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17 - Quantum measurements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Emmanuel Desurvire
Affiliation:
Thales, France
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Summary

This chapter is concerned with the measure of quantum states. This requires one to introduce the subtle notion of quantum measurement, an operation that has no counterpart in the classical domain. To this effect, we first need to develop some new tools, starting with Dirac notation, a formalism that is not only very elegant but is relatively simple to handle. The introduction of Dirac notation makes it possible to become familiar with the inner product for quantum states, as well as different properties for operators and states concerning projection, change of basis, unitary transformations, matrix elements, similarity transformations, eigenvalues and eigenstates, spectral decomposition and diagonal representation, matrix trace and density operator or matrix. The concept of density matrix makes it possible to provide a very first and brief hint of the analog of Shannon's entropy in the quantum world, referred to as von Neumann's entropy, to be further developed in Chapter 21. Once we have all the required tools, we can focus on quantum measurement and analyze three different types referred to as basis-state measurements, projection or von Neumann measurements, and POVM measurements. In particular, POVM measurements are shown to possess a remarkable property of unambiguous quantum state discrimination (UQSD), after which it is possible to derive “absolutely certain” information from unknown system states. The more complex case of quantum measurements in composite systems described by joint or tensor states is then considered.

Type
Chapter
Information
Classical and Quantum Information Theory
An Introduction for the Telecom Scientist
, pp. 333 - 355
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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References

Desurvire, E., Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers, Device and System Developments (New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 2002), pp. 97–111Google Scholar
Barnett, S. M. and Pegg, D. T., On the Hermitian phase operator. J. Modern Optics, 36 (1989), 7–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pegg, D. T. and Barnett, S. M., Phase properties of the quantized in single-mode electromagnetic field. Phys. Rev. A, 39 (1989), 1665CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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