Optimal procedures play an important role in quantum information. It turns out that some naturally occurring processes like emission of light from an atom can realize optimal transformations. Here we study how arbitrary symmetric states of a number of d-level systems can be cloned using a multilevel atomic system. It is shown that optimality is always ensured even though the output number of systems is probabilistic.
We present a feasible scheme to implement the $1 \to 2$ optimal cloning of arbitrary single particle atomic state into two photonic states, which is important for applications in long distance quantum communication. Our scheme also realizes the tele-NOT gate of one atom to the other distant atom trapped in another cavity. The scheme is based on the adiabatic passage and the polarization measurement. It is robust against a number of practical noises such as the violation of the Lamb-Dicke condition, spontaneous emission and detection inefficiency.
We present the results of a linear optics photonic implementation of a quantum circuit that simulates a phase covariant cloner, by using two different degrees of freedom of a single photon. We experimentally simulate the action of two mirrored $1\rightarrow 2$ cloners, each of them biasing the cloned states into opposite regions of the Bloch sphere. We show that by applying a random sequence of these two cloners, an eavesdropper can mitigate the amount of noise added to the original input state and therefore prepare clones with no bias but with the same individual fidelity, masking its presenc…
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 …
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…
Quantum cloning machine for arbitrary mixed states in symmetric subspace is proposed. This quantum cloning machine can be used to copy part of the output state of another quantum cloning machine and is useful in quantum computation and quantum information. The shrinking factor of this quantum cloning achieves the well-known upper bound. When the input is identical pure states, two different fidelities of this cloning machine are optimal.
Attempts at cloning a quantum system result in the introduction of imperfections in the state of the copies. This is a consequence of the no-cloning theorem, which is a fundamental law of quantum physics and the backbone of security for quantum communications. Although such perfect copies are prohibited, a quantum state may be copied with maximal accuracy via various optimal cloning schemes. Optimal quantum cloning, which lies at the border of the physical limit imposed by the no-signalling theorem and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, has been experimentally realized for low dimensional p…
The influence of the relativistic covariance requirement on the optimality of the symmetric state-dependent 1 -> 2 cloning machine is studied. Namely, given a photonic qubit whose basis is formed from the momentum-helicity eigenstates, the change to the optimal cloning fidelity is calculated taking into account the Lorentz covariance unitarily represented by Wigner's little group. To pinpoint some of the interesting results, we found states for which the optimal fidelity of the cloning process drops to 2/3 which corresponds to the fidelity of the optimal classical cloner. Also, an implication …
A symmetric 1 to 2 quantum cloning machine (QCM) is presented that provides high-fidelity copies with $0.90 \le F \le 0.95$ for all pure (single-qubit) input states from a given meridian of the Bloch sphere. \cor{Emphasize is placed especially on the states of the (so-called) Eastern meridian, that includes the computational basis states $\ketm{0}, \ketm{1}$ together with the diagonal state $\ketm{+} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} (\ketm{0} + \ketm{1})$, for which suggested cloning transformation is shown to be optimal.} In addition, we also show how this QCM can be utilized for eavesdropping in Bennett…
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…
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.
We propose an optical implementation of the Gaussian continuous-variable quantum cloning machines. We construct a symmetric N -> M cloner which optimally clones coherent states and we also provide an explicit design of an asymmetric 1 -> 2 cloning machine. All proposed cloning devices can be built from just a single non-degenerate optical parametric amplifier and several beam splitters.
An unknown quantum state cannot be copied on demand and broadcast freely due to the famous no-cloning theorem. Approximate cloning schemes have been proposed to achieve the optimal cloning characterized by the maximal fidelity between the original and its copies. Here, from the perspective of quantum Fisher information (QFI), we investigate the distribution of QFI in asymmetric cloning machines which produce two nonidentical copies. As one might expect, improving the QFI of one copy results in decreasing the QFI of the other copy, roughly the same as that of fidelity. It is perhaps also unsurp…
We show that for any Hilbert-space dimension, the optimal universal quantum cloner can be constructed from essentially the same quantum circuit, i.e., we find a universal design for universal cloners. In the case of infinite dimensions (which includes continuous variable quantum systems) the universal cloner reduces to an essentially classical device. More generally, we construct a universal quantum circuit for distributing qudits in any dimension which acts covariantly under generalized displacements and momentum kicks. The behavior of this covariant distributor is controlled by its initial s…
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.
