We present a network consisting of quantum gates which produces two imperfect copies of an arbitrary qubit. The quality of the copies does not depend on the input qubit. We also show that for a restricted class of inputs it is possible to use a very similar network to produce three copies instead of two. For qubits in this class, the copy quality is again independent of the input and is the same as the quality of the copies produced by the two-copy network.
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…
How well one can copy an arbitrary qubit? To answer this question we consider two arbitrary vectors in a two-dimensional state space and an abstract copying transformation which will copy these two vectors. If the vectors are orthogonal, then perfect copies can be made. If they are not, then errors will be introduced. The size of the error depends on the inner product of the two original vectors. We derive a lower bound for the amount of noise induced by quantum copying. We examine both copying transformations which produce one copy and transformations which produce many, and show that the qua…
We investigate the problem of copying pure two-qubit states of a given degree of entanglement in an optimal way. Completely positive covariant quantum operations are constructed which maximize the fidelity of the output states with respect to two separable copies. These optimal copying processes hint at the intricate relationship between fundamental laws of quantum theory and entanglement.
We analyze to what extent it is possible to copy arbitrary states of a two-level quantum system. We show that there exists a "universal quantum copying machine", which approximately copies quantum mechanical states in such a way that the quality of its output does not depend on the input. We also examine a machine which combines a unitary transformation with a selective measurement to produce good copies of states in a neighborhood of a particular state. We discuss the problem of measurement of the output states.
While it is known that copying a quantum system does not increase the amount of information obtainable about the originals, it may increase the amount available in practice, when one is restricted to imperfect measurements. We present a detection scheme which using imperfect detectors, and possibly noisy quantum copying machines (that entangle the copies), allows one to extract more information from an incoming signal, than with the imperfect detectors alone. The case of single-photon detection with noisy, inefficient detectors and copiers (single controlled-NOT gates in this case) is investig…
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 study the mapping which occurs when a single qubit in an arbitrary state interacts with another qubit in a given, fixed state resulting in some unitary transformation on the two qubit system which, in effect, makes two copies of the first qubit. The general problem of the quality of the resulting copies is discussed using a special representation, a generalization of the usual Schmidt decomposition, of an arbitrary two-dimensional subspace of a tensor product of two 2-dimensional Hilbert spaces. We exhibit quantum circuits which can reproduce the results of any two qubit copying machine of …
A quantum copying machine producing two (in general non-identical) copies of an arbitrary input state of a two-dimensional Hilbert space (qubit) is studied using a quality measure based on distinguishability of states, rather than fidelity. The problem of producing optimal copies is investigated with the help of a Bloch sphere representation, and shown to have a well-defined solution, including cases in which the two copies have unequal quality, or the quality depends upon the input state (is ``anisotropic'' in Bloch sphere language), or both. A simple quantum circuit yields the optimal copyin…
Bužek and Hillery proposed a universal quantum-copying machine (UQCM) (i.e., transformation) to analyze the possibility of cloning arbitrary states. The UQCM copies quantum-mechanical states with the quality of its output does not depend on the input. We propose a slightly different transformation to analyze a restricted set of input states. We impose the conditions (I) the density matrices of the two output states are the same, and that (II) the distance between input density operator and the output density operators is input state independent. Using Hilbert-Schmidt norm and Bures fidelity, w…
The aim of this paper is to introduce a new graphic representation of quantum states by means of a specific application: the analysis of two models of quantum copying machines. The graphic representation by diagrams of states offers a clear and detailed visualization of quantum information's flow during the unitary evolution of not too complex systems. The diagrams of states are exponentially more complex in respect to the standard representation and this clearly illustrates the discrepancy of computational power between quantum and classical systems. After a brief introductive exposure of the…
We study the relative error of the state-dependent N=>L cloning. A copying transformation and dimension of state space are not specified. Only the unitarity of quantum mechanical transformations is used. The proposed approach is based on the notion of the angle between two states. Firstly, the notion of the angle between two states is discussed. The lower bound on the relative error of copying with multiple copies is examined. In addition, the lower bound on the absolute error is then studied. We compare the obtained bounds with the case of maximizing the global fidelity.
