On the Distinguishability of Random Quantum States

We develop two analytic lower bounds on the probability of success p of identifying a state picked from a known ensemble of pure states: a bound based on the pairwise inner products of the states, and a bound based on the eigenvalues of their Gram matrix. We use the latter, and results from random matrix theory, to lower bound the asymptotic distinguishability of ensembles of n random quantum states in d dimensions, where n/d approaches a constant. In particular, for almost all ensembles of n states in n dimensions, p > 0.72. An application to distinguishing Boolean functions (the “oracle identification problem”) in quantum computation is given.