Related papers: Indistinguishability and improper mixtures
Complementarity is a phenomenon explaining several core features of quantum theory, such as the well-known uncertainty principle. Roughly speaking, two objects are said to be complementary if being certain about one of them necessarily…
It is shown that quantum systems of identical particles can be treated as if they were different when they are in well differentiated states. This simplifying assumption allows the consideration of quantum systems isolated from the rest of…
The von Neumann entropy and the subentropy of a mixed quantum state are upper and lower bounds, respectively, on the accessible information of any ensemble consistent with the given mixed state. Here we define and investigate a set of…
We introduce the concept of a physical process that purifies a mixed quantum state, taken from a set of states, and investigate the conditions under which such a purification map exists. Here, a purification of a mixed quantum state is a…
We ask what type of mixed quantum states can arise when a number of separated parties start by sharing a pure quantum state and then this pure state becomes contaminated by noise. We show that not all mixed states arise in this way. This is…
Physical systems in real life are inextricably linked to their surroundings and never completely separated from them. Truly closed systems do not exist. The phenomenon of decoherence, which is brought about by the interaction with the…
We investigate an original family of quantum distinguishability problems, where the goal is to perfectly distinguish between $M$ quantum states that become identical under a completely decohering map. Similarly, we study distinguishability…
Quantum measurements necessarily disturb the state of physical system. Once we perform a complete measurement, the system undergoes decoherence and loses its coherence. If there is no disturbance, the state retains all of its coherence. It…
It has recently been argued that the inability to measure the absolute phase of an electromagnetic field prohibits the representation of a laser's output as a quantum optical coherent state. This argument has generally been considered…
It is well known that different preparations of a mixed state cannot be distinguished by a measurement of that state. Yet we show that some other experiments let us make this distinction despite a very general belief that this would not be…
Bounds analogous to entropic uncertainty relations allow one to design practical tests to detect quantum entanglement by a collective measurement performed on several copies of the state analyzed. This approach, initially worked out for…
Decoherence is the process via which quantum superpositions states are reduced to classical mixtures. Decoherence has been predicted for relativistically accelerated quantum systems, however examples to date have involved restricting the…
Measurement incompatibility describes two or more quantum measurements whose expected joint outcome on a given system cannot be defined. This purely non-classical phenomenon provides a necessary ingredient in many quantum information tasks…
We show how to decompose any density matrix of the simplest binary composite systems, whether separable or not, in terms of only product vectors. We determine for all cases the minimal number of product vectors needed for such a…
Deterministic discrimination of nonorthogonal states is forbidden by quantum measurement theory. However, if we do not want to succeed all the time, i.e. allow for inconclusive outcomes to occur, then unambiguous discrimination becomes…
Summary. A simple derivation of finite Schmidt decomposition of pure states describing finite dimensional systems interacting with the infinite dimensional ones is presented. In particular, maximally entangled pure states in such systems…
Interference comes from coherent mixing. It can be suppressed by entanglement, and the latter can be erased so as to revive interference. If the entanglement is a mimal-term one (with minimal-term mixing), as is the case in most thought and…
The separability and entanglement of quantum mixed states in $\Cb^2 \otimes \Cb^3 \otimes \Cb^N$ composite quantum systems are investigated. It is shown that all quantum states $\rho$ with positive partial transposes and rank $r(\rho)\leq…
Consider a joint quantum state of a system and its environment. A measurement on the environment induces a decomposition of the system state. Using algorithmic information theory, we define the preparation information of a pure or mixed…
When discriminating between two pure quantum states, there exists a quantitative tradeoff between the information retrieved by the measurement and the disturbance caused on the unknown state. We derive the optimal tradeoff and provide the…