arXiv subjects

Shengjun Wu

Publications and source records attributed to Shengjun Wu.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Quantum Uncertainty and Error-Disturbance Tradeoff

The uncertainty principle is often interpreted by the tradeoff between the error of a measurement and the consequential disturbance to the followed ones, which originated long ago from Heisenberg himself but now falls into reexamination and even heated debate. Here we show that the tradeoff is switched on or off by the quantum uncertainties of two involved non-commuting observables: if one is more certain than the other, there is no tradeoff; otherwise, they do have tradeoff and the Jensen-Shannon divergence gives it a good characterization.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Quantum correlation exists in any non-product state

Simultaneous existence of correlation in complementary bases is a fundamental feature of quantum correlation, and we show that this characteristic is present in any non-product bipartite state. We propose a measure via mutually unbiased bases to study this feature of quantum correlation, and compare it with other measures of quantum correlation for several families of bipartite states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Conservation law for Uncertainty relations and quantum correlations

Uncertainty principle, a fundamental principle in quantum physics, has been studied intensively via various uncertainty inequalities. Here we derive an uncertainty equality in terms of linear entropy, and show that the sum of uncertainty in complementary local bases is equal to a fixed quantity. We also introduce a measure of correlation in a bipartite state, and show that the sum of correlations revealed in a full set of complementary bases is equal to the total correlation in the bipartite state. The surprising simple equality relations we obtain imply that the study on uncertainty principle and correlations can rely on the use of linear entropy, a simple quantity that is very convenient for calculation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Amplification limit of weak measurements: a variational approach

Post-selected weak measurement has been widely used in experiments to observe weak effects in various physical systems. However, it is still unclear how large the amplification ability of a weak measurement can be and what determines the limit of this ability, which is fundamental to understanding and applying weak measurements. The limitation of the conventional weak value formalism for this problem is the divergence of weak values when the pre- and post-selections are nearly orthogonal. In this paper, we study this problem by a variational approach for a general Hamiltonian $H_{\mathrm{int}}=gA\otimesΩδ(t-t_{0}),\, g\ll1$. We derive a general asymptotic solution, and show that the amplification limit is essentially independent of $g$, and determined only by the initial state of the detector and the number of distinct eigenvalues of $A$ or $Ω$. An example of spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles with a pair of Stern-Gerlach devices is given to illustrate the results. The limiting case of continuous variable systems is also investigated to demonstrate the influence of system dimension on the amplification limit.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Entanglement of $π$-LME states and the SAT problem

In this paper we investigate the entanglement properties of the class of $π$-locally maximally entanglable ($π$-LME) states, which are also known as the "real equally weighted states" or the "hypergraph states". The $π$-LME states comprise well-studied classes of quantum states (e.g. graph states) and exhibit a large degree of symmetry. Motivated by the structure of LME states, we show that the capacity to (efficiently) determine if a $π$-LME state is entangled would imply an efficient solution to the boolean satisfiability (SAT) problem. More concretely, we show that this particular problem of entanglement detection, phrased as a decision problem, is $\mathsf{NP}$-complete. The restricted setting we consider yields a technically uninvolved proof, and illustrates that entanglement detection, even when quantum states under consideration are highly restricted, still remains difficult.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Reveal quantum correlation in complementary bases

An essential feature of genuine quantum correlation is the simultaneous existence of correlation in complementary bases. We reveal this feature of quantum correlation by defining measures based on invariance under a basis change. For a bipartite quantum state, the classical correlation is the maximal correlation present in a certain optimum basis, while the quantum correlation is characterized as a series of residual correlations in the mutually unbiased bases. Compared with other approaches to quantify quantum correlation, our approach gives information-theoretical measures that directly reflect the essential feature of quantum correlation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

The negative probabilities and information gain in weak measurements

We study the outcomes in a general measurement with postselection, and derive upper bounds for the pointer readings in weak measurement. Using the idea of weak measurement, we study Hardy's gedanken experiment and show how the "negative probabilities" emerge in weak measurement. By calculating the information gain of the measuring device about which path the particles pass through, we show that the "negative probabilities" only emerge for cases when the information gain is little due to very weak coupling between the measuring device and the particles. When the coupling strength increases, we can unambiguously determine whether a particle passes through a given path every time, hence the average shifts always represent true probabilities, and the strange "negatives probabilities" disappear.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Direct and Parallel Tomography of a Quantum Process

As the method to completely characterize quantum dynamical processes, quantum process tomography (QPT) is vitally important for quantum information processing and quantum control, where the faithfulness of quantum devices plays an essential role. Here via weak measurements, we present a new QPT scheme characterized by its directness and parallelism. Comparing with the existing schemes, our scheme needs a simpler state preparation and much fewer experimental setups. Furthermore, each parameter of the quantum process is directly determined from only five experimental values in our scheme, meaning that our scheme is robust against the accumulation of errors.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Unambiguous discrimination of extremely similar states by a weak measurement

In this paper, we propose a method to discriminate two extremely similar quantum states via a weak measurement. For the two states with equal prior probabilities, the optimum discrimination probability given by Ivanovic-Dieks-Peres limit can be achieved by our protocol with an appropriate choice of the interaction strength. However, compared with the conventional method for state discrimination, our approach shows the advantage of error-tolerance by achieving a better ratio of the success probability to the probability of error.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