In classical information theory one can, in principle, produce a perfect copy of any input state. In quantum information theory, the no cloning theorem prohibits exact copying of nonorthogonal states. Moreover, if we wish to copy multiparticle entangled states and can perform only local operations and classical communication (LOCC), then further restrictions apply. We investigate the problem of copying orthogonal, entangled quantum states with an entangled blank state under the restriction to LOCC. Throughout, the subsystems have finite dimension D. We show that if all of the states to be copi…
A scheme for the optimal Gaussian cloning of coherent light states at the light-atoms interface is proposed. The distinct feature of this proposal is that the clones are stored in an atomic quantum memory, which is important for applications in quantum communication. The atomic quantum cloning machine requires only a single passage of the light pulse through the atomic ensembles followed by the measurement of a light quadrature and an appropriate feedback, which renders the protocol experimentally feasible. An alternative protocol, where one of the clones is carried by the outgoing light pulse…
We show that inseparability of quantum states can be partially broadcasted (copied, cloned) with the help of local operations, i.e. distant parties sharing an entangled pair of spin 1/2 states can generate two pairs of partially nonlocally entangled states using only local operations. This procedure can be viewed as an inversion of quantum purification procedures.
The statistical state of any (classical or quantum) system with non-trivial time evolution can be interpreted as the pointer of a clock. The quality of such a clock is given by the statistical distinguishability of its states at different times. If a clock is used as a resource for producing another one the latter can at most have the quality of the resource. We show that this principle, formalized by a quasi-order, implies constraints on many physical processes. Similarly, the degree to which two (quantum or classical) clocks are synchronized can be formalized by a quasi-order of synchronism.…
We derive an explicit Hamiltonian for copying the basis up and down states of a quantum two-state system - a qubit - onto n "copy" qubits initially all prepared in the down state. In terms of spin components, for spin-1/2 particle spin states, the resulting Hamiltonian involves n- and (n+1)-spin interactions. The case n=1 also corresponds to a quantum-computing controlled-NOT gate.
We propose new optimality criterion for the estimation of state-dependent cloning. We call this measure the relative error because the one compares the errors in the copies with contiguous size taking into account the similarity of states to be copied. A copying transformation and dimension of state space are not specified. Only the unitarity of quantum mechanical transformations is used. The presented approach is based on the notion of the angle between two states. Firstly, several useful statements simply expressed in terms of angles are proved. Among them there are the spherical triangle in…
Copying information is an elementary operation in classical information processing. However, copying seems rather different in the quantum regime. Since the discovery of the universal quantum cloning machine, much has been found from the fundamental point of view about quantum copying. But a basic question as to the utility of universal quantum cloning remains. We have considered its application in quantum state restoration by using cloning circuit for state estimation. It might be expected that classical information from the state estimation might help restore the quantum state that was distu…
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 present a scheme that transform 1 qubit to M identical copies with optimal fidedelity via free dynamical evolution of spin star networks. We show that the Heisenberg XXZ coupling can fulfill the challenge. The initial state of the copying machine and the parameters of the spin Hamiltonian are discussed in detail. Furthermore we have proposed a feasible method to prepare the initial state of the copying machine.
