When prior partial information about a state to be cloned is available, it can be cloned with a fidelity higher than that of universal quantum cloning. We experimentally verify this intriguing relationship between the cloning fidelity and the prior information by reporting the first experimental optimal quantum state-dependent cloning, using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. Our experiments may further have important implications into many quantum information processing protocols.
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.
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 report an experimental realization of both optimal asymmetric cloning and telecloning of single photons by making use of partial teleportation of an unknown state. In the experiment, we demonstrate that, conditioned on the success of partial teleportation of single photons, not only the optimal asymmetric cloning can be accomplished, but also one of two outputs can be transfered to a distant location, realizing the telecloning. The experimental results represent a novel way to achieve the quantum cloning and may have potential applications in the context of quantum communication.
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 report on experimental implementation of the optimal universal asymmetric 1->2 quantum cloning machine for qubits encoded into polarization states of single photons. Our linear optical machine performs asymmetric cloning by partially symmetrizing the input polarization state of signal photon and a blank copy idler photon prepared in a maximally mixed state. We show that the employed method of measurement of mean clone fidelities exhibits strong resilience to imperfect calibration of the relative efficiencies of single-photon detectors used in the experiment. Reliable characterization of the…
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 …
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…
The relative error of cloning of quantum states with arbitrary prior probabilities is considered. It is assumed that the ancilla may contain some a priori information about the input state to be cloned. The lower bound on the relative error for general cloning scenario is derived. Both the case of two-state set and case of multi-state set are analyzed in details. The treated figure of merit is compared with other optimality criteria. The quantum circuit for optimal cloning of a pair of pure states is constructed.
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…
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 discuss the usefulness of quantum cloning and present examples of quantum computation tasks for which cloning offers an advantage which cannot be matched by any approach that does not resort to it. In these quantum computations, we need to distribute quantum information contained in states about which we have some partial information. To perform quantum computations, we use state-dependent probabilistic quantum cloning procedure to distribute quantum information in the middle of a quantum computation.
This paper discusses the no-cloning theorem in a logico-algebraic approach. In this approach, an orthoalgebra is considered as a general structure for propositions in a physical theory. We proved that an orthoalgebra admits cloning operation if and only if it is a Boolean algebra. That is, only classical theory admits the cloning of states. If unsharp propositions are to be included in the theory, then a notion of effect algebra is considered. We proved that an atomic Archimedean effect algebra admitting cloning operation is a Boolean algebra. This paper also presents a partial result indicati…
We propose a quantum cloning machine, which clones a qubit into two clones assuming known modulus of expectation value of Pauli Z-matrix. The process is referred to as the mirror phase-covariant cloning, for which the input state is a priori less known than that for the standard phase-covariant cloning. Analytical expressions describing the cloning transformation and fidelity of the clones are found. Extremal equations for the optimal cloning are derived and analytically solved by generalizing a method of Fiurasek [Phys. Rev. A 64, 062310 (2001)]. Quantum circuits implementing the optimal clon…
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 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 solve the problem of the optimal cloning of pure entangled two-qubit states with a fixed degree of entanglement using local operations and classical communication. We show, that amazingly, classical communication between the parties can improve the fidelity of local cloning if and only if the initial entanglement is higher than a certain critical value. It is completely useless for weakly entangled states. We also show that bound entangled states with positive partial transpose are not useful as a resource to improve the best local cloning fidelity.
By relevant modifications, the known global-fidelity limits of state-dependent cloning are extended to mixed quantum states. We assume that the ancilla contains some a priori information about the input state. As it is shown, the obtained results contribute to the stronger no-cloning theorem. An attainability of presented limits is discussed.
