Science as social history

Quantum states of light, such as squeezed states or entangled states, can be used to make measurements (metrology), produce images, and sense objects with a precision that far exceeds what is possible classically, and also exceeds what was once thought to be possible quantum mechanically. The primary idea is to exploit quantum effects to beat the shot-noise limit in metrology and the Rayleigh diffraction limit in imaging and sensing. Quantum optical metrology has received a boost in recent years with an influx of ideas from the rapidly evolving field of optical quantum information processing. Both areas of research exploit the creation and manipulation of quantum-entangled states of light. We will review some of the recent theoretical and experimental advances in this exciting new field of quantum optical metrology, focusing on examples that exploit a particular two-mode entangled photon state – the High-N00N state.     

基于量子Fisher信息的量子计量进展

量子计量是超冷原子气体研究中的一个热点领域.超冷原子体系独特的量子性质(量子纠缠)和量子效应有助于大幅度提高待测物理量的测量精度,这已经成为量子精密测量中的共识.量子Fisher信息对该领域的发展起了非常重要的作用.本文首先介绍量子Fisher信息的基本概念和量子计量的主要内容;然后简要回顾这些理论在提高测量精度方面的应用,特别是多粒子量子纠缠态的产生及其判定;再介绍线性和非线性原子干涉仪的相关进展;最后论述量子测量过程中的统计方法的研究进展.     

噪声对一种三粒子量子探针态的影响

量子度量学是研究量子测量与统计推断的一门学科,主要利用量子手段来提高参数估计的精度,在量子信息处理与测量中起到关键作用.量子参数估计的一般过程包含四个步骤:探针态的制备、参数化过程、对参数化后的输出态进行测量以及根据测量结果估计待测参数.其中探针态的选取对测量精度起着至关重要的作用.然而在实际的量子探针态的制备过程中,初始探针态会受到环境噪声的影响.目前人们已经研究了W态与Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger(GHZ)态的量子Fisher信息(QFI)在典型噪声通道下的变化行为.由于W态与GHZ态有着不同的纠缠性质,对于W态与GHZ态的叠加态的QFI动力学研究具有重要的实际意义.故此,本文主要研究典型噪声通道对这两种状态的叠加态的QFI动力学行为的影响,得出了QFI随噪声参数的变化行为.结果表明,叠加态中W态组分可明显对抗相位阻尼噪声对探针态的QFI的影响,而其中的GHZ态组分可明显对抗振幅阻尼噪声的影响,从而为在实际环境中选取高精度的参数估计过程提供参考.     

Strategies for Positive Partial Transpose (PPT) States in Quantum Metrologies with Noise

Quantum metrology overcomes standard precision limits and has the potential to play a key role in quantum sensing. Quantum mechanics, through the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, imposes limits on the precision of measurements. Conventional bounds to the measurement precision such as the shot noise limit are not as fundamental as the Heisenberg limits, and can be beaten with quantum strategies that employ ‘quantum tricks’ such as squeezing and entanglement. Bipartite entangled quantum states with a positive partial transpose (PPT), i.e., PPT entangled states, are usually considered to be too weakly entangled for applications. Since no pure entanglement can be distilled from them, they are also called bound entangled states. We provide strategies, using which multipartite quantum states that have a positive partial transpose with respect to all bi-partitions of the particles can still outperform separable states in linear interferometers.     

光和原子关联与量子计量

物理量的测量与单位标准的统一推动了计量学的发展.量子力学的建立,激光技术的发明以及原子与分子物理学的发展,在原理与技术上进一步刷新了计量学的研究内涵,特别是激光干涉与原子频标技术的发展,引起了计量学革命性的飞跃.基于激光干涉的引力波测量、激光陀螺仪,基于原子干涉的原子钟、原子陀螺仪等精密测量技术相继诞生,一个以量子物理为基础,探索与开拓物理量精密测量方法与技术的新的科学分支——量子计量学(Quantum Metrology)已然兴起.干涉是计量学中最常用的相位测量方法.量子干涉技术,其相位测量精度能够突破标准量子极限的限制,是量子计量学与量子测量技术的核心研究内容.本文重点介绍近几年我们在量子干涉方面所取得的新开拓与新发展,主要内容包括基于原子系综中四波混频过程的SU(1,1)型光量子关联干涉仪和基于原子系综中拉曼散射过程的光-原子混合干涉仪.     

超冷原子系综的非高斯纠缠态与精密测量

量子精密测量是基于量子力学的基本原理对特定物理量实施测量,并利用量子效应提高测量精度的交叉科学.随着超冷原子实验技术的发展,超冷原子为量子精密测量提供了一个优异的研究平台.利用发展成熟的量子调控技术,人们可以基于超冷原子系综制备一些新奇的非高斯多粒子纠缠态.基于多体量子干涉,利用这些非高斯纠缠态作为输入,可以实现超越标准量子极限的高精度测量.本文简要综述这一研究领域的进展.     

