An optimal universal cloning transformation is derived that produces M copies of an unknown qubit from a pair of orthogonal qubits. For M>6, the corresponding cloning fidelity is higher than that of the optimal copying of a pair of identical qubits. It is shown that this cloning transformation can be implemented probabilistically via parametric down-conversion by feeding the signal and idler modes of a nonlinear crystal with orthogonally polarized photons.
Quantum cloning machines for equatorial qubits are studied. For the case of 1 to 2 phase-covariant quantum cloning machine, we present the networks consisting of quantum gates to realize the quantum cloning transformations. The copied equatorial qubits are shown to be separable by using Peres-Horodecki criterion. The optimal 1 to M phase-covariant quantum cloning transformations are given.
We study the optimal cloning transformation for two pairs of orthogonal states of two-dimensional quantum systems, and derive the corresponding optimal fidelities.
We find an optimal quantum cloning machine, which clones qubits of arbitrary symmetrical distribution around the Bloch vector with the highest fidelity. The process is referred to as phase-independent cloning in contrast to the standard phase-covariant cloning for which an input qubit state is a priori better known. We assume that the information about the input state is encoded in an arbitrary axisymmetric distribution (phase function) on the Bloch sphere of the cloned qubits. We find analytical expressions describing the optimal cloning transformation and fidelity of the clones. As an illust…
We consider cloning transformations of equatorial qubits and qutrits, with the transformation covariant for rotation of the phases. The optimal cloning maps are derived without simplifying assumptions from first principles, for any number of input and output qubits, and for a single input qutrit and any number of output qutrits. We also compare the cloning maps for global and single particle fidelities, and we show that the two criteria lead to different optimal maps.
In this paper we establish a deep connection between the 3 qubit one-to-two phase-covariant quantum cloning network of Fuchs et al. [C. Fuchs, N. Gisin, R.B. Griffiths, C.S. Niu, and A. Peres, Phys. Rev. A 56 no 4, 1163 (1997)], and its economic 2 qubit counterpart due to Niu and Griffiths [Phys.Rev. A 60 no 4, 2764 (1999)]. A general, necessary and sufficient criterion is derived in order to characterize the reducibility of 3 qubit cloners to 2 qubit cloners. When this criterion is fulfilled, economic cloning is possible. We show that the optimal isotropic or universal 3 qubit cloning machine…
Quantum cloning of two identical mixed qubits $ρ\otimes ρ$ is studied. We propose the quantum cloning transformations not only for the triplet (symmetric) states but also for the singlet (antisymmetric) state. We can copy these two identical mixed qubits to M (M>2) copies. This quantum cloning machine is optimal in the sense that the shrinking factor between the input and the output single qubit achieves the upper bound. The result shows that we can copy two identical mixed qubits with the same quality as that of two identical pure states.
Orthogonal pure states can be cloned as well as deleted. However if there is an initial disorder in the system, that is for orthogonal mixed states, one cannot perform deletion. And cloning, in such cases, necessarily produces an irreversibility, in the form of leakage of information into the environment.
The no-cloning principle tells us that non-orthogonal quantum states cannot be cloned, but it does not tell us that orthogonal states can always be cloned. We suggest a situation where the cloning transformations are restricted, leading to a novel type of no-cloning principle. In the case of a composite system made of two subsystems: if the subsystems are only available one after the other then there are various cases when orthogonal states cannot be cloned. Surprising examples are given, which give a radically better insight regarding the basic concepts of quantum cryptography.
We discuss the exact cloning of orthogonal but entangled qubits under local operations and classical communication. The amount of entanglement necessary in blank copy is obtained for various cases. Surprisingly this amount is more than 1 ebit for certain set of two nonmaximal but equally entangled states of two qubits system. To clone any three two qubits Bell states at least log2 3 ebit is necessary.
We propose a feasible scheme to implement the 1-to-2 optimal cloning transformation for two pairs of orthogonal states of two-dimensional quantum systems in the context of cavity QED. The copied qubits are shown to be inseparable by using Peres-Horodecki criterion.