The security of quantum cryptography is guaranteed by the no-cloning theorem, which implies that an eavesdropper copying transmitted qubits in unknown states causes their disturbance. Nevertheless, in real cryptographic systems some level of disturbance has to be allowed to cover, e.g., transmission losses. An eavesdropper can attack such systems by replacing a noisy channel by a better one and by performing approximate cloning of transmitted qubits which disturb them but below the noise level assumed by legitimate users. We experimentally demonstrate such symmetric individual eavesdropping on…
Performances of the symmetric universal and phase-covariant cloning transformations and entanglement cloners -- qubit case -- are investigated when the initial state of the hardware or the original state to be cloned is weakly coupled to a thermal environment. Different behaviors of each of these transformations are analyzed and contrasted with the ideal cases.
We prove new quantitative limitations on any approximate simultaneous cloning or broadcasting of mixed states. The results are based on information-theoretic (entropic) considerations and generalize the well known no-cloning and no-broadcasting theorems. We also observe and exploit the fact that the universal cloning machine on the symmetric subspace of $n$ qudits and symmetrized partial trace channels are dual to each other. This duality manifests itself both in the algebraic sense of adjointness of quantum channels and in the operational sense that a universal cloning machine can be used as …
We investigate the role of symmetric quantum cloning machines (QCMs) in quantifying the mutual incompatibility of quantum observables. Specifically, we identify a cloning-based incompatibility measure whereby the incompatibility of a set of observables maybe quantified in terms of how well a uniform ensemble of their eigenstates can be cloned via a symmetric QCM. We show that this new incompatibility measure $\mathcal{Q}_{c}$ is {\it faithful} since it vanishes only for commuting observables. We prove an upper bound for $\mathcal{Q}_{c}$ for any set of observables in a finite-dimensional syste…
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.
The trade-offs among various output fidelities of asymmetric universal cloning machines are investigated. First we find out all the attainable optimal output fidelities for the 1 to 3 asymmetric universal cloning machine and it turns out that there are two kinds of extremal asymmetric cloning machines which have to cooperate in order to achieve some of the optimal output fidelities. Second we construct a family of extremal cloning machines that includes the universal symmetric cloning machine as well as an asymmetric 1 to $1+N$ cloning machine for qudits with two different output fidelities su…
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.
A transformation achieving the optimal symmetric N-to-M cloning of coherent states is presented. Its implementation only requires a phase-insensitive linear amplifier and a network of beam splitters. An experimental demonstration of this continuous-variable cloner should therefore be in the scope of current technology. The link between optimal quantum cloning and optimal amplification of quantum states is also pointed out.
A generalized universal quantum cloning machine is proposed which allows the input to be arbitrary states in symmetric subspace. And it reduces to the universal quantum cloning machine (UQCM) if the input are identical pure states. The generalized cloner is optimal in the sense we compare the input and output reduced density operators at a single qubit. The result for qubits is extended to arbitrary-dimensional states.
This paper presents a series of results on the interplay between quantum estimation, cloning and finite de Finetti theorems. First, we consider the measure-and-prepare channel that uses optimal estimation to convert M copies into k approximate copies of an unknown pure state and we show that this channel is equal to a random loss of all but s particles followed by cloning from s to k copies. When the number k of output copies is large with respect to the number M of input copies the measure-and-prepare channel converges in diamond norm to the optimal universal cloning. In the opposite case, wh…
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.
The fidelity of a quantum transformation is strongly linked with the prior partial information of the state to be transformed. We illustrate this interesting point by proposing and demonstrating the superior cloning of coherent states with prior partial information. More specifically, we propose two simple transformations that under the Gaussian assumption optimally clone symmetric Gaussian distributions of coherent states as well as coherent states with known phases. Furthermore, we implement for the first time near-optimal state-dependent cloning schemes relying on simple linear optics and f…
We present a feasible scheme to use trapped ions Cavity QED system to implement optimal $1\to N$ cloning machine of coherent state. In present scheme, as the ouput of the clone machine, the copies of the cavity mode emerge at the vibrational modes and cavity modes is acted as the ancilla mode in the implementation of the cloning. We further show that such system can be used to generated multimodes quantum state, which can realize optimum symmetric $1\to N$ telecloning of coherent state of distant cavity.
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.