Quantum computation and error correction based on continuous variable cluster states

Measurement-based quantum computation with continuous variables, which realizes computation by performing measurement and feedforward of measurement results on a large scale Gaussian cluster state, provides a feasible way to implement quantum computation. Quantum error correction is an essential procedure to protect quantum information in quantum computation and quantum communication. In this review, we briefly introduce the progress of measurement-based quantum computation and quantum error correction with continuous variables based on Gaussian cluster states. We also discuss the challenges in the fault-tolerant measurement-based quantum computation with continuous variables.     

Interaction between classical and quantum systems and the measurement of quantum observables

Quantum mechanics presumes classical measuring instruments with which they interact. The problem of measurement interaction between classical and quantum systems is posed and solved. The restriction to compatible measurements comes about naturally as the condition for the integrity of the classical system. A technical device is the perspective on classical mechanics as quantum mechanics with essentially hidden dynamical variables. Work supported in part by U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, ERDA.     

Protecting Quantum Fisher Information in Correlated Quantum Channels

Quantum Fisher information (QFI) has potential applications in quantum metrology tasks. QFI is investigated when the consecutive actions of a quantum channel on the sequence of qubits have partial classical correlations. The results showed that while the decoherence effect is detrimental to QFI, effects of such classical correlations on QFI are channel-dependent. For the Bell-type probe states, the classical correlations on consecutive actions of the depolarizing and phase flip channels can be harnessed to improve QFI, while the classical correlations in the bit flip and bit-phase flip channels induce a slight decrease of QFI. For a more general parameterization form of the probe states, the advantage of using the initial correlated system on improving QFI can also remain in a wide regime of the correlated quantum channels.     

量子Turbo乘积码

量子通信是经典通信和量子力学相结合的一门新兴交叉学科.量子纠错编码是实现量子通信的关键技术之一.构造量子纠错编码的主要方法是借鉴经典纠错编码技术,许多经典的编码技术在量子领域中都可以找到其对应的编码方法.针对经典纠错码中最好码之一的Turbo乘积码,提出一种以新构造的CSS型量子卷积码为稳定子码的量子Turbo乘积码.首先,运用群的理论及稳定子码的基本原理构造出新的CSS型量子卷积码稳定子码生成元,并描述了其编码网络.接着,利用量子置换SWAP门定义推导出量子Turbo乘积码的交织编码矩阵.最后,推导出量子Turbo乘积码的译码迹距离与经典Turbo乘积码的译码距离的对应关系,并提出量子Turbo乘积码的编译码实现方案.这种编译码方法具有高度结构化,设计思路简单,网络易于实施的特点. 关键词： CSS码 量子卷积码 量子Turbo乘积码 量子纠错编码     

Criticality-based quantum metrology in the presence of decoherence

Because quantum critical systems are very sensitive to the variation of parameters around the quantum phase transition (QPT), quantum criticality has been presented as an efficient resource for metrology. In this paper, we address the issue whether the divergent feature of the inverted variance is realizable in the presence of noise when approaching the QPT. Taking the quantum Rabi model (QRM) as an example, we obtain the analytical result for the inverted variance with single-photon relaxation. We show that the inverted variance may be convergent in time due to the noise. Since the precision of the metrology is very sensitive to the noise, as a remedy, we propose squeezing the initial state to improve the precision under decoherence. In addition, we also investigate the criticality-based metrology under the influence of the two-photon relaxation. Strikingly, although the maximum inverted variance still manifests a power-law dependence on the energy gap, the exponent is positive and depends on the dimensionless coupling strength. This observation implies that the criticality may not enhance but weaken the precision in the presence of two-photon relaxation, due to the non-linearity introduced by the two-photon relaxation.     

量子Turbo码

量子纠错编码技术在量子通信和量子计算领域起着非常重要的作用.构造量子纠错编码的主要方法是借鉴经典纠错编码技术,目前几乎所有经典纠错编码方案都已经被移植到量子领域中来,然而在经典编码领域纠错性能最杰出的Turbo码却至今没有量子对应.提出了一种利用量子寄存器网络构造量子递归系统卷积码的简单实现方案,同时利用量子SWAP门设计了一种高效的量子交织器门组网络方案.最后仿照经典Turbo码的设计原理提出串行级联的量子Turbo码,同时提出了可行的译码方法.量子Turbo码不仅丰富了量子纠错码研究的领域,同时为解释 关键词： 量子递归系统卷积码 量子Turbo码 量子纠错编码 量子信息     

Improving the teleportation of quantum Fisher information under non-Markovian environment

Quantum teleportation is designed to send an unknown quantum state between two parties. In the perspective of remote quantum metrology, one may be interested in teleporting the information that is encoded by physical parameters synthesized by quantum Fisher information (QFI). However, the teleported QFI is often destroyed by the unavoidable interaction between the system and the environment. Here, we propose two schemes to improve the teleportation of QFI in the non-Markovian environment. One is to control the quantum system through the operations of weak measurement (WM) and corresponding quantum measurement reversal (QMR). The other is to modify the quantum system based on the monitoring result of the environment (i.e., environment-assisted measurement, EAM). It is found that, in the non-Markovian environment, these two schemes can improve the teleportation of QFI. By selecting the appropriate strengths of WM and QMR, the environment noise can be completely eliminated and the initial QFI is perfectly teleported. A comprehensive comparison shows that the second scheme not only has a higher probability of success than the first one, but also has a significant improvement of the teleported QFI.     