Beyond the no-cloning theorem, the universal symmetric quantum cloning machine was first addressed by Buzek and Hillery. Here, we realized the one-to-two qubits Buzek-Hillery cloning machine with linear optical devices. This method relies on the representation of several qubits by a single photon. We showed that, the fidelities between the two output qubits and the original qubit are both 5/6 (which proved to be the optimal fidelity of one-to-two qubits universal cloner) for arbitrary input pure states.
Cloning of observables, unlike standard cloning of states, aims at copying the information encoded in the statistics of a class of observables rather then on quantum states themselves. In such a process the emphasis is on the quantum operation (evolution plus measurement) necessary to retrieve the original information. We analyze, for qubit systems, the cloning of a class generated by two noncommuting observables, elucidating the relationship between such a process and joint measurements. This helps in establishing an optimality criterion for cloning of observables. We see that, even if the cl…
We discuss the "partial" quantum cloning of the pure two-partite states, when the "part" of initial state related to the one qubit is copied only. The same approach gives the possibility to design the quantum copying machine for the mixed qubit states.
We propose a scheme to realize $1\to 2$ universal quantum cloning machine (UQCM) with superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) qubits, embeded in a high-Q cavity. CNOT operations are derived to present our scheme, and the two-photon Raman resonance processes are used to increase the operation rate. Compared with previous works, our scheme has advantages in the experimental realization and further utilization.
Following the work of Niu and Griffiths, in \emph{Phys.Rev.A 58, 4377(1998)}, we shall investigate the problem, how to design the optimal quantum cloning machines (QCMs) for qubit system, with the help of Bloch-sphere representation. In stead of the quality factor there, the Fiuráusek's optimal condition, where the optimal cloning machine should maximize a convex mixture of the average fidelity, is used as the optimality criterion in present protocol. Almost all of the known optimal QCMs in previous works, the cloning for states with fixed polar angle, the phase-covariant cloning, the universa…
We review our recent work on the universal (i.e. input state independent) optimal quantum copying (cloning) of qubits. We present unitary transformations which describe the optimal cloning of a qubit and we present the corresponding quantum logical network. We also present network for an optimal quantum copying ``machine'' (transformation) which produces N+1 identical copies from the original qubit. Here again the quality (fidelity) of the copies does not depend on the state of the original and is only a function of the number of copies, N. In addition, we present the machine which universaly …
We discuss (im)possibility of the exact cloning of orthogonal but genuinely entangled three qubit states aided with entangled ancila under local operation and classical communication. Whereas any two orthogonal GHZ states taken from the canonical GHZ basis, can be cloned with the help of a known GHZ state, surprisingly we find that no two W states can be cloned by using any known three qubit (possibly entangled) state as blank copy.
Coherence and entanglement are the two most crucial resources for various quantum information processing tasks. Here, we study the interplay of coherence and entanglement under the action of different three qubit quantum cloning operations. Considering certain well-known quantum cloning machines (input state independent and dependent), we provide examples of coherent and incoherent operations performed by them. We show that both the output entanglement and coherence could vanish under incoherent cloning operations. Coherent cloning operations on the other hand, could be used to construct a uni…
While exact cloning of an unknown quantum state is prohibited by the linearity of quantum mechanics, approximate cloning is possible and has been used, e.g., to derive limits on the security of quantum communication protocols. In the case of asymmetric cloning, the information from the input state is distributed asymmetrically between the different output states. Here, we consider asymmetric phase-covariant cloning, where the goal is to optimally transfer the phase information from a single input qubit to different output qubits. We construct an optimal quantum cloning machine for two qubits t…
A system of unitary transformations providing two optimal copies of an arbitrary input cubit is obtained. An algorithm based on classical Boolean algebra and allowing one to find any unitary transformation realized by the quantum CNOT operators is proposed.
