arXiv subjects

Zhibo Hou

Publications and source records attributed to Zhibo Hou.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Experimental Masking of Real Quantum States

Masking of quantum information is a way of hiding information in correlations such that no information is accessible to any local observer. Although the set of all quantum states as a whole cannot be masked into bipartite correlations according to the no-masking theorem, the set of real states is maskable and is a maximal maskable set. In this work, we experimentally realize a masking protocol of the real ququart by virtue of a photonic quantum walk. Our experiment clearly demonstrates that quantum information of the real ququart can be completely hidden in bipartite correlations of two-qubit hybrid entangled states, which are encoded in two different degrees of freedom of a single photon. The hidden information is not accessible from each qubit alone, but can be faithfully retrieved with a fidelity of about 99% from correlation measurements. By contrast, any superset of the set of real density matrices cannot be masked.

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arXiv2021

Efficient Experimental Verification of Quantum Gates with Local Operations

Verifying the correct functioning of quantum gates is a crucial step towards reliable quantum information processing, but it becomes an overwhelming challenge as the system size grows due to the dimensionality curse. Recent theoretical breakthroughs show that it is possible to verify various important quantum gates with the optimal sample complexity of $O(1/ε)$ using local operations only, where $ε$ is the estimation precision. In this work, we propose a variant of quantum gate verification (QGV) which is robust to practical gate imperfections, and experimentally realize efficient QGV on a two-qubit controlled-not gate and a three-qubit Toffoli gate using only local state preparations and measurements. The experimental results show that, by using only 1600 and 2600 measurements on average, we can verify with 95% confidence level that the implemented controlled-not gate and Toffoli gate have fidelities at least 99% and 97%, respectively. Demonstrating the superior low sample complexity and experimental feasibility of QGV, our work promises a solution to the dimensionality curse in verifying large quantum devices in the quantum era.

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arXiv2020

Experimental Realization of Nonadiabatic Holonomic Single-Qubit Quantum Gates\\ with Optimal Control in a Trapped Ion

Quantum computation with quantum gates induced by geometric phases is regarded as a promising strategy in fault tolerant quantum computation, due to its robustness against operational noises. However, because of the parametric restriction of previous schemes, the main robust advantage of holonomic quantum gates is smeared. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a solution scheme, demonstrating nonadiabatic holonomic single qubit quantum gates with optimal control in a trapped Yb ion based on three level systems with resonant drives, which also hold the advantages of fast evolution and convenient implementation. Compared with corresponding previous geometric gates and conventional dynamic gates, the superiority of our scheme is that it is more robust against control amplitude errors, which is confirmed by the measured gate infidelity through both quantum process tomography and random benchmarking methods. In addition, we also outline that nontrivial two qubit holonomic gates can also be realized within current experimental technologies. Therefore, our experiment validates the feasibility for this robust and fast holonomic quantum computation strategy.

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arXiv2020

Experimental optimal orienteering via parallel and antiparallel spins

Antiparallel spins are superior in orienteering to parallel spins. This intriguing phenomenon is tied to entanglement associated with quantum measurements rather than quantum states. Using photonic systems, we experimentally realize the optimal orienteering protocols based on parallel spins and antiparallel spins, respectively. The optimal entangling measurements for decoding the direction information from parallel spins and antiparallel spins are realized using photonic quantum walks, which is a useful idea that is of wide interest in quantum information processing and foundational studies. Our experiments clearly demonstrate the advantage of antiparallel spins over parallel spins in orienteering. In addition, entangling measurements can extract more information than local measurements even if no entanglement is present in the quantum states.

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arXiv2020

Ultimate precision of multi-parameter quantum magnetometry under the parallel scheme

The precise measurement of a magnetic field is one of the most fundamental and important tasks in quantum metrology. Although extensive studies on quantum magnetometry have been carried out over past decades, the ultimate precision that can be achieved for the estimation of all three components of a magnetic field with entangled probe states under the parallel scheme remains unknown. Here we present the ultimate lower bound for the sum of arbitrarily weighted variances in the estimation of all three components of a magnetic field under the parallel scheme and show that this lower bound can be achieved for sufficiently large N. The optimal entangled probe state that achieves the ultimate precision is also explicitly constructed. The obtained precision sets the ultimate limit for the multi-parameter quantum magnetometry under the parallel scheme, which is of fundamental interest and importance in quantum metrology. Our approach also provides a way to characterize the tradeoff among the precisions of multiple parameters that arise from the constraints on the probe states.