We propose two feasible experimental implementations of an optimal asymmetric 1->2 quantum cloning of a polarization state of photon. Both implementations are based on a partial and optimal reverse of recent conditional symmetrical quantum cloning experiments. The reversion procedure is performed only by a local measurement of one from the clones and ancilla followed by a local operation on the other clone. The local measurement consists only of a single unbalanced beam splitter followed in one output by a single photon detector and the asymmetry of fidelities in the cloning is controlled by a…
We investigate a new class of quantum cloning machines that equally duplicate all real states in a Hilbert space of arbitrary dimension. By using the no-signaling condition, namely that cloning cannot make superluminal communication possible, we derive an upper bound on the fidelity of this class of quantum cloning machines. Then, for each dimension d, we construct an optimal symmetric cloner whose fidelity saturates this bound. Similar calculations can also be performed in order to recover the fidelity of the optimal universal cloner in d dimensions.
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 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 present a unified universal quantum cloning machine, which combines several different existing universal cloning machines together including the asymmetric case. In this unified framework, the identical pure states are projected equally into each copy initially constituted by input and one half of the maximally entangled states. We show explicitly that the output states of those universal cloning machines are the same. One importance of this unified cloning machine is that the cloning procession is always the symmetric projection which reduces dramatically the difficulties for implementatio…
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…
Resonant dissipation-enabled adiabatic quantum state transfer processes between the polarization degrees of freedom of a single photon wave packet and quantum emitters are discussed. These investigations generalize previous work [N. Trautmann and G. Alber, Phys. Rev. A 93, 053807 (2015)] by taking into account the properties of the spontaneously emitted photon wave packet and of non adiabatic corrections. It is demonstrated that the photonic degrees of freedoms of these adiabatic one-photon quantum state transfer processes can be used for the passive, heralded and deterministic preparation of …
The experimental realization of optimal symmetric phase-covariant 1->2 cloning of qubit states is presented. The qubits are represented by polarization states of photons generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The experiment is based on the interference of two photons on a custom-made beam splitter with different splitting ratios for vertical and horizontal polarization components. From the measured data we have estimated the implemented cloning transformation using the maximum-likelihood method. The result shows that the realized transformation is very close to the ideal one and …
We analyze a reversibility of optimal Gaussian $1\to 2$ quantum cloning of a coherent state using only local operations on the clones and classical communication between them and propose a feasible experimental test of this feature. Performing Bell-type homodyne measurement on one clone and anti-clone, an arbitrary unknown input state (not only a coherent state) can be restored in the other clone by applying appropriate local unitary displacement operation. We generalize this concept to a partial LOCC reversal of the cloning and we show that this procedure converts the symmetric cloner to an a…
Optimal physical approximations of pure-state cloning and transposition are complementary channels
Sorbonne Université, CNRS, LIP6（索邦大学，法国国家科学研究中心，LIP6）；QuSoft；Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, and Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics, University of Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹大学逻辑语言计算研究所与科特维格-德弗里斯数学研究所）；International Centre for Theory of Quantum Technologies, University of Gdańsk（格但斯克大学量子技术理论国际中心）
We propose a scheme to enhance the fidelity of symmetric quantum cloning machine using a weak measurement. By adjusting the intensity of weak measurement parameter $p$, we obtain the copies with different optimal fidelity. Choosing proper value of $p$, we can obtain the perfect copies for initial qubits. In this paper, we focus on $1-2$ quantum cloning for two nonorthogonal states. Sets containing more than two linear independent states are also discussed briefly. Due to weak measurements being probabilistic, we obtain high fidelity at risk of probability. If the weak measurement successes, we…
A family of asymmetric cloning machines for $N$-dimensional quantum states is introduced. These machines produce two imperfect copies of a single state that emerge from two distinct Heisenberg channels. The tradeoff between the quality of these copies is shown to result from a complementarity akin to Heisenberg uncertainty principle. A no-cloning inequality is derived for isotropic cloners: if $π_a$ and $π_b$ are the depolarizing fractions associated with the two copies, the domain in $(\sqrt{π_a},\sqrt{π_b})$-space located inside a particular ellipse representing close-to-perfect cloning is f…
The study of quantum cryptography and quantum entanglement has traditionally been based on two-level quantum systems (qubits) and more recently on three-level systems (qutrits). We investigate several classes of state-dependent quantum cloners for four-level systems (quartits). These results apply to symmetric as well as asymmetric cloners, so that the balance between the fidelity of the two clones can also be analyzed. We extend Cerf's formalism for cloning states in order to derive cloning machines that remain invariant under certain unitary transformations. Our results show that a different…
We consider the quantum cloning of continuous variable entangled states. This is achieved by introducing two symmetric entanglement cloning machines (or e-cloners): a local e-cloner and a global e-cloner; where we look at the preservation of entanglement in the clones under the condition that the fidelity of the clones is maximized. These cloning machines are implemented using simple linear optical elements such as beam splitters and homodyne detection along with squeeze gates. We show that the global e-cloner out-performs the local e-cloner both in terms of the fidelity of the cloned states a…
Here, asymmetric phase-covariant quantum cloning machines are defined and trade-off between qualities of their outputs and its impact on entanglement properties of the outputs are studies. In addition, optimal families among these cloners are introduced and also their entanglement properties are investigated. An explicit proof of optimality is presented for the case of qubits, which is based on the no-signaling condition. Our optimality proof can also be used to derive an upper bound on trade-off relations for a more general class of optimal cloners which clone states on a specific orbit of th…
We present experimental schemes that allow to study the entanglement classes of all symmetric states in multiqubit photonic systems. In addition to comparing the presented schemes in efficiency, we will highlight the relation between the entanglement properties of symmetric Dicke states and a recently proposed entanglement scheme for atoms. In analogy to the latter, we obtain a one-to-one correspondence between well-defined sets of experimental parameters and multiqubit entanglement classes inside the symmetric subspace of the photonic system.