State tomography via weak measurements

Recent work has revealed that the wave function of a pure state can be measured directly and that complementary knowledge of a quantum system can be obtained simultaneously by weak measurements. However, the original scheme applies only to pure states, and it is not efficient because most of the data are discarded by post-selection. Here, we propose tomography schemes for pure states and for mixed states via weak measurements, and our schemes are more efficient because we do not discard any data. Furthermore, we demonstrate that any matrix element of a general state can be directly read from an appropriate weak measurement. The density matrix (with all of its elements) represents all that is directly accessible from a general measurement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Correlation measures in bipartite states and entanglement irreversibility

We derive quantitative relations among several naturally defined measures of classical and nonclassical correlations in a bipartite quantum state. We also obtain an upper bound of entanglement irreversibility and a sufficient condition for reversible entanglement. The additivity of entanglement of formation is directly related to the additivity of quantum discord as well as a certain measure of classical correlation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Information gain versus coupling strength in quantum measurements

We investigate the relationship between the information gain and the interaction strength between the quantum system and the measuring device. A strategy is proposed to calculate the information gain of the measuring device as the coupling strength is a variable. For qubit systems, we prove that the information gain increases monotonically with the coupling strength. It is obtained that the information gain of the projective measurement along the x-direction reduces with the increasing of the measurement strength along the z-direction, and a complementarity of information gain in the measurements along those two directions is presented.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Unambiguous Examining the Orthogonality of Multiple Quantum States

In this article, we study an opposite problem of universal quantum state comparison, that is unambiguous determining whether multiple unknown quantum states from a Hilbert space are orthogonal or not. We show that no unambiguous quantum measurement can accomplish this task with a non-zero probability. Moreover, we extend the problem to a more general case, that is to compare how orthogonal multiple unknown quantum states are with a threshold, and it turns out that given any threshold this extended task is also impossible by any unambiguous quantum measurement except for a trivial case. It will be seen that the impossibility revealed in our problem is stronger than that in the universal quantum state comparison problem and distinct from those in the existing "no-go" theorems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Weak measurement with orthogonal pre-selection and post-selection

Weak measurement is a novel quantum measurement scheme, which is usually characterized by the weak value formalism. To guarantee the validity of the weak value formalism, the fidelity between the pre-selection and the post-selection should not be too small generally. In this work, we study the weak measurement on a qubit system with exactly or asymptotically orthogonal pre- and post-selections. We shall establish a general rigorous framework for the weak measurement beyond the weak value formalism, and obtain the average output of a weak measurement when the pre- and post-selections are exactly orthogonal. We shall also study the asymptotic behavior of a weak measurement in the limiting process that the pre- and post-selections tend to be orthogonal.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Feasible optical weak measurements of complementary observables via a single Hamiltonian

A general formalism for joint weak measurements of a pair of complementary observables is given. The standard process of optical three-wave mixing in a nonlinear crystal (such as in parametric down-conversion) is suitable for such tasks. To obtain the weak value of a variable $A$ one performs weak measurements twice, with different initial states of the "meter" field. This seems to be a drawback, but as a compensation we get for free the weak value of a complementary variable $B$. The scheme is tunable and versatile: one has access to a continuous set of possible weak measurements of pair of observables. The scheme increases signal-to-noise ratio with respect to the case without postselection.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Nonexistence of a universal quantum machine to examine the precision of unknown quantum states

In this work, we reveal a new type of impossibility discovered in our recent research which forbids comparing the closeness of multiple unknown quantum states with any non-trivial threshold in a perfect or an unambiguous way. This impossibility is distinct from the existing impossibilities in that it is a "collective" impossibility on multiple quantum states while most other "no-go" theorems concern with only one single state each time, i.e., it is an impossibility on a non-local quantum operation. This novel impossibility may provide a new insight into the nature of quantum mechanics and it implies more limitations on quantum information tasks than the existing "no-go" theorems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Quantum measurements with preselection and postselection

We study quantum measurement with preselection and postselection, and derive the precise expressions of the measurement results without any restriction on the coupling strength between the system and the measuring device. For a qubit system, we derive the maximum pointer shifts by choosing appropriate initial and finial states. A significant amplification effect is obtained when the interaction between the system and the measuring device is very weak, and typical ideal quantum measurement results are obtained when the interaction is strong. The improvement of the signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) and the enhancement of the measurement sensitivity (MS) by weak measurements are studied. Without considering the probability decrease due to postselection, the SNR and the MS can be both significantly improved by weak measurements; however, neither SNR nor MS can be effectively improved when the probability decrease is considered.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Non-existence of invariant EPR correlation for two qudits, d>2

The two qubit (spin 1/2) singlet state has invariant perfect EPR correlations: if two observers measure {\em any} identical observables the results are always perfectly (anti-)correlated. We show that no such correlations exists in $d\otimes d$ pure or mixed bipartite quantum states if $d\geq3$. This points that two qubit singlets are high-quality quantum information carriers in long distance transmission: their correlations are unaffected by identical random unitary transformations of both qubits. Pairs of entangled qu$d$its, $d>2$, do not have this property. Thus, qu$d$it properties should be rather exploited only in protocols in which transmission is not a long distance one.

quant-ph↗