No Arabic abstract
The status of the quantum state is perhaps the most controversial issue in the foundations of quantum theory. Is it an epistemic state (state of knowledge) or an ontic state (state of reality)? In realist models of quantum theory, the epistemic view asserts that nonorthogonal quantum states correspond to overlapping probability measures over the true ontic states. This naturally accounts for a large number of otherwise puzzling quantum phenomena. For example, the indistinguishability of nonorthogonal states is explained by the fact that the ontic state sometimes lies in the overlap region, in which case there is nothing in reality that could distinguish the two states. For this to work, the amount of overlap of the probability measures should be comparable to the indistinguishability of the quantum states. In this letter, I exhibit a family of states for which the ratio of these two quantities must be $leq 2de^{-cd}$ in Hilbert spaces of dimension $d$ that are divisible by $4$. This implies that, for large Hilbert space dimension, the epistemic explanation of indistinguishability becomes implausible at an exponential rate as the Hilbert space dimension increases.
We study the extent to which psi-epistemic models for quantum measurement statistics---models where the quantum state does not have a real, ontic status---can explain the indistinguishability of nonorthogonal quantum states. This is done by comparing the overlap of any two quantum states with the overlap of the corresponding classical probability distributions over ontic states in a psi-epistemic model. It is shown that in Hilbert spaces of dimension $d geq 4$, the ratio between the classical and quantum overlaps in any psi-epistemic model must be arbitrarily small for certain nonorthogonal states, suggesting that such models are arbitrarily bad at explaining the indistinguishability of quantum states. For dimensions $d$ = 3 and 4, we construct explicit states and measurements that can be used experimentally to put stringent bounds on the ratio of classical-to-quantum overlaps in psi-epistemic models, allowing one in particular to rule out maximally psi-epistemic models more efficiently than previously proposed.
A quantum ensemble ${(p_x, rho_x)}$ is a set of quantum states each occurring randomly with a given probability. Quantum ensembles are necessary to describe situations with incomplete a priori information, such as the output of a stochastic quantum channel (generalized measurement), and play a central role in quantum communication. In this paper, we propose measures of distance and fidelity between two quantum ensembles. We consider two approaches: the first one is based on the ability to mimic one ensemble given the other one as a resource and is closely related to the Monge-Kantorovich optimal transportation problem, while the second one uses the idea of extended-Hilbert-space (EHS) representations which introduce auxiliary pointer (or flag) states. Both types of measures enjoy a number of desirable properties. The Kantorovich measures, albeit monotonic under deterministic quantum operations, are not monotonic under generalized measurements. In contrast, the EHS measures are. We present operational interpretations for both types of measures. We also show that the EHS fidelity between ensembles provides a novel interpretation of the fidelity between mixed states--the latter is equal to the maximum of the fidelity between all pure-state ensembles whose averages are equal to the mixed states being compared. We finally use the new measures to define distance and fidelity for stochastic quantum channels and positive operator-valued measures (POVMs). These quantities may be useful in the context of tomography of stochastic quantum channels and quantum detectors.
In this paper, we mainly study the local distinguishable multipartite quantum states by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) in $m_1otimes m_2otimesldotsotimes m_n$ , where the quantum system $m_1$ belongs to Alice, $m_2$ belongs to Bob, ldots and $m_n$ belongs to Susan. We first present the pure tripartite distinguishable orthogonal quantum states by LOCC in $m_1otimes m_2otimes m_3$. With the conclusion in $m_1otimes m_2otimes m_3$, we prove distinguishability or indistinguishability of some quantum states. At last, we give the $n$-party distinguishable quantum states in $m_1otimes m_2otimescdotsotimes m_n$. Our study further reveals quantum nonlocality in multipartite high-dimensional.
In this article, we show a sufficient and necessary condition for locally distinguishable bipartite states via one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC). With this condition, we present some minimal structures of one-way LOCC indistinguishable quantum state sets. As long as an indistinguishable subset exists in a state set, the set is not distinguishable. We also list several distinguishable sets as instances.
We consider the distinguishability of Gaussian states from the view point of continuous-variable quantum cryptography using post-selection. Specifically, we use the probability of error to distinguish between two pure coherent (squeezed) states and two particular mixed symmetric coherent (squeezed) states where each mixed state is an incoherent mixture of two pure coherent (squeezed) states with equal and opposite displacements in the conjugate quadrature. We show that the two mixed symmetric Gaussian states (where the various components have the same real part) never give an eavesdropper more information than the two pure Gaussian states. Furthermore, when considering the distinguishability of squeezed states, we show that varying the amount of squeezing leads to a squeezing and anti-squeezing of the net information rates.