Quantum information science addresses how the processing and transmission of information are affected by uniquely quantum mechanical phenomena. Combination of two-qubit gates has been used to realize quantum circuits, however, scalability is becoming a critical problem. The use of three-qubit gates may simplify the structure of quantum circuits dramatically. Among them, the controlled-SWAP (Fredkin) gates are essential since they can be directly applied to important protocols, e.g., error correction, fingerprinting, and optimal cloning. Here we report a realization of the Fredkin gate for phot…
A photonic crystal fiber based source of photon pairs in symmetric factorable state is experimentally demonstrated. The idler and signal photons, with almost the same bandwidth, are centering at 807.5 nm and 1364.1 nm, respectively. The property of the spectral de-correlation is confirmed by measuring the correlation dependence of photon pairs upon the spectra of pump, signal and idler photons.
In this study, we consider a quantum version of multicast network coding as a multicast protocol for sending universal quantum clones (UQCs) from a source node to the target nodes on a quantum network. By extending Owari et al.'s previous results for symmetric UQCs, we derive a protocol for multicasting $1\rightarrow 2$ ($1\rightarrow 3$) {\it asymmetric} UQCs of a $q^r$-dimensional state to two (three) target nodes.Our protocol works under the condition that each edge on a quantum network represented by an undirected graph $G$ transmits a $q$-dimensional state. There exists a classical solvab…
We consider the optimal cloning of quantum coherent states with single-clone and joint fidelity as figures of merit. Both optimal fidelities are attained for phase space translation covariant cloners. Remarkably, the joint fidelity is maximized by a Gaussian cloner, whereas the single-clone fidelity can be enhanced by non-Gaussian operations: a symmetric non-Gaussian 1-to-2 cloner can achieve a single-clone fidelity of approximately 0.6826, perceivably higher than the optimal fidelity of 2/3 in a Gaussian setting. This optimal cloner can be realized by means of an optical parametric amplifier …
Quantum coherence (QCh) is considered to be a key ingredient in quantum resource theories and also plays a pivotal role in the design and implementation of various information processing tasks. Consequently, it becomes important for us to create more number coherent quantum states between two labs from a given coherent state shared initially. We call this process as \textbf{Broadcasting of Quantum Coherence (QCh)}. In this work we extensively study the problem of broadcasting of QCh. In order to have a holistic view of broadcasting, we start with a most general representation two qubit mixed s…
The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light, associated with a helical structure of the wavefunction, has a great potential for quantum photonics, as it allows attaching a higher dimensional quantum space to each photon. Hitherto, however, the use of OAM has been hindered by its difficult manipulation. Here, exploiting the recently demonstrated spin-OAM information transfer tools, we report the first observation of the Hong-Ou-Mandel coalescence of two incoming photons having nonzero OAM into the same outgoing mode of a beam-splitter. The coalescence can be switched on and off by varying the i…
We compute entanglement cost and distillable entanglement of states supported on symmetric subspace. Not only giving general formula, we apply them to the output states of optimal cloning machines. Surprisingly, under some settings, the optimal n to m clone and true m copies are the same in entanglement measures. However, they differ in the error exponent of entanglement dilution. We also presented a general theory of entanglement dilution which is applicable to any non-i.i.d sequence of states.
