The engine that powers quantum cryptography is the principle that there are no physical means for gathering information about the identity of a quantum system's state (when it is known to be prepared in one of a set of nonorthogonal states) without disturbing the system in a statistically detectable way. This situation is often mistakenly described as a consequence of the ``Heisenberg uncertainty principle.'' A more accurate account is that it is a unique feature of quantum phenomena that rests ultimately on the Hilbert space structure of the theory along with the fact that time evolutions for isolated systems are unitary. In this paper I explore several aspects of the ``information / disturbance principle'' in an attempt to make it firmly quantitative for both pure and mixed states. The final section briefly explores the extent to which such a principle can be taken as a foundation for unitary dynamics rather than as a consequence.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate an optimal non-unity gain Gaussian scheme for partial measurement of an unknown coherent state that causes minimal disturbance of the state. The information gain and the state disturbance are quantified by the noise added to the measurement outcomes and to the output state, respectively. We derive the optimal trade-off relation between the two noises and we show that the trade-off is saturated by non-unity gain teleportation. Optimal partial measurement is demonstrated experimentally using a linear optics scheme with feed-forward.
When an observer wants to identify a quantum state, which is known to be one of a given set of non-orthogonal states, the act of observation causes a disturbance to that state. We investigate the tradeoff between the information gain and that disturbance. This issue has important applications in quantum cryptography. The optimal detection method, for a given tolerated disturbance, is explicitly found in the case of two equiprobable non-orthogonal pure states.
The trade-off between the information gain and the state disturbance is derived for quantum operations on a single qubit prepared in a uniformly distributed pure state. The derivation is valid for a class of measures quantifying the state disturbance and the information gain which satisfy certain invariance conditions. This class includes in particular the Shannon entropy versus the operation fidelity. The central role in the derivation is played by efficient quantum operations, which leave the system in a pure output state for any measurement outcome. It is pointed out that the optimality of …
It has been suggested that nature could be discrete in the sense that the underlying state space of a physical system has only a finite number of pure states. For example, the Bloch ball of a single qubit could be discretized into small patches and only appear round to us due to experimental limitations. Here, we present a strong physical argument for the quantum theoretical property that every state space (even the smallest possible one, the qubit) has infinitely many pure states. We propose a simple physical postulate which dictates that in fact the only possible discrete theory is classical…
It has been shown that Information-Disturbance theorem can play an important role in security proof of quantum cryptography. The theorem is by itself interesting since it can be regarded as an information theoretic version of uncertainty principle. It, however, has been able to treat restricted situations. In this paper, the restriction on the source is abandoned, and a general information-disturbance theorem is obtained. The theorem relates information gain by Eve with information gain by Bob.
The engine that powers quantum cryptography is the principle that there are no physical means for gathering information about the identity of a quantum system's state (when it is known to be prepared in one of a set of nonorthogonal states) without disturbing the system in a statistically detectable way. This situation is often mistakenly described as a consequence of the ``Heisenberg uncertainty principle.'' A more accurate account is that it is a unique feature of quantum phenomena that rests ultimately on the Hilbert space structure of the theory along with the fact that time evolutions for…
In 1927, Heisenberg heuristically disclosed the tradeoff between the error in the measurement and the caused disturbance on another complementary observable. In the quantum theory, most of uncertainty relations are proposed to reveal the amount of unavoidable uncertainty in the measuring process. In this paper, we study the error-disturbance relation from the information viewpoint. We ask how much information, rather than how much uncertainty, can be obtained during the two sequential measurements. To achieve optimal information gain, we argue that the strategy for the "intelligent" prior appa…
We derive a novel version of information-disturbance theorems for mutually unbiased observables. We show that the information gain by Eve inevitably makes the outcomes by Bob in the conjugate basis not only erroneous but random.
In this paper, a representation of the information-disturbance theorem based on the quantum Kolmogorov complexity that was defined by P. Vitanyi has been examined. In the quantum information theory, the information-disturbance relationship, which treats the trade-off relationship between information gain and its caused disturbance, is a fundamental result that is related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The problem was formulated in a cryptographic setting and quantitative relationships between complexities have been derived.
We present graphs of information versus disturbance for general quantum measurements of completely unknown states. Each piece of information and disturbance is quantified by two measures: (i) the Shannon entropy and estimation fidelity for the information and (ii) the operation fidelity and physical reversibility for the disturbance. These measures are calculated for a single outcome and are plotted on four types of information--disturbance planes to show their allowed regions. In addition, we discuss the graphs of these metrics averaged over all possible outcomes and the optimal measurements …
We present a simple information-disturbance tradeoff relation valid for any general measurement apparatus: The disturbance between input and output states is lower bounded by the information the apparatus provides in distinguishing these two states.