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arXiv2020

Direct estimation of quantum coherence by collective measurements

The recently established resource theory of quantum coherence allows for a quantitative understanding of the superposition principle, with applications reaching from quantum computing to quantum biology. While different quantifiers of coherence have been proposed in the literature, their efficient estimation in today's experiments remains a challenge. Here, we introduce a collective measurement scheme for estimating the amount of coherence in quantum states, which requires entangled measurements on two copies of the state. As we show by numerical simulations, our scheme outperforms other estimation methods based on tomography or adaptive measurements, leading to a higher precision in a large parameter range for estimating established coherence quantifiers of qubit and qutrit states. We show that our method is accessible with today's technology by implementing it experimentally with photons, finding a good agreement between experiment and theory.

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arXiv2019

Strong Majorization Uncertainty Relations: Theory and Experiment

In spite of enormous theoretical and experimental progresses in quantum uncertainty relations, the experimental investigation of most current, and universal formalism of uncertainty relations, namely majorization uncertainty relations (MURs), has not been implemented yet. A significant problem is that previous studies on the classification of MURs only focus on their mathematical expressions, while the physical difference between various forms remains unknown. First, we use a guessing game formalism to study the MURs, which helps us disclosing their physical nature, and distinguishing the essential differences of physical features between diverse forms of MURs. Second, we tighter the bounds of MURs in terms of flatness processes, or equivalently, in terms of majorization lattice. Third, to benchmark our theoretical results, we experimentally verify MURs in the photonic systems.

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arXiv2019

Experimental realization of self-guided quantum process tomography

Characterization of quantum processes is a preliminary step necessary in the development of quantum technology. The conventional method uses standard quantum process tomography, which requires $d^2$ input states and $d^4$ quantum measurements for a $d$-dimensional Hilbert space. These experimental requirements are compounded by the complexity of processing the collected data, which can take several orders of magnitude longer than the experiment itself. In this paper we propose an alternative self-guided algorithm for quantum process tomography, tuned for the task of finding an unknown unitary process. Our algorithm is a fully automated and adaptive process characterization technique. The advantages of our algorithm are: inherent robustness to both statistical and technical noise; requires less space and time since there is no post-processing of the data; requires only a single input state and measurement; and, provides on-the-fly diagnostic information while the experiment is running. Numerical results show our algorithm achieves the same $1/n$ scaling as standard quantum process tomography when $n$ uses of the unknown process are used. We also present experimental results wherein the algorithm, and its advantages, are realized for the task of finding an element of $SU(2)$.

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arXiv2019

Detecting Non-Markovianity via Quantified Coherence: Theory and Experiments

The dynamics of open quantum systems and manipulation of quantum resources are both of fundamental interest in quantum physics. Here, we investigate the relation between quantum Markovianity and coherence, providing an effective way for detecting non-Markovianity based on the \textit{quantum-incoherent relative entropy of coherence} ($\mathcal{QI}$ REC). We theoretically show the relation between completely positive (CP) divisibility and the monotonic behavior of the $\mathcal{QI}$ REC. Also we implement an all-optical experiment to demonstrate that the behavior of the $\mathcal{QI}$ REC is coincident with the entanglement shared between the system and the ancilla for both Markovian and non-Markovian evolution; while other coherence-based non-Markovian information carriers violate monotonicity, even in Markovian processes. Moreover, we experimentally observe that non-Markovianity enhances the ability of creating coherence on an ancilla. This is the first experimental study of the relation between dynamical behavior of the $\mathcal{QI}$ REC and the phenomenon of information backflow. Moreover, our method for detecting non-Markovianity is applicable to general quantum evolutions.