A linear optical probabilistic scheme for the optimal cloning of a pair of orthogonally-polarized photons is devised, based on single- and two-photon interferences. It consists in a partial symmetrization device, realized with a modified unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer, followed by two independent Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometers. This scheme has the advantage that it enables quantum cloning without the need for stimulated amplification in a nonlinear medium. It can also be modified so to make an optical two-qubit partial SWAP gate, thereby providing a potentially useful tool to linear op…
We consider the entanglement manipulation capabilities of the universal covariant quantum cloner or quantum processor circuit for quantum bits. We investigate its use for cloning a member of a bipartite or a genuine tripartite entangled state of quantum bits. We find that for bipartite pure entangled states a nontrivial behavior of concurrence appears, while for GHZ entangled states a possibility of the partial extraction of bipartite entanglement can be achieved.
We re-analyse the Bužek-Hillery Universal Quantum Cloning machine protocol and show that it allows better values for fidelity and Hilbert-Schmidt norm than hitherto reported. This higher value for the fidelity is identical to the maximum fidelity of phase covariant quantum cloning of Bruß-Cinchetti-D'Ariano-Macchiavello. This value of fidelity has also been obtained by Niu and Griffiths in their work without machine states. This is the maximum possible fidelity obtainable in $1\rightarrow 2$ qubits cloning. We then describe a different and new state dependent cloning protocol with four machine…
Due to the axioms of quantum mechanics, perfect cloning of an unknown quantum state is impossible. But since imperfect cloning is still possible, a question arises: "Is there an optimal quantum cloning machine?" Buzek and Hillery answer to this question and construct their famous B-H quantum cloning machine. The B-H machine clones state of an arbitrary single qubit in optimal manner and hence it is universal. Generalizing this machine for two-qubit system is straightforward, but this procedure does not preserve quantum correlation existing in bipartite state in optimal manner and also, during …
We report on two optical realizations of the $1 \to 2$ asymmetric phase-covariant cloning machines for polarization states of single photons. The experimental setups combine two-photon interference and tunable polarization filtering that enables us to control the asymmetry of the cloners. The first scheme involves a special unbalanced bulk beam splitter exhibiting different splitting ratios for vertical and horizontal polarizations, respectively. The second implemented scheme consists of a balanced fiber coupler where photon bunching occurs, followed by a free-space part with polarization filt…
We propose a physically realizable machine which can either generate multiparticle W-like states, or implement high fidelity $1 \to M$ ($M=1,2,... \infty$) anti-cloning of an arbitrary qubit state, in a single step. Moreover this universal machine acts as a catalyst in that it is unchanged after either procedure, effectively resetting itself for its next operation. It also possesses an inherent {\em immunity} to decoherence. Most importantly in terms of practical multi-party quantum communication, the machine's robustness in the presence of decoherence actually {\em increases} as the number of…
In this paper we investigate the efficiency of quantum cloning of $N$ identical mixed qubits. We employ a recently introduced measure of distinguishability of quantum states called quantum Chernoff bound. We evaluate the quantum Chernoff bound between the output clones generated by the cloning machine and the initial mixed qubit state. Our analysis is illustrated by performing numerical calculation of the quantum Chernoff bound for different scenarios that involves the number of initial qubits $N$ and the number of output imperfect copies $M$.
Not all unitary operations upon a set of qubits can be implemented by sequential interactions between each qubit and an ancillary system. We analyze the specific case of sequential quantum cloning 1->M and prove that the minimal dimension D of the ancilla grows linearly with the number of clones M. In particular, we obtain D = 2M for symmetric universal quantum cloning and D = M+1 for symmetric phase-covariant cloning. Furthermore, we provide a recipe for the required ancilla-qubit interactions in each step of the sequential procedure for both cases.