We show the flaws found in the customary fidelity-based definitions of disturbance in quantum measurements and evolutions. We introduce the "entropic disturbance" D and show that it adequately measures the degree of disturbance, intended essentially as an irreversible change in the state of the system. We also find that it complies with an information-disturbance tradeoff, namely the mutual information between the eigenvalues of the initial state and the measurement results is less than or equal to D.
The "semiquantum" key distribution protocol introduced by Zou et al. [Phys. Rev. A Vol.79, 052312 (2009)] is examined. The protocol while using two-way quantum communication requires only Bob to be fully quantum. We derive a trade-off inequality between information gained by Eve and the disturbance observed by legitimate users. It guarantees that Eve cannot obtain large information if the disturbance is sufficiently small.
This study confirms a local trade-off between information and disturbance in quantum measurements. It is represented by the correlation between the changes in these two quantities when the measurement is slightly modified. The correlation indicates that when the measurement is modified to increase the obtained information, the disturbance also increases in most cases. However, the information can be increased while decreasing the disturbance because the correlation is not necessarily perfect. For measurements having imperfect correlations, this paper discusses a general scheme that raises the …
To study the trade-off between information and disturbance, we obtain the first and second derivatives of the disturbance with respect to information for a fundamental class of quantum measurements. We focus on measurements lying on the boundaries of the physically allowed regions in four information--disturbance planes, using the derivatives to investigate the slopes and curvatures of these boundaries and hence clarify the shapes of the allowed regions.
We derive the amount of information retrieved by a quantum measurement in estimating an unknown maximally entangled state, along with the pertaining disturbance on the state itself. The optimal tradeoff between information and disturbance is obtained, and a corresponding optimal measurement is provided.
Common misconceptions on the Heisenberg principle are reviewed, and the original spirit of the principle is reestablished in terms of the trade-off between information retrieved by a measurement and disturbance on the measured system. After analyzing the possibility of probabilistically reversible measurements, along with erasure of information and undoing of disturbance, general information-disturbance trade-offs are presented, where the disturbance of the measurement is related to the possibility in principle of undoing its effect.
We address the trade-off between information and disturbance in qubit thermometry from the perspective of quantum estimation theory. Given a quantum measurement, we quantify information via the Fisher information of the measurement and disturbance via four different figures of merit, which capture different aspects (statistical, thermodynamical, geometrical) of the trade-off. For each disturbance measure, the efficient measurements, i.e. the measurements that introduce a disturbance not greater than any other measurement extracting the same amount of information, are determined explicitly. The…
I consider the tradeoff between the information gained about an initially unknown quantum state, and the disturbance caused to that state by the measurement process. I show that for any distribution of initial states, the information-disturbance frontier is convex, and disturbance is nondecreasing with information gain. I consider the most general model of quantum measurements, and all post-measurement dynamics compatible with a given measurement. For the uniform initial distribution over states, I show that the least-disturbing way of making any measurement is with conditional dynamics satisf…
We show that the global balance of information dynamics for general quantum measurements given in [F. Buscemi, M. Hayashi, and M. Horodecki, Phys.Rev.Lett. 100, 210504 (2008)] makes it possible to unify various and generally inequivalent approaches adopted in order to derive information-disturbance tradeoffs in quantum theory. We focus in particular on those tradeoffs, constituting the vast majority of the literature on the subject, where disturbance is defined either in terms of average output fidelity or of entanglement fidelity.
We show how to quantify the optimal tradeoff between the amount of information retrieved by a quantum measurement in estimating an unknown spin coherent state and the disturbance on the state itself, and how to derive the corresponding minimum-disturbing measurement.
Information gain and measurement disturbance for quantum agents
University of Toronto（多伦多大学）；National Research Council of Canada（加拿大国家研究委员会）；University of Ottawa（渥太华大学）；IonQ, Inc.（IonQ公司）；Canadian Institute for Advanced Research（加拿大高级研究院）
We provide a general framework for quantifying the optimal tradeoff between the information retrieved by a quantum measurement and the disturbance on the quantum state in covariant quantum state estimation.
