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Ph 219/CS 219
Exercises Due: Monday, 23 October 2000 1.1 Measurement without disturbance?

Charlie prepares the system A in one of two nonorthogonal states, j'iA or j'iA , and he challenges Alice to collect some information about ~ which state he prepared without in any way disturbing the state. Alice has an idea about how to meet the challenge. Alice intends to prepare a second \ancillary" system B in the state j iB , and then apply to the composite system AB a unitary transformation U that acts according to

U : j'iA j iB ! j'iA j iB j'iA j iB ! j'iA j ~ iB ; ~ ~

0 0 0 0

(1)

which does indeed leave the state of system A undisturbed. Then she plans to perform a measurement on system B that is designed to distinguish the states j iB and j ~ iB . one another?] b) Would you feel di erently if the states j'iA and j'iA were orthog~ onal?

a) What do you think of Alice's idea? Hint: What does the unitarity of U tell you about how the states j iB and j ~ iB are related to
0 0

1.2 How far apart are two quantum states?

Consider two quantum states described by density operators and ~ in an N -dimensional Hilbert space, and consider the complete orthogonal measurement fEa; a = 1; 2; 3; : : :N g, where the Ea's are onedimensional projectors satisfying
N X a=1

Ea = I :

(2)

2 When the measurement is performed, outcome a occurs with probability pa = tr Ea if the state is and with probability pa = tr ~Ea if ~ the state is ~. The Kolmogorov distance between the two probability distributions is de ned as N X d(p; p) 1 jpa paj ; ~ 2 ~ (3) this distance is zero if the two distributions are identical, and attains its maximum value one if the two distributions have support on disjoint sets.
a=1

a) Show that

N X d(p; p) 2 j ij ~ 1 i=1

(4)

where the i 's are the eigenvalues of the Hermitian operator ~. Hint: Working in the basis in which ~ is diagonal, nd an expression for jpa pa j, and then nd an upper bound on pa pa . ~ ~ Finally, use the completeness property eq. (2) to bound d(p; p).] ~ b) Find a choice for the orthogonal projector fEag that saturates the upper bound eq. (4). De ne a distance d( ; ~) between density operators as the maximal Kolmogorov distance between the corresponding probability distributions that can be achieved by any orthogonal measurement. From the results of (a) and (b), we have found that

d( ; ~) = 1 2

N X i=1

j ij :
i

(5)

c) The trace norm kAktr of an operator A is de ned as

kAktr tr (A A)1=2 :
y

(6)

How can the distance d( ; ~) be expressed as the trace norm of an operator? Now suppose that the states and ~ are pure states = j ih j and ~ = j ~ih ~j. If we adopt a suitable basis in the space spanned by the

3 two vectors, these states can be expressed as =2 sin j i = cos =2 ; cos =2 ; sin =2 for some real angle .

(7)

d) Express the distance d( ; ~) in terms of the angle . e) Express k j i j ~ik2 (where k k denotes the Hilbert space norm) in terms of , and by comparing with the result of (d), derive the d(j ih j; j ~ih ~j) k j i j ~ik : (8) f ) Bob thinks that the norm k j i j ~ik should be a good measure of
the distinguishability of the pure quantum states and ~. Explain why Bob is wrong. Hint: Remember that quantum states are rays.] bound

1.3 The power of noncontextuality

As discussed in class, the premise of Gleason's Theorem is that a quantum state can be regarded as an assignment of probabilities to one-dimensional projectors, where the probabilities are noncontextual. This means that the probability p(Ea) assigned to the projector Ea does not depend on how we choose the rest of the projectors that complete the orthogonal set. The theorem asserts that if the probabilities assigned to any complete set fEag sum to unity, X p(Ea) = 1 ; (9)
a

then the probabilities must be given by the standard quantum rule: p(Ea) = tr Ea for some density operator . In a hidden variable theory, the probabilistic description of quantum measurement is derived from a more fundamental deterministic description. The outcome of a measurement could be perfectly predicted if the values of the hidden variables were precisely known { then the probabilities p(Ea) could take only the values 0 and 1. The standard probabilistic predictions of quantum theory arise if we average over the unknown values of the hidden variables. Gleason's Theorem, by showing that the noncontextuality assumption implies the usual probability rule, indicates that hidden variable theories must violate noncontextuality.