Recently, the nonlocal optimal probabilistic cloning (NLOPC) of two non-orthogonal qubit states has been proposed [Phys. Rev. A 86, 052332 (2012)] by means of an experimental setup based on a pair of twin photons in a maximally entangled state. Here we study the performance of the NLOPC protocol when implemented via a partially entangled state. We show that the errors introduced by the use of partial entanglement can be undone by applying a quantum state discrimination process. Since quantum state discrimination is a probabilistic process the correction succeeds with a certain probability but …
We show that, there are physical means for cloning two non-orthogonal pure states which are secretly chosen from a certain set $% \$={ | Ψ_0 > , | Ψ_1 > }$. The states are cloned through a unitary evolution together with a measurement. The cloning efficiency can not attain 100%. With some negative measurement results, the cloning fails.
The universal quantum cloning machine and the universal NOT gate acting on a single qubit can be implemented very generally by slightly modifying the protocol of quantum state teleportation. The experimental demonstration of the 1 to 2 cloning process according to the above scheme has been realized for a qubit encoded in photon polarization.
No-cloning theorem forbids perfect cloning of an unknown quantum state. A universal quantum cloning machine (UQCM), capable of producing two copies of any input qubit with the optimal fidelity, is of fundamental interest and has applications in quantum information processing. This is enabled by delicately tailored nonclassical correlations between the input qubit and the copying qubits, which distinguish the UQCM from a classical counterpart, but whose experimental demonstrations are still lacking. We here implement the UQCM in a superconducting circuit, and investigate these correlations. The…
We study the degree to which quantum entanglement survives when a three-qubit entangled state is copied by using local and non-local processes, respectively, and investigate iterating quantum copying for the three-qubit system. There may exist inter-three-qubit entanglement and inter-two-qubit entanglement for the three-qubit system. We show that both local and non-local copying processes degrade quantum entanglement in the three-particle system due to a residual correlation between the copied output and the copying machine. We also show that the inter-two-qubit entanglement is preserved bette…
The quantum cloner machine maps an unknown arbitrary input qubit into two optimal clones and one optimal flipped qubit. By combining linear and non-linear optical methods we experimentally implement a scheme that, after the cloning transformation, restores the original input qubit in one of the output channels, by using local measurements, classical communication and feedforward. This significant teleportation-like method demonstrates how the information is preserved during the cloning process. The realization of the reversion process is expected to find useful applications in the field of mod…
We study state-dependent quantum cloning which can outperform universal cloning. This is possible by using some a priori information on a given quantum state to be cloned. Specifically, we propose a generalization and optical implementation of quantum optimal mirror phase-covariant cloning, which refers to optimal cloning of sets of qubits of known modulus of expectation value of Pauli's Z operator. Our results can be applied for cloning of an arbitrary mirror-symmetric distribution of qubits on Bloch sphere including in special cases the universal cloning and phase-covariant cloning. We show …
The information encoded in the polarization of a single photon can be transferred to a remote location by two-channel continuous-variable quantum teleportation. However, the finite entanglement used in the teleportation causes random changes in photon number. If more than one photon appears in the output, the continuous-variable teleportation accidentally produces clones of the original input photon. In this paper, we derive the polarization statistics of the $N$-photon output components and show that they can be decomposed into an optimal cloning term and completely unpolarized noise. We find…
The optimal phase covariant cloning machine (PQCM) broadcasts the information associated to an input qubit into a multi-qubit systems, exploiting a partial a-priori knowledge of the input state. This additional a priori information leads to a higher fidelity than for the universal cloning. The present article first analyzes different experimental schemes to implement the 1->3 PQCM. The method is then generalized to any 1->M machine for odd value of M by a theoretical approach based on the general angular momentum formalism. Finally different experimental schemes based either on linear or non-l…
Assuming the condition of no superluminal signalling, we got an upper bound on the quality of all asymmetric $ 1\to 2$ cloning machines, acting on qubits whose Bloch vectors lie on a great circle. Then we constructed an $ 1\to 2$ cloning machine, which asymmetrically clone all qubits corresponding to this great circle, and this machine matches with that upper bound, and hence this is optimal one.