When discriminating between two pure quantum states, there exists a quantitative tradeoff between the information retrieved by the measurement and the disturbance caused on the unknown state. We derive the optimal tradeoff and provide the corresponding quantum measurement. Such an optimal measurement smoothly interpolates between the two limiting cases of maximal information extraction and no measurement at all.
When we extract information from a system by performing a quantum measurement, the state of the system is disturbed due to the backaction of the measurement. Numerous studies have been performed to quantitatively formulate tradeoff relations between information and disturbance. We formulate a tradeoff relation between information and disturbance from an estimation-theoretic point of view, and derive an inequality between them. The information is defined as the classical Fisher information obtained by the measurement, and the disturbance is defined as the average loss of the quantum Fisher info…
For sending unknown direction information, antiparallel spins contains more direction information than parallel spins(Gisin and Popescu, 1999, \textit{Phys. Rev. Lett.} 83, 432).In this paper, the optimal information-disturbance tradeoff bound for antiparallel spins is derived. The quantum measurements which attain the optimal tradeoff bound are obtained. This result can be of practical relevance for posing some general limits on Eve's eavesdropping process. Finally, we also present a comparison between the bound for antiparallel spins and the bound for parallel spins.
We consider separating the problem of designing Hamiltonian quantum feedback control algorithms into a measurement (estimation) strategy and a feedback (control) strategy, and consider optimizing desirable properties of each under the minimal constraint that the available strength of both is limited. This motivates concepts of information extraction and disturbance which are distinct from those usually considered in quantum information theory. Using these concepts we identify an information trade-off in quantum feedback control.
We introduce information-theoretic definitions for noise and disturbance in quantum measurements and prove a state-independent noise-disturbance tradeoff relation that these quantities have to satisfy in any conceivable setup. Contrary to previous approaches, the information-theoretic quantities we define are invariant under relabelling of outcomes, and allow for the possibility of using quantum or classical operations to `correct' for the disturbance. We also show how our bound implies strong tradeoff relations for mean square deviations.
Any measurement is intended to provide information on a system, namely knowledge about its state. However, we learn from quantum theory that it is generally impossible to extract information without disturbing the state of the system or its correlations with other systems. In this paper we address the issue of the interplay between information and disturbance for a general operational probabilistic theory. The traditional notion of disturbance considers the fate of the system state after the measurement. However, the fact that the system state is left untouched ensures that also correlations a…
We investigate the optimal tradeoff between information gained about an unknown coherent state and the state disturbance caused by the measurement process. We propose several optical schemes that can enable this task, and we implement one of them, a scheme which relies on only linear optics and homodyne detection. Experimentally we reach near optimal performance, limited only by detection inefficiencies. In addition we show that such a scheme can be used to enhance the transmission fidelity of a class of noisy channels.
We show that for Eve to get information in one basis about a state, she must cause errors in all bases that are mutually unbiased to that basis. Our result holds in any dimension. We also show that this result holds for all functions of messages that are encrypted with a key.
We address the problem of the information-disturbance trade-off associated to the estimation of a quantum transformation, and show how the extraction of information about the a black box causes a perturbation of the corresponding input-output evolution. In the case of a black box performing a unitary transformation, randomly distributed according to the invariant measure, we give a complete solution of the problem, deriving the optimal trade-off curve and presenting an explicit construction of the optimal quantum network.
