No Arabic abstract
Unsharp measurements are increasingly important for foundational insights in quantum theory and quantum information applications. Here, we report an experimental implementation of unsharp qubit measurements in a sequential communication protocol, based on a quantum random access code. The protocol involves three parties; the first party prepares a qubit system, the second party performs operations which return both a classical and quantum outcome, and the latter is measured by the third party. We demonstrate a nearly-optimal sequential quantum random access code that outperforms both the best possible classical protocol and any quantum protocol which utilises only projective measurements. Furthermore, while only assuming that the involved devices operate on qubits and that detected events constitute a fair sample, we demonstrate the noise-robust characterisation of unsharp measurements based on the sequential quantum random access code. We apply this characterisation towards quantifying the degree of incompatibility of two sequential pairs of quantum measurements.
We present a single inequality as the necessary and sufficient condition for two unsharp observables of a two-level system to be jointly measurable in a single apparatus and construct explicitly the joint observables. A complementarity inequality arising from the condition of joint measurement, which generalizes Englerts duality inequality, is derived as the trade-off between the unsharpnesses of two jointly measurable observables.
Random access memory is an indispensable device for classical information technology. Analog to this, for quantum information technology, it is desirable to have a random access quantum memory with many memory cells and programmable access to each cell. We report an experiment that realizes a random access quantum memory of 105 qubits carried by 210 memory cells in a macroscopic atomic ensemble. We demonstrate storage of optical qubits into these memory cells and their read-out at programmable times by arbitrary orders with fidelities exceeding any classical bound. Experimental realization of a random access quantum memory with many memory cells and programmable control of its write-in and read-out makes an important step for its application in quantum communication, networking, and computation.
We consider a communication method, where the sender encodes n classical bits into 1 qubit and sends it to the receiver who performs a certain measurement depending on which of the initial bits must be recovered. This procedure is called (n,1,p) quantum random access code (QRAC) where p > 1/2 is its success probability. It is known that (2,1,0.85) and (3,1,0.79) QRACs (with no classical counterparts) exist and that (4,1,p) QRAC with p > 1/2 is not possible. We extend this model with shared randomness (SR) that is accessible to both parties. Then (n,1,p) QRAC with SR and p > 1/2 exists for any n > 0. We give an upper bound on its success probability (the known (2,1,0.85) and (3,1,0.79) QRACs match this upper bound). We discuss some particular constructions for several small values of n. We also study the classical counterpart of this model where n bits are encoded into 1 bit instead of 1 qubit and SR is used. We give an optimal construction for such codes and find their success probability exactly--it is less than in the quantum case. Interactive 3D quantum random access codes are available on-line at http://home.lanet.lv/~sd20008/racs .
Incompatibility of quantum measurements is of fundamental importance in quantum mechanics. It is closely related to many nonclassical phenomena such as Bell nonlocality, quantum uncertainty relations, and quantum steering. We study the necessary and sufficient conditions of quantum compatibility for a given collection of $n$ measurements in $d$-dimensional space. From the compatibility criterion for two-qubit measurements, we compute the incompatibility probability of a pair of independent random measurements. For a pair of unbiased random qubit measurements, we derive that the incompatibility probability is exactly $frac35$. Detailed results are also presented in figures for pairs of general qubit measurements.
We consider the question of characterising the incompatibility of sets of high-dimensional quantum measurements. We introduce the concept of measurement incompatibility in subspaces. That is, starting from a set of measurements that is incompatible, one considers the set of measurements obtained by projection onto any strict subspace of fixed dimension. We identify three possible forms of incompatibility in subspaces: (i) incompressible incompatibility: measurements that become compatible in every subspace, (ii) fully compressible incompatibility: measurements that remain incompatible in every subspace, and (iii) partly compressible incompatibility: measurements that are compatible in some subspace and incompatible in another. For each class we discuss explicit examples. Finally, we present some applications of these ideas. First we show that joint measurability and coexistence are two inequivalent notions of incompatibility in the simplest case of qubit systems. Second we highlight the implications of our results for tests of quantum steering.