We demonstrate the possibility of controlling the success probability of a secret sharing protocol using a quantum cloning circuit. The cloning circuit is used to clone the qubits containing the encoded information and {\em en route} to the intended receipients. The success probability of the protocol depends on the cloning parameters used to clone the qubits. We also establish a relation between the concurrence of initially prepared state, entanglement of the mixed state received by the receivers after cloning scheme and the cloning parameters of cloning machine.
We propose a protocol where one can exploit dual quantum and classical channels to achieve perfect ``cloning'' and ``orthogonal-complementing'' of an unknown state with a minimal assistance from a state preparer (without revealing what the input state is). The first stage of the protocol requires usual teleportation and in the second stage, the preparer disentangles the left-over entangled states by a single particle measurement process and communicates a number of classical bits (1-cbit per copy) to different parties so that perfect copies and complement copies are produced. We discuss our pr…
It is shown that any quantum operation that perfectly clones the entanglement of all maximally-entangled qubit pairs cannot preserve separability. This ``entanglement no-cloning'' principle naturally suggests that some approximate cloning of entanglement is nevertheless allowed by quantum mechanics. We investigate a separability-preserving optimal cloning machine that duplicates all maximally-entangled states of two qubits, resulting in 0.285 bits of entanglement per clone, while a local cloning machine only yields 0.060 bits of entanglement per clone.
We demonstrate that a phase-independent quantum amplifier of a polarization qubit is a complementary amplifier of the heralded qubit amplifier [N. Gisin, S. Pironio and N. Sangouard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 070501 (2010)]. It employs the multi-functional cloner in 1 to 2 copying regime, capable of providing approximate copies of qubits given by various probability distributions, and is optimized for distributions with axial symmetry. Direct applications of the proposed solution are possible in quantum technologies, doubling the range where quantum information is coherently broadcast. It also out…
We study the role of interference in the process of quantum cloning. We show that in order to achieve better than classical cloning of a qubit no interference is needed. In particular, a large class of symmetric universal 1$\to$ 2 qubit cloners exists which achieve the optimal average fidelity 5/6 for such machines, without using any interference. We also obtain optimal average fidelities for interference--free cloning in asymmetric situations, and discuss the relation of the quantum cloners found to the Bužek--Hillery quantum cloner.
We present a computational circuit which realizes contextually the Tele-UNOT gate and the universal optimal quantum cloning machine (UOQCM). We report the experimental realization of the probabilistic UOQCM with polarization encoded qubits. This is achieved by combining on a symmetric beam-splitter the input qubit with an ancilla in a fully mixed state.
We analyze a possibility of using the two qubit output state from Buzek-Hillery quantum copying machine (not necessarily universal quantum cloning machine) as a teleportation channel. We show that there is a range of values of the machine parameter $ξ$ for which the two qubit output state is entangled and violates Bell-CHSH inequality and for a different range it remains entangled but does not violate Bell-CHSH inequality. Further we observe that for certain values of the machine parameter the two-qubit mixed state can be used as a teleportation channel. The use of the output state from the Bu…
By amplifying photonic qubits it is possible to produce states that contain enough photons to be seen with a human eye, potentially bringing quantum effects to macroscopic scales [1]. In this paper we theoretically study quantum states obtained by amplifying one side of an entangled photon pair with different types of optical cloning machines for photonic qubits. We propose a detection scheme that involves lossy threshold detectors (such as human eye) on the amplified side and conventional photon detectors on the other side. We show that correlations obtained with such coarse-grained measureme…
We derive a tight upper bound for the fidelity of a universal N to M qubit cloner, valid for any M \geq N, where the output of the cloner is required to be supported on the symmetric subspace. Our proof is based on the concatenation of two cloners and the connection between quantum cloning and quantum state estimation. We generalise the operation of a quantum cloner to mixed and/or entangled input qubits described by a density matrix supported on the symmetric subspace of the constituent qubits. We also extend the validity of optimal state estimation methods to inputs of this kind.