It is well known that quantum theory forbids the exact copying of an unknown quantum state. Therefore in broadcasting of classical information by a quantum channel an additional contribution to the error in the decoding is expected. We consider the optimal copying transformation which is adapted to classical information transmission by two linearly independent quantum states, and show that there is no additional contribution to the error. Instead the clones are correlated, and this breaks their usefulness: The entanglement increases with non-orthogonality of the states. The capacity of the cor…
In a classical world, simultaneous measurements of complementary properties (e.g. position and momentum) give a system's state. In quantum mechanics, measurement-induced disturbance is largest for complementary properties and, hence, limits the precision with which such properties can be determined simultaneously. It is tempting to try to sidestep this disturbance by copying the system and measuring each complementary property on a separate copy. However, perfect copying is physically impossible in quantum mechanics. Here, we investigate using the closest quantum analog to this copying strateg…
Although perfect copying of unknown quantum systems is forbidden by the laws of quantum mechanics, approximate cloning is possible. A natural way of realizing quantum cloning of photons is by stimulated emission. In this context the fundamental quantum limit to the quality of the clones is imposed by the unavoidable presence of spontaneous emission. In our experiment a single input photon stimulates the emission of additional photons from a source based on parametric down-conversion. This leads to the production of quantum clones with near optimal fidelity. We also demonstrate universality of …
We find that very different quantum copying machines are optimal depending on the indicator used to assess their performance. Several quantum copying machine models acting on non-orthogonal input states are investigated, and assessed according to two types of criteria: Transfer of (Shannon) information encoded in the initial states to the copies, and fidelity between the copies and the initial states. Transformations which optimise information transfer for messages encoded in qubits are found. If the message is decoded one symbol at-a-time, information is best copied by a Wootters-Zurek copier…
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 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 present a detection scheme which using imperfect detectors, and imperfect quantum copying machines (which entangle the copies), allows one to extract more information from an incoming signal, than with the imperfect detectors alone.
Due to the Heisemberg uncertainty principle, it is impossible to design a procedure which permits perfect cloning of an arbitrary, unknown "qubit" (the spin or polarization state of a single quantum system)1,2. However, it is believed that a perfect copying protocol can be achieved, at least in principle, if the qubit to be copied is destroyed in the original system. Quantum teleportation3,4 is supposed to allow for such a result. Here, this belief is shown to be invalidated by a fundamental uncertainty about the number of particles involved in any process, as predicted by Quantum Field Theory…
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.
Probabilistic cloning was first proposed by Duan and Guo. Then Pati established a novel cloning machine (NCM) for copying superposition of multiple clones simultaneously. In this paper, we deal with the novel cloning machine with supplementary information (NCMSI). For the case of cloning two states, we demonstrate that the optimal efficiency of the NCMSI in which the original party and the supplementary party can perform quantum communication equals that achieved by a two-step cloning protocol wherein classical communication is only allowed between the original and the supplementary parties. F…
The impossibility of perfectly copying (or cloning) an arbitrary quantum state is one of the basic rules governing the physics of quantum systems. The processes that perform the optimal approximate cloning have been found in many cases. These "quantum cloning machines" are important tools for studying a wide variety of tasks, e.g. state estimation and eavesdropping on quantum cryptography. This paper provides a comprehensive review of quantum cloning machines (both for discrete-dimensional and for continuous-variable quantum systems); in addition, it presents the role of cloning in quantum cry…
We compare several optical implementations of phase-covariant cloning machines. The experiments are based on copying of the polarization state of a single photon in bulk optics by special unbalanced beam splitter or by balanced beam splitter accompanied by a state filtering. Also the all-fiber based setup is discussed, where the information is encoded into spatial modes, i.e., the photon can propagate through two optical fibers. Each of the four implementations possesses some advantages and disadvantages that are discussed.