4 The constraint eq. (9) is quite powerful, because the noncontextual probabilities must sum to unity for each of an in nite number of ways of choosing the basis fEag. The purpose of this exercise is to show that deterministic assignments con ict with noncontextuality even if we consider a nite number of orthogonal bases. Let fI; X; Y; Z g denote the single-qubit observables 1 I = 0 0 ; X = 0 1 ; 1 0 1 Y = 0 0i ; Z = 1 01 ; i 0 and consider the nine two-qubit observables: (10)

X I I X X X I Y Y I Y Y : X Y Y X Z Z

(11)

The three observables in each row and in each column are mutually commuting, and so can be simultaneously diagonalized. In fact the simultaneous eigenstates of any two operators in a row or column (the third operator is not independent of the other two) are a complete basis for the four-dimensional Hilbert space of the two qubits. Thus we can regard the array eq. (11) as a way of presenting six di erent ways to choose a complete set of one-dimensional projectors for two qubits. Each of these observables has eigenvalues 1, so that in a deterministic and noncontextual model of measurement (for a xed value of the hidden variables), each can be assigned a de nite value, either +1 or 1.

a) Any noncontextual deterministic assignment has to be consistent

with the multiplicative structure of the observables. For example, the product of the three observables in the top row is the identity I I . Therefore, if we assign a value 1 to each operator, the number of 1's assigned to the rst row must be even. Compute the product of the three observables in each row and each column to nd the corresponding constraints. b) Show that there is no way to satisfy all six contraints simultaneously.

5 Thus a deterministic and noncontextual assignment does not exist.

1.4 Schmidt-decomposable states.

We saw in class that any vector in a bipartite Hilbert space HAB = HA HB can be expressed in the Schmidt form: Given the vector j iAB 2 HA HB , where HA and HB are both N -dimensional, we can choose orthonormal bases fjiiAg for HA and fjiiB g for HB so that

j iAB =

N Xp i=1

jiiA jiiB ;

(12)

where the i's are real and nonnegative. (We're not assuming here that the vector has unit norm, so the sum of the i's is not constrained.) Eq. (12) is called the Schmidt decomposition of the vector j iAB . Of course, the bases in which the vector has the Schmidt form depend on which vector j iAB is being decomposed. A unitary transformation acting on HAB is called a local unitary if it is a tensor product UA UB , where UA , UB are unitary transformations acting on HA , HB respectively. The word \local" is used because if the two parts A and B of the system are widely separated from one another, so that Alice can access only part A and Bob can access only part B , then Alice and Bob can apply this transformation by each acting locally on her or his part.

when expressed in the standard bases. Show that there is a local unitary UA UB that Alice and Bob can apply so that the resulting state j iAB = UA UB j iAB (13) does have the form eq. (12) when expressed in the standard bases. b) Let's verify that the result of (a) makes sense from the point of view of parameter counting. For a generic vector in the Schmidt form, all i's are nonvanishing and no two i's are equal. Consider the orbit that is generated by letting arbitrary local unitaries act on one xed generic vector in the Schmidt form. What is the dimension of the orbit, that is, how many real parameters are needed to specify one particular vector on the orbit? Hint: To
0

a) Now suppose that Alice and Bob choose standard xed bases fjiiAg and fjiiB g for their respective Hilbert spaces, and are presented with a vector j AB i that is not necessarily in the Schmidt form

6 do the counting, consider the local unitaries that di er in nitesimally from the identity IA IB . Choose a basis for these, and count the number of independent linear combinations of the basis elements that annihilate the Schmidt-decomposed vector.] Compare the dimension of the orbit to the (real) dimension of HAB , and check the consistency with the number of free parameters in eq. (12). A vector j iA1:::Ar in a Hilbert space HA1 HAr with r parts is said to be Schmidt decomposable if it is possible to choose orthonormal bases for HA1 ; : : : HAr such that vector can be expressed as Xp jiiAr : (14) j iA1:::Ar = i jiiA1 jiiA2
i

Though every vector in a bipartite Hilbert space is Schmidt decomposable, this isn't true for vectors in Hilbert spaces with three or more parts. c) Consider a generic Schmidt-decomposable vector in the tripartite Hilbert space of three qubits. Find the dimension of the orbit generated by local unitaries acting on this vector. d) By considering the number of free parameters in the Schmidt form eq. (14), and the result of (c), nd the (real) dimension of the space of Schmidt-decomposable vectors for three qubits. What is the real codimension of this space in the three-qubit Hilbert space C8 ?