We present Quantum Cloning Machines (QCM) that transform N identical qubits into $M>N$ identical copies and we prove that the fidelity (quality) of these copies is optimal. The connection between cloning and measurement is discussed in detail. When the number of clones M tends towards infinity, the fidelity of each clone tends towards the optimal fidelity that can be obtained by a measurement on the input qubits. More generally, the QCM are universal devices to translate quantum information into classical information.
The 1->3 quantum phase covariant cloning, which optimally clones qubits belonging to the equatorial plane of the Bloch sphere, achieves the fidelity Fcov(1->3)=0.833, larger than for the 1->3 universal cloning Funiv(1->3)=0.778. We show how the 1->3 phase covariant cloning can be implemented by a smart modification of the standard universal quantum machine by a projection of the output states over the symmetric subspace. A complete experimental realization of the protocol for polarization encoded qubits based on non-linear and linear methods will be discussed.
We show that optimal universal cloning of the polarization state of photons can be achieved via stimulated emission in three-level systems, both of the Lambda and the V type. We establish the equivalence of our systems with coupled harmonic oscillators, which permits us to analyze the structure of the cloning transformations realized. These transformations are shown to be equivalent to the optimal cloning transformations for qubits discovered by Buzek and Hillery, and Gisin and Massar. The down-conversion cloner discovered previously by some of the authors is obtained as a limiting case. We de…
We study the minimal input sets which can determine completely the universal and the phase-covariant quantum cloning machines. We find that the universal quantum cloning machine, which can copy arbitrary input qubit equally well, however can be determined completely by only four input states located at the four vertices of a tetrahedron. The phase-covariant quantum cloning machine, which can copy all qubits located on the equator of the Bloch sphere, can be determined by three equatorial qubits with equal angular distance. These results sharpen further the well-known results that BB84 states a…
We describe a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiment which implements an efficient one-to-two qubit phase-covariant cloning machine(QPCCM). In the experiment we have achieved remarkably high fidelities of cloning, 0.848 and 0.844 respectively for the original and the blank qubit. This experimental value is close to the optimal theoretical value of 0.854. We have also demonstrated how to use our phase-covariant cloning machine for quantum simulations of bit by bit eavesdropping in the four-state quantum key distribution protocol.
We propose an interesting scheme for distributed orbital state quantum cloning with atomic ensembles based on the quantum Zeno dynamics. These atomic ensembles which consist of identical three-level atoms are trapped in distant cavities connected by a single-mode integrated optical star coupler. These qubits can be manipulated through appropriate modulation of the coupling constants between atomic ensemble and classical field, and the cavity decay can be largely suppressed as the number of atoms in the ensemble qubits increases. The fidelity of each cloned qubit can be obtained with analytic r…
We propose a feasible scheme of conditional quantum partial teleportation of a qubit as optimal asymmetric cloning at a distance. In this scheme, Alice preserves one imperfect clone whereas other clone is teleported to Bob. Fidelities of the clones can be simply controlled by an asymmetry in Bell-state measurement. The optimality means that tightest inequality for the fidelities in the asymmetric cloning is saturated. Further we design a conditional teleportation as symmetric optimal N-> N+1 cloning from N Alice's replicas on single distant clone. We shortly discussed two feasible experimental…
We investigate quantum teleportation through dissipative channels and calculate teleportation fidelity as a function of damping rates. It is found that the average fidelity of teleportation and the range of states to be teleported depend on the type and rate of the damping in the channel. Using the fully entangled fraction, we derive two bounds on the damping rates of the channels: one is to beat the classical limit and the second is to guarantee the non-existence of any other copy with better fidelity. Effect of the initially distributed maximally entangled state on the process is presented; …
We investigate the probabilistic cloning and purification of quantum states. The performance of these probabilistic operations is quantified by the average fidelity between the ideal and actual output states. We provide a simple formula for the maximal achievable average fidelity and we explictly show how to construct a probabilistic operation that achieves this fidelity. We illustrate our method on several examples such as the phase covariant cloning of qubits, cloning of coherent states, and purification of qubits transmitted via depolarizing channel and amplitude damping channel. Our exampl…