Quantum superreplication of states and gates

Although the no-cloning theorem forbids perfect replication of quantum information, it is sometimes possible to produce large numbers of replicas with vanishingly small error. This phenomenon, known as quantum superreplication, can occur for both quantum states and quantum gates. The aim of this paper is to review the central features of quantum superreplication and provide a unified view of existing results. The paper also includes new results. In particular, we show that when quantum superreplication can be achieved, it can be achieved through estimation up to an error of size O(M/N²), where N and M are the number of input and output copies, respectively. Quantum strategies still offer an advantage for superreplication in that they allow for exponentially faster reduction of the error. Using the relation with estimation, we provide i) an alternative proof of the optimality of Heisenberg scaling in quantum metrology, ii) a strategy for estimating arbitrary unitary gates with a mean square error scaling as log N/N², and iii) a protocol that generates O(N²) nearly perfect copies of a generic pure state U|0>while using the corresponding gate U only N times. Finally, we point out that superreplication can be achieved using interactions among k systems, provided that k is large compared to M²/N².     

An overview of quantum error mitigation formulas

Minimizing the effect of noise is essential for quantum computers. The conventional method to protect qubits against noise is through quantum error correction. However, for current quantum hardware in the so-called noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, noise presents in these systems and is too high for error correction to be beneficial. Quantum error mitigation is a set of alternative methods for minimizing errors, including error extrapolation, probabilistic error cancellation, measurement error mitigation, subspace expansion, symmetry verification, virtual distillation, etc. The requirement for these methods is usually less demanding than error correction. Quantum error mitigation is a promising way of reducing errors on NISQ quantum computers. This paper gives a comprehensive introduction to quantum error mitigation. The state-of-art error mitigation methods are covered and formulated in a general form, which provides a basis for comparing, combining and optimizing different methods in future work.     

Quantum particles from classical statistics

Quantum particles and classical particles are described in a common setting of classical statistical physics. The property of a particle being “classical” or “quantum” ceases to be a basic conceptual difference. The dynamics differs, however, between quantum and classical particles. We describe position, motion and correlations of a quantum particle in terms of observables in a classical statistical ensemble. On the other side, we also construct explicitly the quantum formalism with wave function and Hamiltonian for classical particles. For a suitable time evolution of the classical probabilities and a suitable choice of observables all features of a quantum particle in a potential can be derived from classical statistics, including interference and tunneling. Besides conceptual advances, the treatment of classical and quantum particles in a common formalism could lead to interesting cross‐fertilization between classical statistics and quantum physics.     

Variational quantum simulation of thermal statistical states on a superconducting quantum processer

Quantum computers promise to solve finite-temperature properties of quantum many-body systems, which is generally challenging for classical computers due to high computational complexities. Here, we report experimental preparations of Gibbs states and excited states of Heisenberg $XX$ and $XXZ$ models by using a 5-qubit programmable superconducting processor. In the experiments, we apply a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm to generate finite temperature states with classical probability models and variational quantum circuits. We reveal that the Hamiltonians can be fully diagonalized with optimized quantum circuits, which enable us to prepare excited states at arbitrary energy density. We demonstrate that the approach has a self-verifying feature and can estimate fundamental thermal observables with a small statistical error. Based on numerical results, we further show that the time complexity of our approach scales polynomially in the number of qubits, revealing its potential in solving large-scale problems.     

量子密码协议的错误序列模型分析

量子密码协议具有无条件安全特性,其安全性通过窃听检测来保证.为了提高信息序列错误率的估计值精确度,提出了一种错误序列模型分析方法,通过构造法得到错误序列的二阶统计特性,从而通过经典方法对信息序列中错误序列进行预测,最后得到信息序列的错误率.在单次运行协议情况下,提高了窃听检测的精度,适用于其他量子密码协议. 关键词： 量子密码 最佳预测 窃听检测 序列重构     

Super-resolution and super-sensitivity of entangled squeezed vacuum state using optimal detection strategy

Interference metrology is a method for achieving high precision detection by phase estimation. The phase sensitivity of a traditional interferometer is subject to the standard quantum limit, while its resolution is constrained by the Rayleigh diffraction limit. The resolution and sensitivity of phase measurement can be enhanced by using quantum metrology. We propose a quantum interference metrology scheme using the entangled squeezed vacuum state, which is obtained using the magic beam splitter, expressed as |ψ〉=(|ξ〉|0〉+|0〉|ξ〉)/(2+2/coshr)~(1/2), such as the N00 N state. We derive the phase sensitivity and the resolution of the system with Z detection, project detection, and parity detection. By simulation and analysis, we determine that parity detection is an optimal detection method, which can break through the Rayleigh diffraction limit and the standard quantum limit.