Due to the no-cloning theorem, the unknown quantum state can only be cloned approximately or exactly with some probability. There are two types of cloners: universal and state-dependent cloner. The optimal universal cloner has been found and could be viewed as a special state-dependent quantum cloner which has no information about the states. In this paper, we investigate the state-dependent cloning when the state-set contains more than two states. We get some bounds of the global fidelity for these processes. This method is not dependent on the number of the states contained in the state-set.…
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 problem of mapping an unknown mixed quantum state onto a known pure state without the use of unitary transformations. This is achieved with the help of sequential measurements of two non-commuting observables only. We show that the overall success probability is maximized in the case of measuring two observables whose eigenstates define mutually unbiased bases. We find that for this optimal case the success probability quickly converges to unity as the number of measurement processes increases and that it is almost independent of the initial state. In particular, we show that to g…
Unmeasureability of a quantum state has important consequences in practical implementation of quantum computers. Like copying, deleting of an unknown state from among several copies is prohibited. This is called no-deletion prinicple. Here, we present a no deleting principle for qudits. We obtain a bound on $N$-to-$M$ deleting and show that the quality of deletion drops exponentially with the number of copies to be deleted. In addition, we investigate conditional, state-dependent and approximate quantum deleting of unknown states. We prove that unitarity does not allow us to delete copies from…
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…
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…
A simple method to enhance the quality of communication is to send a carrier with its copies. Classical information theory says that information behaves quantitatively under copying. In other words, if a carrier is more informatic than another carrier, it remains so when they are compared with their copies. Using the lens of quantum mechanics, we challenge this accepted fact of classical information theory. Specifically, we examine two quantum systems parameterized differently by the same random variable such that the first system alone offers a more accurate guess about the variable in any fi…
We study the stability under quantum noise effects of the quantum privacy amplification protocol for the purification of entanglement in quantum cryptography. We assume that the E91 protocol is used by two communicating parties (Alice and Bob) and that the eavesdropper Eve uses the isotropic Bužek-Hillery quantum copying machine to extract information. Entanglement purification is then operated by Alice and Bob by means of the quantum privacy amplification protocol and we present a systematic numerical study of the impact of all possible single-qubit noise channels on this protocol. We find th…
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…
Copying the quantum states is contradictory to classical information processing since the fundamental difference between classical and quantum information is that while classical information can be copied perfectly, quantum information cannot. However, this statement does not rule out the risk of building a device that can reproduce a set of quantum states. This paper investigates the naturally arising question of how well or under what conditions one can copy and measure an arbitrary quantum superposition of states. The CNOT and XOR operation-based quantum circuit is presented that exhibits e…
While the no-cloning theorem, which forbids the perfect copying of quantum states, is well-known as one of the defining features of quantum mechanics, the question of how well the theory allows a state to be cloned is yet to be completely solved. In this paper, rigorous solutions to the problem of M to N asymmetric cloning of qudits are obtained in a number of interesting cases. The central result is the solution to the 1 to N universal asymmetric qudit cloning problem for which the exact trade-off in the fidelities of the clones for every N and d is derived. Analogous results are proven for q…
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…
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…
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 …
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…
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…
The classical signal splitting and copying are not possible in quantum mechanics. Specifically, one cannot copy the basis up and down states of the input (I) two-state system (qubit, spin) into the copy (C) and duplicate-copy (D) two-state systems if the latter systems are initially in an arbitrary state. We consider instead a quantum evolution in which the basis states of I at time t are duplicated in at least two of the systems I, C, D, at time t + Delta t. In essence, the restriction on the initial target states is exchanged for uncertainty as to which two of the three qubits retain copies …
Optimal quantum cloning is the process of making one or more copies of an arbitrary unknown input quantum state with the highest possible fidelity. All reported demonstrations of quantum cloning have so far been limited to copying two-dimensional quantum states, or qubits. We report the experimental realization of the optimal quantum cloning of four-dimensional quantum states, or ququarts, encoded in the polarization and orbital angular momentum degrees of freedom of photons. Our procedure, based on the symmetrization method, is also shown to be generally applicable to quantum states of arbitr…
This paper proposes a general quantum algorithm that can be applied to any classical computer program. Each computational step is written using reversible operators, but the operators remain classical in that the qubits take on values of only zero and one. This classical restriction on the quantum states allows the copying of qubits, a necessary requirement for doing general classical computation. Parallel processing of the quantum algorithm proceeds because of the superpositioning of qubits, the only aspect of the algorithm that is strictly quantum mechanical. Measurement of the system collap…