In this comment on the work of F. Buscemi, M.J.W. Hall, M. Ozawa and M.M. Wilde [PRL 112, 050401, 2014, arXiv:1310.6603], we point out a misrepresentation of measures of error and disturbance introduced in our recent work [PRL 111, 160405, 2013, arXiv:1306.1565] as being "purely formal, with no operational counterparts". We also exhibit an tension in the authors' message, in that their main result is an error-disturbance relation for state-independent measures, but its importance is declared to be limited to discrete variables. In contrast, we point out the separate roles played by such relati…
We analyze in details a conditional measurement scheme based on linear optical components, feed-forward loop and homodyne detection. The scheme may be used to achieve two different tasks. On the one hand it allows the extraction of information with minimum disturbance about a set of coherent states. On the other hand, it represents a nondemolitive measurement scheme for the annihilation operator, i.e. an indirect measurement of the Q-function. We investigate the information/disturbance trade-off for state inference and introduce the estimation/distortion trade-off to assess estimation of the Q…
In the general theory of quantum measurement, one associates a positive semidefinite operator on a $d$-dimensional Hilbert space to each of the $n$ possible outcomes of an arbitrary measurement. In the special case of a projective measurement, these operators are pairwise Hilbert--Schmidt orthogonal, but when $n>d$, orthogonality is restricted by positivity. This restriction allows us to more precisely state the quantum adage: information gain of a system is always accompanied by unavoidable disturbance. Specifically, we investigate three properties of a measurement with Lüders rule updating: …
Information-theoretic definitions for the noise associated with a quantum measurement and the corresponding disturbance to the state of the system have recently been introduced [F. Buscemi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 050401 (2014)]. These definitions are invariant under relabelling of measurement outcomes, and lend themselves readily to the formulation of state-independent uncertainty relations both for the joint estimate of observables (noise-noise relations) and the noise-disturbance tradeoff. Here we derive such relations for incompatible qubit observables, which we prove to be tight in t…
We address the information/disturbance trade-off for state-measurements on continuous variable Gaussian systems and suggest minimal schemes for implementations. In our schemes, the symbols from a given alphabet are encoded in a set of Gaussian signals which are coupled to a probe excited in a known state. After the interaction the probe is measured, in order to infer the transmitted state, while the conditional state of the signal is left for the subsequent user. The schemes are minimal, {\em i.e.} involve a single additional probe, and allow for the nondemolitive transmission of a continuous …
We present a new scheme to detect and visualize oscillations of a single quantum system in real time. The scheme is based upon a sequence of very weak generalized measurements, distinguished by their low disturbance and low information gain. Accumulating the information from the single measurements by means of an appropriate Bayesian Estimator, the actual oscillations can be monitored nevertheless with high accuracy and low disturbance. For this purpose only the minimum and the maximum expected oscillation frequency need to be known. The accumulation of information is based on a general deriva…
In the study of Heisenberg's error-disturbance relation, it is commonly believed that the non-unitary change of states hinders us from deducing the information encoded in original states about subsequently measured observable. However, we find that the disturbance can be corrected iff the pre-measurement is non-projective. In this work, by analysing the effect of decoherence on statistics of the subsequential measurement, we find the acquired information from pre-measurement can be used to developed a correction strategy, and then the information about post-measured observable can be recovered…
Stinespring's dilation theorem is the basic structure theorem for quantum channels: it states that any quantum channel arises from a unitary evolution on a larger system. Here we prove a continuity theorem for Stinespring's dilation: if two quantum channels are close in cb-norm, then it is always possible to find unitary implementations which are close in operator norm, with dimension-independent bounds. This result generalizes Uhlmann's theorem from states to channels and allows to derive a formulation of the information-disturbance tradeoff in terms of quantum channels, as well as a continui…
We address the trade-off between information gain and state disturbance in measurement performed on qudit systems and devise a class of optimal measurement schemes that saturate the ultimate bound imposed by quantum mechanics to estimation and transmission fidelities. The schemes are minimal, i.e. they involve a single additional probe qudit, and optimal, i.e. they provide the maximum amount of information compatible with a given level of disturbance. The performances of optimal single-user schemes in extracting information by sequential measurements in a N -user transmission line are also inv…
In this contribution I review rigorous formulations of a variety of limitations of measurability in quantum mechanics. To this end I begin with a brief presentation of the conceptual tools of modern measurement theory. I will make precise the notion that quantum measurements necessarily alter the system under investigation and elucidate its connection with the complementarity and uncertainty principles.