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 analyze in details a scheme for cloning of Gaussian states based on linear optical components and homodyne detection recently demonstrated by U. L. Andersen et al. [PRL 94 240503 (2005)]. The input-output fidelity is evaluated for a generic (pure or mixed) Gaussian state taking into account the effect of non-unit quantum efficiency and unbalanced mode-mixing. In addition, since in most quantum information protocols the covariance matrix of the set of input states is not perfectly known, we evaluate the average cloning fidelity for classes of Gaussian states with the degree of squeezing 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…
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…
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…
It is known that to imperfectly clone a phase-set of states uncorrelatedly is impossible due to the linearity and the hermitian-preservation of quantum operations deterministically shown by D'Ariano et al. In this paper we address uncorrelated cloning in probabilistic cases. We show that there exists a linear and hermitian-preserving probabilistic map to imperfectly clone a phase-set of states uncorrelatedly. It is pointed out that the existence of such a map is due to the difference between non-unit-trace output operators and normalized (unit-trace) output operators inherent to probabilistic …
Probabilistically creating n perfect clones from m copies for one of N priori known quantum states with minimum failure probability is a long-standing problem. We provide a rigorous proof for the geometric approach to this probabilistic quantum cloning problem when N = 2. Then, we give the general geometric form of the sufficient and necessary condition of probabilistic cloning for N known quantum states. By this general geometric approach, we realize the optimal probabilistic quantum cloning of N known quantum states with priori probabilities. The results are also applicable to the identifica…
It is believed that the more we have {\it a priori} information on input states, the better we can make the quality of clones in quantum cloning machines. This common sense idea was confirmed several years ago by analyzing a situation, where the input state is either one of two non-orthogonal states. If the {\it a priori} information is measured by the Shannon entropy, common sense predicts that the quality of the clone becomes poorer with increasing $N$, where $N$ is the number of possible input states. We show, however, that the {\it a priori} information measured by the Shannon entropy does…
We introduce the notions of algorithmic mutual information and rarity of quantum states. These definitions enjoy conservation inequalities over unitary transformations and partial traces. We show that a large majority of pure states have minute self algorithmic information. We provide an algorithmic variant to the no-cloning theorem, by showing that only a small minority of quantum pure states can clone a non negligible amount of algorithmic information. We also provide a chain rule inequality for quantum algorithmic entropy. We show that rarity does not increase under POVM measurements.
We introduce the study of quantum protocols that probabilistically simulate quantum channels from a sender in the future to a receiver in the past. The maximum probability of simulation is determined by causality and depends on the amount and type (classical or quantum) of information that the channel can transmit. We illustrate this dependence in several examples, including ideal classical and quantum channels, measure-and-prepare channels, partial trace channels, and universal cloning channels. For the simulation of partial trace channels, we consider generalized teleportation protocols that…
Perfect cloning of a known set of states with arbitrary prior probabilities is possible if we allow the cloner to sometimes fail completely. In the optimal case the probability of failure is at its minimum allowed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Here we show that it is possible to lower the failure rate below that of the perfect probabilistic cloner but the price to pay is that the clones are not perfect; the global fidelity is less than one. We determine the optimal fidelity of a cloner with a Fixed Failure Rate (FFR cloner) in the case of a pair of known states. Optimality is shown to be a…
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…
We introduce entanglement measures to describe entanglement in a three-particle system and apply it to studying broadcasting of entanglement in three-particle GHZ state. We show that entanglement of three-qubit GHZ state can be partially broadcasted with the help of local or non-local copying processes. It is found that non-local cloning is much more efficient than local cloning for the broadcasting of entanglement.
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 present the first experimental implementation of a multifunctional device for the optimal cloning of one to two qubits. Previous implementations have always been designed to optimize the cloning procedure with respect to one single type of a priori information about the cloned state. In contrast, our "all-in-one" implementation is optimal for several prominent regimes such as universal cloning, phase-covariant cloning, and also the first ever realized mirror phase-covariant cloning, when the square of the expected value of Pauli's Z operator is known in advance. In all these regimes the exp…
Thermodynamics is one of the fascinating branches of traditional physics to certify the occurrence of many natural processes. On the other hand, quantum theory is the most acceptable description of the microscopic world. In the present work, we have studied how the structure of quantum theory prohibits cloning or masking of several thermodynamic quantities, viz., work and energy stored in a quantum state. Our results have important consequences in quantum partial cloning, quantum masking and on the action of quantum channels.
