English

Measuring polynomial functions of states

Quantum Physics 2007-05-23 v2

Abstract

In this paper I show that any mmth-degree polynomial function of the elements of the density matrix ρ\rho can be determined by finding the expectation value of an observable on mm copies of ρ\rho, without performing state tomography. Since a circuit exists which can approximate the measurement of any observable, in principle one can find a circuit which will estimate any such polynomial function by averaging over many runs. I construct some simple examples and compare these results to existing procedures.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0401067,
  title  = {Measuring polynomial functions of states},
  author = {Todd A. Brun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0401067},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Minor revisions in response to referee comments