposed in the literature, their efficient estimation in today's experiments remains a challenge. Here, we introduce a collective measurement scheme for estimating the amount of coherence in quantum states, which requires entangled measurements on two copies of the state. As we show by numerical simulations, our scheme outperforms other estim…
By virtue of quantum coherence resource measure, we show that the dephasing measurement on a coherence basis can transfer the coherence contained in system into environment totally, which gives a quantification of decoherence.
The superposition of quantum states lies at the heart of physics and has been recently found to serve as a versatile resource for quantum information protocols, defining the notion of quantum coherence. In this contribution, we report on the implementation of its complementary concept, coherence from quantum measurements. By devising an accessible criterion which holds true in any classical statistical theory, we demonstrate that noncommutative quantum measurements violate this constraint, rendering it possible to perform an operational assessment of the measurement-based quantum coherence. In…
A measurement is deemed successful, if one can maximize the information gain by the measurement apparatus. Here, we ask if quantum coherence of the system imposes a limitation on the information gain during quantum measurement. First, we argue that the information gain in a quantum measurement is nothing but the coherent information or the distinct quantum information that one can send from the system to apparatus. We prove that the maximum information gain from a pure state, using a mixed apparatus is upper bounded by the initial coherence of the system. Further, we illustrate the measurement…
Optical low-coherence reflectometry is capable of unambiguously measuring positions of stacked, partially reflective layers in a sample object. It relies on the low coherence of the light source and the absolute distances are obtained from the position reading of a mechanical motor stage. We show how to exploit the simultaneous high and low coherence properties of energy-time entangled photon pairs to directly calibrates the position scale of an OLCR scan with a reference laser wavelength. In experiment, a precision of 1.6\,nm and good linearity is demonstrated.
Maximal coherence of quantum measurement and the resource theory of sharpness
Institute for Convergence Research and Education in Advanced Technology, Yonsei University（延世大学先进技术与教育融合研究所）；Department of Quantum Information, Graduate School, Yonsei University（延世大学研究生院量子信息系）；Agency for Defense Development（国防发展局）；Department of Physics, University of Texas at El Paso（德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校物理系）
Doppler-free three-photon coherence effects at a wavelength of 253.7 nm have been observed in thermal mercury vapor. The experimental results are compared to simulations based on a detailed theoretical model reproducing the measured effects. Based on these results, we show by simulations that amplification without inversion in our setup is feasible, paving the way towards lasing without inversion in mercury.
Recently, there has been a renewed interest in the quantification of coherence or other coherence-like concepts within the framework of quantum resource theory. However, rigorously defined or not, the notion of coherence or decoherence has already been used by the community for decades since the advent of quantum theory. Intuitively, the definitions of coherence and decoherence should be the two sides of the same coin. Therefore, a natural question is raised: how can the conventional decoherence processes, such as the von Neumann-Lüders (projective) measurement postulation or partially dephasi…
We provide a theory independent framework to quantify coherence. In comparison with Bell's theory independent approach to quantum nonlocality, we characterize a general coherence phenomenon with statistics arising from sequential measurements of observables that might not be compatible. By introducing a "decohered" state after the sharp measurement of some preferred observable, we quantify coherence by either the difference of initial "superposed" state from the "decohered" state or the measurement outcome deviations when they subjected to further measurements. Applied to quantum mechanics, th…
Coherent superpositions are one of the hallmarks of quantum mechanics and are vital for any quantum mechanical device to outperform the classically achievable. Generically, superpositions are verified in interference experiments, but despite their longstanding central role we know very little about how to extract the number of coherently superposed amplitudes from a general interference pattern. A fundamental issue is that performing a phase-sensitive measurement is as challenging as creating a coherent superposition, so that assuming a perfectly implemented measurement for verification of qua…
Quantum coherent superpositions of states with different energies, i.e., states with coherence with respect to energy basis, are important resource for modern quantum technologies. States with small coherence can be obtained either autonomously, due to the effect of a weak coherent drive or, potentially, due to the presence of an environment. In this paper, we propose a measurement-based protocol for quantum coherence synthesis from individual systems (with low initial coherence) into a global (and higher) coherence of the joint system. As an input, it uses $N$ non-interacting copies of two-le…
The quantum coherence of the two-site XYZ model with Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya (DM) interactions in an external inhomogenous magnetic field is studied. The DM interaction, the magnetic field and the measurement basis can be along different directions, and we examine the quantum coherence at finite temperature. With respect to the spin-spin interaction parameter, we find that the quantum coherence decreases when the direction of measurement basis is the same as that of the spin-spin interaction. When the spin-lattice interaction is varied, the coherence always increases irrespective of the relation …
