English

Reaching Fleming's dicrimination bound

Quantum Physics 2012-04-16 v1 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

Any rule for identifying a quantum system's state within a set of two non-orthogonal pure states by a single measurement is flawed. It has a non-zero probability of either yielding the wrong result or leaving the query undecided. This also holds if the measurement of an observable AA is repeated on a finite sample of nn state copies. We formulate a state identification rule for such a sample. This rule's probability of giving the wrong result turns out to be bounded from above by 1/nδA21/n\delta_{A}^{2} with δA=<A>1<A>2/(Δ1A+Δ2A).\delta_{A}=|<A>_{1}-<A>_{2}|/(\Delta_{1}A+\Delta_{2}A). A larger δA\delta_{A} results in a smaller upper bound. Yet, according to Fleming, δA\delta_{A} cannot exceed tanθ\tan\theta with θ(0,π/2)\theta\in(0,\pi/2) being the angle between the pure states under consideration. We demonstrate that there exist observables AA which reach the bound tanθ\tan\theta and we determine all of them.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1204.2998,
  title  = {Reaching Fleming's dicrimination bound},
  author = {Gebhard Gruebl and Laurin Ostermann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.2998},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

14 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:49:05.553Z