Information-theoretic uncertainty relations formulate the joint immeasurability of two non-commuting observables in terms of information entropies. The trade-off of the accuracy in the outcome of two successive measurements manifests in entropic noise-disturbance uncertainty relations. Recent theoretical analysis predicts that projective measurements are not optimal, with respect to the noise-disturbance trade-offs. Therefore the results in our previous letter [PRL 115, 030401 (2015)] are outperformed by general quantum measurements. Here, we experimentally test a tight information-theoretic m…
We address the problem of continuous-variable quantum phase estimation in the presence of linear disturbance at the Hamiltonian level, by means of Gaussian probe states. In particular we discuss both unitary and random disturbance, by considering the parameter which characterizes the unwanted linear term present in the Hamiltonian as fixed (unitary disturbance) or random with a given probability distribution (random disturbance). We derive the optimal input Gaussian states at fixed energy, maximizing the quantum Fisher information over the squeezing angle and the squeezing energy fraction, and…
We address an information-theoretic approach to noise and disturbance in quantum measurements. Properties of corresponding probability distributions are characterized by means of both the Rényi and Tsallis entropies. Related information-theoretic measures of noise and disturbance are introduced. These definitions are based on the concept of conditional entropy. To motivate introduced measures, some important properties of the conditional Rényi and Tsallis entropies are discussed. There exist several formulations of entropic uncertainty relations for a pair of observables. Trade-off relations f…
We show that it is possible to control the trade-off between information gain and disturbance in generalized measurements of qudits by utilizing the programmable quantum processor. This universal quantum machine allows us to perform a generalized measurement on the initial state of the input qudit to construct a Husimi function of this state. The trade-off between the gain and the disturbance of the qudit is controlled by the initial state of ancillary system that acts as a program register for the quantum-information distributor. The trade-off fidelity does not depend on the initial state of …
The round-robin differential phase shift (RRDPS) quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol is a unique quantum key distribution protocol whose security has not been understood through an information-disturbance trade-off relation, and a sufficient amount of privacy amplification was given independently of signal disturbance. Here, we discuss the security of the RRDPS protocol in the asymptotic regime when a good estimate of the bit error rate is available as a measure of signal disturbance. The uniqueness of the RRDPS protocol shows up as a peculiar form of information-disturbance trade-off curv…
We address the class of positive operator-valued measures (POVMs) for qubit systems that are obtained by coupling the signal qubit with a probe qubit and then performing a projective measurement on the sole probe system. These POVMs, which represent the simplest class of qubit POVMs, depends on 3+3+2=8 free parameters describing the initial preparation of the probe qubit, the Cartan representative of the unitary coupling, and the projective measurement at the output, respectively. We analyze in some details the properties of the POVM matrix elements, and investigate their values for given rang…
We investigate the trade-off between information gain and disturbance for a class of weak von Neumann measurements on spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles, and derive the unusual measurement pointer state that saturates this trade-off. We then consider the fundamental question of sharing the non-locality of a single particle of an entangled pair among multiple observers, and demonstrate that by exploiting the information gain disturbance trade-off, one can obtain an arbitrarily long sequence of consecutive and independent violations of the CHSH-Bell inequality.
The effect of measurement attributes (quantum level of precision, finite duration) on the classical and quantum correlations is analysed for a pair of qubits immersed in a common reservoir. We show that the quantum discord is enhanced as the precision of the measuring instrument is increased, and both the classical correlation and the quantum discord experience noticeable changes during finite-time measurements performed on a neighboring partition of the entangled system. The implications of these results on the "information-disturbance relationship" are examined, with critical analysis of the…
We study information-disturbance trade-off in generalized entanglement swapping protocols wherein starting from Bell pairs $\left(1,2\right)$ and $\left(3,4\right)$, one performs an arbitrary joint measurement on $\left(2,3\right)$, so that $\left(1,4\right)$ now becomes correlated. We obtain trade-off inequalities between information gain in correlations of $\left(1,4\right)$ and residual information in correlations of $\left(1,2\right)$ and $\left(3,4\right)$ respectively and argue that information contained in correlations (information) is conserved if each inequality is an equality. We sho…
The measurement of an informative observable strongly disturbs a quantum state. We examine the so-called information-disturbance relation by introducing order relations based on the state distinction power of an observable and a variety of non-disturbed observables with respect to a channel, and obtain qualitative and quantitative representations.
Quantum measurement is a basic tool to manifest intrinsic quantum effects from fundamental tests to quantum information applications. While a measurement is typically performed to gain information on a quantum state, its role in quantum technology is indeed manifold. For instance, quantum measurement is a crucial process element in measurement-based quantum computation. It is also used to detect and correct errors thereby protecting quantum information in error-correcting frameworks. It is therefore important to fully characterize the roles of quantum measurement encompassing information gain,…
Weak measurements done on a subsystem of a bipartite system having both classical and nonClassical correlations between its components can potentially reveal information about the other subsystem with minimal disturbance to the overall state. We use weak quantum discord and the fidelity between the initial bipartite state and the state after measurement to construct a cost function that accounts for both the amount of information revealed about the other system as well as the disturbance to the overall state. We investigate the behaviour of the cost function for families of two qubit states an…
It is shown that a large class of weak disturbances on macroscopic quantum superpositions can be canceled by a probabilistic reversing operation on the system. We illustrate this for spin systems undergoing an Ising-type interaction with the environment and demonstrate that both the fidelity to the original state and the purity of the amended state can simultaneously be increased by the reversing operation. A possible experimental scheme to implement our scheme is discussed.