We propose the scheme implementing partial deterministic non-demolition Bell measurement. When it is used in quantum teleportation the information about an unknown input state is optimally distributed among three outgoing qubits. The optimality means that the output fidelities saturate the asymmetric cloning inequality. The flow of information among the qubits is controlled by the preparation of a pair of ancillary qubits used in the Bell measurement. It is also demonstrated that the measurement is optimal two-qubit operation in the sense of the trade-off between the state disturbance and the …
Encrypted clones can leak: Classification of informative subsets in Quantum Encrypted Cloning
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学）；Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon（里昂国立应用科学学院）；Khalifa University of Science and Technology（哈利法科学技术大学）；Università degli Studi di Milano（米兰大学）
National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学）；Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学量子技术中心）；Stony Brook University（石溪大学）
Full characterization of informative subsets in Quantum Encrypted Cloning
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学）；Università degli Studi di Milano（米兰大学）；Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore（天主教神圣之心大学）；Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon（里昂国立应用科学学院）
The powerful no-cloning principle of quantum mechanics can be leveraged to achieve interesting primitives, referred to as unclonable primitives, that are impossible to achieve classically. In the past few years, we have witnessed a surge of new unclonable primitives. While prior works have mainly focused on establishing feasibility results, another equally important direction, that of understanding the relationship between different unclonable primitives is still in its nascent stages. Moving forward, we need a more systematic study of unclonable primitives. To this end, we introduce a new fra…
We study the process of quantum telecloning of $d$-dimensional pure quantum states using partially entangled pure states as quantum channel. This process efficiently mixes optimal universal symmetric cloning with quantum teleportation. It is shown that it is possible to implement universal symmetric telecloning in a probabilistic way using unambiguous state discrimination and quantum state separation schemes. It is also shown that other strategies, such as minimum error discrimination, lead to a decrease in the fidelity of the copies and that certain partially entangled pure states with maxima…
A statistical analysis of optimal universal cloning shows that it is possible to identify an ideal (but non-positive) copying process that faithfully maps all properties of the original Hilbert space onto two separate quantum systems. The joint probabilities for non-commuting measurements on separate clones then correspond to the real parts of the complex joint probabilities observed in weak measurements on a single system, where the measurements on the two clones replace the corresponding sequence of weak measurement and post-selection. The imaginary parts of weak measurement statics can be o…
We realize the probabilistic cloning and identifying linear independent quantum states of multi-particles system, given prior probability, with universal quantum logic gates using the method of unitary representation. Our result is universal for separate state and entanglement. We also provide the realization in the condition given $M$ initial copies for each state.
The sequential unambiguous state discrimination (SSD) of two states prepared in arbitrary prior probabilities is studied, and compared with three strategies that allow classical communication. The deviation from equal probabilities contributes to the success in all the tasks considered. When one considers at least one of the parties succeeds, the protocol with probabilistic cloning is superior to others, which is not observed in the special case with equal prior probabilities. We also investigate the roles of quantum correlations in SSD, and show that the procedure requires discords but reject…
An alternative kind of deleting/erasing operation is introduced which differs from the commonly used {\it controlled-not} (C-not) conditional logical operation $-$to flip to a standard, `zero' value the (classical or quantum) state of the last copy in a chain, in a deletion process. It is completely reversible, in the classical case, possessing a most natural cloning operation counterpart. We call this deleting procedure R-deletion since, in a way, it can be viewed as a `randomization' of the standard C-not operator. It has the remarkable property of by-passing in a simple manner the `impossib…
The principle of superposition is an intriguing feature of Quantum Mechanics, which is regularly exploited at various instances. A recent work [PRL \textbf{116}, 110403 (2016)] shows that the fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics restrict the superposition of two arbitrary pure states of a quantum system, even though it is possible to superpose two quantum states with partial prior knowledge. The prior knowledge imposes geometrical constraints on the choice of input pure states. We discuss an experimentally feasible protocol to superpose multiple pure states of a $d$ dimensional quantum system and…
A restriction on quantum secret sharing (QSS) that comes from the no-cloning theorem is that any pair of authorized sets in an access structure should overlap. From the viewpoint of application, this places an unnatural constraint on secret sharing. We present a generalization, called assisted QSS (AQSS), where access structures without pairwise overlap of authorized sets is permissible, provided some shares are withheld by the share dealer. We show that no more than $λ-1$ withheld shares are required, where $λ$ is the minimum number of {\em partially linked classes} among the authorized sets …
"Broadcasting", namely distributing information over many users, suffers in-principle limitations when the information is quantum. This poses a critical issue in quantum information theory, for distributed processing and networked communications. For pure states ideal broadcasting coincides with the so-called "quantum cloning", describing an hypothetical ideal device capable of producing from a finite number N of copies of a state (drawn from a set) a larger number M>N of output copies of the same state. Since such a transformation is not isometric, it cannot be achieved by any physical machin…
We study uncloneable quantum encryption schemes for classical messages as recently proposed by Broadbent and Lord. We focus on the information-theoretic setting and give several limitations on the structure and security of these schemes: Concretely, 1) We give an explicit cloning-indistinguishable attack that succeeds with probability $\frac12 + μ/16$ where $μ$ is related to the largest eigenvalue of the resulting quantum ciphertexts. 2) For a uniform message distribution, we partially characterize the scheme with the minimal success probability for cloning attacks. 3) Under natural symmetry c…