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arXiv2019

Control-enhanced sequential scheme for general quantum parameter estimation at the Heisenberg limit

The advantage of quantum metrology has been experimentally demonstrated for phase estimations where the dynamics are commuting. General noncommuting dynamics, however, can have distinct features. For example, the direct sequential scheme, which can achieve the Heisenberg scaling for the phase estimation under commuting dynamics, can have even worse performances than the classical scheme under noncommuting dynamics. Here we realize a scalable optimally controlled sequential scheme, which can achieve the Heisenberg precision under general noncommuting dynamics. We also present an intuitive geometrical framework for the controlled scheme and identify sweet spots in time at which the optimal controls used in the scheme can be pre-fixed without adaptation, which simplifies the experimental protocols significantly. We successfully implement the scheme up to eight controls in an optical platform, demonstrate a precision near the Heisenberg limit. Our work opens the avenue for harvesting the power of quantum control in quantum metrology, and provides a control-enhanced recipe to achieve the Heisenberg precision under general noncommuting dynamics.

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arXiv2019

Experimental investigation of majorization uncertainty relations in the high-dimensional systems

Uncertainty relation is not only of fundamental importance to quantum mechanics, but also crucial to the quantum information technology. Recently, majorization formulation of uncertainty relations (MURs) have been widely studied, ranging from two measurements to multiple measurements. Here, for the first time, we experimentally investigate MURs for two measurements and multiple measurements in the high-dimensional systems, and study the intrinsic distinction between direct-product MURs and direct-sum MURs. The experimental results reveal that by taking different nonnegative Schur-concave functions as uncertainty measure, the two types of MURs have their own particular advantages, and also verify that there exists certain case where three-measurement majorization uncertainty relation is much stronger than the one obtained by summing pairwise two-measurement uncertainty relations. Our work not only fills the gap of experimental studies of majorization uncertainty relations, but also represents an advance in quantitatively understanding and experimental verification of majorization uncertainty relations which are universal and capture the essence of uncertainty in quantum theory.

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arXiv2018

Deterministic realization of collective measurements via photonic quantum walks

Collective measurements on identically prepared quantum systems can extract more information than local measurements, thereby enhancing information-processing efficiency. Although this nonclassical phenomenon has been known for two decades, it has remained a challenging task to demonstrate the advantage of collective measurements in experiments. Here we introduce a general recipe for performing deterministic collective measurements on two identically prepared qubits based on quantum walks. Using photonic quantum walks, we realize experimentally an optimized collective measurement with fidelity 0.9946 without post selection. As an application, we achieve the highest tomographic efficiency in qubit state tomography to date. Our work offers an effective recipe for beating the precision limit of local measurements in quantum state tomography and metrology. In addition, our study opens an avenue for harvesting the power of collective measurements in quantum information processing and for exploring the intriguing physics behind this power.

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arXiv2018

Experimental demonstration of wave-particle duality relation based on coherence measure

Wave-particle duality is a typical example of Bohr's complementarity principle that plays a significant role in quantum mechanics. Previous studies used the visibility of an interference pattern to quantify the wave property and used path information to quantify the particle property. However, coherence is the core and basis of the interference phenomenon. If we could use coherence to characterize the wave property, the understanding of wave-particle duality would be strengthened. A recent theoretical work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 160406 (2016)] found two relations between quantum coherence and path information. Here, we demonstrate the new measure of wave-particle duality based on two kinds of coherence measures quantitatively for the first time. The wave property, quantified by the coherence in the l1-norm measure and the relative entropy measure, can be obtained via tomography of the target state, which is encoded in the path degree of freedom of the photons. The particle property, quantified by the path information, can be obtained via the discrimination of detector states, which is encoded in the polarization degree of freedom of the photons. Our work may deepen people's understanding of coherence and provide a new perspective regarding wave-particle duality.