Quantum coherence represented by a superposition of energy eigenstates is, together with energy, an important resource for quantum technology and thermodynamics. Energy and quantum coherence however, can be complementary. The increase of energy can reduce quantum coherence and vice versa. Recently, it was realized that steady-state quantum coherence could be autonomously harnessed from a cold environment. We propose a conditional synthesis of $N$ independent two-level systems (TLS) with partial quantum coherence obtained from an environment to one coherent system using a measurement able to in…
We characterize minimal measurement setups for validating the quantum coherence of an unknown quantum state. We show that for a $d$-level system, the optimal strategy consists of measuring $d$ orthonormal bases such that each measured basis is mutually unbiased with respect to the reference basis, and together with the reference basis they form an informationally complete set of measurements. We show that, in general, any strategy capable of validating quantum coherence allows one to evaluate also the exact value of coherence. We then give an explicit construction of the optimal measurements f…
We introduce a procedure based on quantum expectation values of measurement observables to characterize quantum coherence. Our measure allows one to quantify coherence without having to perform tomography of the quantum state, and can be directly calculated from measurement expectation values. This definition of coherence allows the decomposition into contributions corresponding to the non-classical correlations between the subsystems and localized on each subsystem. The method can also be applied to cases where the full set of measurement operators is unavailable. An estimator using the trunc…
Quantum coherence is an essential feature of quantum mechanics and is an important physical resource in quantum information. Recently, the resource theory of quantum coherence has been established parallel with that of entanglement. In the resource theory, a resource can be well defined if given three ingredients: the free states, the resource, the (restricted) free operations. In this paper, we study the resource theory of coherence in a different light, that is, we consider the total coherence defined by the basis-free coherence maximized among all potential basis. We define the distillable …
The peculiar uncertainty or randomness of quantum measurements stems from coherence, whose information-theoretic characterization is currently under investigation. Under the resource theory of coherence, it is interesting to investigate interpretations of coherence measures and the interplay with other quantum properties, such as quantum correlations and intrinsic randomness. Coherence can be viewed as the resource for the intrinsic randomness in the measurement outcomes of a state in the computational basis. We observed in our previous work that the coherence of formation, which measures the …
A multi-slit interference experiment, with which-way detectors, in the presence of environment induced decoherence, is theoretically analyzed. The effect of environment is modeled via a coupling to a bath of harmonic oscillators. Through an exact analysis, an expression for $\mathcal{C}$, a recently introduced measure of coherence, of the particle at the detecting screen is obtained as a function of the parameters of the environment. It is argued that the effect of decoherence can be quantified using the measured coherence value which lies between zero and one. For the specific case of two sli…
A pair of quantum observables diagonal in the same "incoherent" basis can be measured jointly, so some coherence is obviously required for measurement incompatibility. Here we first observe that coherence in a single observable is linked to the diagonal elements of any observable jointly measurable with it, leading to a general criterion for the coherence needed for incompatibility. Specialising to the case where the second observable is incoherent (diagonal), we develop a concrete method for solving incompatibility problems, tractable even in large systems by analytical bounds, without resort…
Purity and coherence of a quantum state are recognized as useful resources for various information processing tasks. In this article, we propose a fidelity based valid measure of purity and coherence monotone and establish a relationship between them. This formulation of coherence is extended to quantum correlation relative to measurement. We have also studied the role of weak measurement on purity.
Quantum coherence can be used to infer the presence of a detector without triggering it. Here we point out that, according to quantum mechanics, such interaction-free measurements cannot be perfect, i.e., in a single-shot experiment one has strictly positive probability to activate the detector. We formalize the extent to which such measurements are forbidden by deriving a trade-off relation between the probability of activation and the probability of an inconclusive interaction-free measurement. Our description of interaction-free measurements is theory independent and allows derivations of s…
Measurement outcomes of a quantum state can be genuinely random (unpredictable) according to the basic laws of quantum mechanics. The Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation puts constrains on the accuracy of two noncommuting observables. The existing uncertainty relations adopt variance or entropic measures, which are functions of observed outcome distributions, to quantify the uncertainty. According to recent studies of quantum coherence, such uncertainty measures contain both classical (predictable) and quantum (unpredictable) components. In order to extract out the quantum effects, we de…
