Enhancing Phase Retrievability of Quantum Channels via Interferometric Coupling
Abstract
Phase retrievability of a quantum channel asks whether pure states can be reconstructed from suitable measurements. In this paper, we study this problem from three complementary viewpoints: quantum information theory, operator-valued frames, and the physical realization through quantum interferometry. We first show that a quantum channel is phase retrievable if and only if its complementary channel is pure-state informationally complete. This structural characterization leads to several consequences for phase retrievability, including criteria involving the dimension of the complementary operator system, Choi-rank type bounds, and specific results for entanglement breaking channels and twirling channels. We then introduce an interferometric coupling in which two arm channels are coherently recombined through port operators . Unlike classical mixing, this construction produces interference cross terms that can enlarge the complementary operator system and thereby enhance phase retrievability. From the frame theory viewpoint, the interferometer realizes a coherent coupling of operator-valued frames. To quantify this effect, we introduce injectivity indices for completely positive maps. The examples in Section~5 show that coherent interference can significantly improve phase retrieval behavior even when the arm channels are individually not phase retrievable.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.24363,
title = {Enhancing Phase Retrievability of Quantum Channels via Interferometric Coupling},
author = {Kai Liu and Deguang Han and Omar Nour},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.24363},
year = {2026}
}