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arXiv2017

Experimental cyclic inter-conversion between Coherence and Quantum Correlations

Quantum resource theories seek to quantify sources of non-classicality that bestow quantum technologies their operational advantage. Chief among these are studies of quantum correlations and quantum coherence. The former to isolate non-classicality in the correlations between systems, the latter to capture non-classicality of quantum superpositions within a single physical system. Here we present a scheme that cyclically inter-converts between these resources without loss. The first stage converts coherence present in an input system into correlations with an ancilla. The second stage harnesses these correlations to restore coherence on the input system by measurement of the ancilla. We experimentally demonstrate this inter-conversion process using linear optics. Our experiment highlights the connection between non-classicality of correlations and non-classicality within local quantum systems, and provides potential flexibilities in exploiting one resource to perform tasks normally associated with the other.

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arXiv2017

Quantum gate identification: error analysis, numerical results and optical experiment

The identification of an unknown quantum gate is a significant issue in quantum technology. In this paper, we propose a quantum gate identification method within the framework of quantum process tomography. In this method, a series of pure states are inputted to the gate and then a fast state tomography on the output states is performed and the data are used to reconstruct the quantum gate. Our algorithm has computational complexity $O(d^3)$ with the system dimension $d$. The algorithm is compared with maximum likelihood estimation method for the running time, which shows the efficiency advantage of our method. An error upper bound is established for the identification algorithm and the robustness of the algorithm against the purity of input states is also tested. We perform quantum optical experiment on single-qubit Hadamard gate to verify the effectiveness of the identification algorithm.

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arXiv2017

Taking tomographic measurements for photonic qubits 88 ns before they are created

We experimentally demonstrate that tomographic measurements can be performed for states of qubits before they are prepared. A variant of the quantum teleportation protocol is used as a channel between two instants in time, allowing measurements for polarisation states of photons to be implemented 88 ns before they are created. Measurement data taken at the early time and later unscrambled according to the results of the protocol's Bell measurements, produces density matrices with an average fidelity of $0.90 \pm 0.01$ against the ideal states of photons created at the later time. Process tomography of the time-reverse quantum channel finds an average process fidelity of $0.84 \pm 0.02$. While our proof-of-principle implementation necessitates some post-selection, the general protocol is deterministic and requires no post-selection to sift desired states and reject a larger ensemble.

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arXiv2017

Experimentally Obtaining Maximal Coherence Via Assisted Distillation Pro cess

Quantum coherence, which quantifies the superposition properties of a quantum state, plays an indispensable role in quantum resource theory. A recent theoretical work [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{116}, 070402 (2016)] studied the manipulation of quantum coherence in bipartite or multipartite systems under the protocol Local Incoherent Operation and Classical Communication (LQICC). Here we present the first experimental realization of obtaining maximal coherence in assisted distillation protocol based on linear optical system. The results of our work show that the optimal distillable coherence rate can be reached even in one-copy scenario when the overall bipartite qubit state is pure. Moreover, the experiments for mixed states showed that distillable coherence can be increased with less demand than entanglement distillation. Our work might be helpful in the remote quantum information processing and quantum control.

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arXiv2016

Full reconstruction of a 14-qubit state within four hours

Full quantum state tomography (FQST) plays a unique role in the estimation of the state of a quantum system without \emph{a priori} knowledge or assumptions. Unfortunately, since FQST requires informationally (over)complete measurements, both the number of measurement bases and the computational complexity of data processing suffer an exponential growth with the size of the quantum system. A 14-qubit entangled state has already been experimentally prepared in an ion trap, and the data processing capability for FQST of a 14-qubit state seems to be far away from practical applications. In this paper, the computational capability of FQST is pushed forward to reconstruct a 14-qubit state with a run time of only 3.35 hours using the linear regression estimation (LRE) algorithm, even when informationally overcomplete Pauli measurements are employed. The computational complexity of the LRE algorithm is first reduced from $O(10^{19})$ to $O(10^{15})$ for a 14-qubit state, by dropping all the zero elements, and its computational efficiency is further sped up by fully exploiting the parallelism of the LRE algorithm with parallel Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) programming. Our result can play an important role in quantum information technologies with large quantum systems.

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