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We present a scalable method for learning local quantum channels using local expectation values measured on a single state—their steady state. Our method is inspired by the algorithms for learning local Hamiltonians from their ground states. For it to succeed, the steady state must be non-trivial, and therefore the channel needs to be non-unital. Such non-unital channels are readily implementable on present day quantum computers using mid-circuit measurements or RESET gates. We demonstrate that the full structure of such channels is encoded in their steady states, and can be learned efficiently using only the expectation values of local observables on these states. We emphasize two immediate applications to illustrate our approach: (i) Using engineered dissipative dynamics, we offer a straightforward way to assess the accuracy of a given noise model in a regime where all qubits are actively utilized for a significant duration. (ii) Given a parameterized noise model for the entire system, our method can learn its underlying parameters. We demonstrate both applications using numerical simulations and experimental trials conducted on an IBMQ machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a class of probabilistic theories, termed Minimal Strongly Causal Operational Probabilistic Theories, where system dynamics are constrained to the minimal set of operations consistent with the set of states and permitting conditional tests. Specifically, the allowed instruments are limited to those derived from compositions of preparations, measurements, swap transformations, and conditional operations. We demonstrate that minimal theories with conditioning and a spanning set of non-separable states satisfy two quantum no-go theorems: no-information without disturbance and no-broadcasting. As a key example, we construct Minimal Strongly Causal Bilocal Classical Theory, a classical toy-theory that lacks incompatible measurements, preparation uncertainty relations, and is noncontextual (both Kochen–Specker and generalised), yet exhibits irreversibility of measurement disturbance, no-information without disturbance, and no-broadcasting. Therefore, the latter three properties cannot be understood per se as signatures of non-classicality. We further explore distinctions between a theory and its minimal strongly causal counterpart, showing that while the minimal strongly causal version of quantum theory diverges from full quantum theory, the same does not hold for classical theory. Additionally, we establish the pairwise independence of the properties of simpliciality, strong causality, and local discriminability.

There are several mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics. The Schrödinger picture expresses quantum states in terms of wavefunctions over, e.g. position or momentum. Alternatively, phase-space formulations represent states with quasi-probability distributions over, e.g. position and momentum. A quasi-probability distribution resembles a probability distribution but may have negative and non-real entries. The most famous quasi-probability distribution, the Wigner function, has played a pivotal role in the development of a continuous-variable quantum theory that has clear analogues of position and momentum. However, the Wigner function is ill-suited for much modern quantum-information research, which is focused on finite-dimensional systems and general observables. Instead, recent years have seen the Kirkwood–Dirac (KD) distribution come to the forefront as a powerful quasi-probability distribution for analysing quantum mechanics. The KD distribution allows tools from statistics and probability theory to be applied to problems in quantum-information processing. A notable difference to the Wigner function is that the KD distribution can represent a quantum state in terms of arbitrary observables. This paper reviews the KD distribution, in three parts. First, we present definitions and basic properties of the KD distribution and its generalisations. Second, we summarise the KD distribution’s extensive usage in the study or development of measurement disturbance; quantum metrology; weak values; direct measurements of quantum states; quantum thermodynamics; quantum scrambling and out-of-time-ordered correlators; and the foundations of quantum mechanics, including Leggett–Garg inequalities, the consistent-histories interpretation and contextuality. We emphasise connections between operational quantum advantages and negative or non-real KD quasi-probabilities. Third, we delve into the KD distribution’s mathematical structure. We summarise the current knowledge regarding the geometry of KD-positive states (the states for which the KD distribution is a classical probability distribution), describe how to witness and quantify KD non-positivity, and outline relationships between KD non-positivity, coherence and observables’ incompatibility.

A quantum sensing network is used to simultaneously detect and measure physical quantities, such as magnetic fields, at different locations. However, there is a risk that the measurement data is leaked to the third party during the communication. Many theoretical and experimental efforts have been made to realize a secure quantum sensing network where a high level of security is guaranteed. In this paper, we propose a protocol to estimate statistical quantities of the target fields at different places without knowing individual value of the target fields. We generate an entanglement between L quantum sensors, let the quantum sensor interact with local fields, and perform specific measurements on them. By calculating the quantum Fisher information to estimate the individual value of the magnetic fields, we show that we cannot obtain any information of the value of the individual fields in the limit of large L . On the other hand, in our protocol, we can estimate theoretically any moment of the field distribution by measuring a specific observable and evaluated relative uncertainty of k th ( $k = 1,2,3,4$ ) order moment. Our results are a significant step towards using a quantum sensing network with security inbuilt.

Bell states are of crucial importance for entanglement based methods in quantum information science. Typically, a standard construction of a complete orthonormal Bell-basis by Weyl–Heisenberg operators is considered. We show that the group structure of these operators has strong implication on error correction schemes and on the entanglement structure within Bell-diagonal states. In particular, it implies an equivalence between a Pauli channel and a twirl channel. Interestingly, other complete orthonormal Bell-bases do break the equivalence and lead to a completely different entanglement structure, for instance in the share of positive partial transposition (PPT)-entangled states. In detail, we find that the standard Bell basis has the highest observed share on PPT-states and PPT-entangled states compared to other Bell bases. In summary, our findings show that the standard Bell basis construction exploits a very special structure with strong implications to quantum information theoretic protocols if a deviation is considered.

Recently, cat states have been used to heuristically improve the runtime of a classical simulator of quantum circuits based on the diagrammatic ZX -calculus. Here we investigate the use of cat-state injection within the quantum circuit model. We explore a family of cat states, $\left| \mathrm{cat}_m^* \right\rangle$ , and describe circuit gadgets using them to concurrently inject non-stabilizerness (also known as magic) and entanglement into any quantum circuit. We provide numerical evidence that cat-state injection does not lead to speed-up in classical simulation. On the other hand, we show that our gadgets can be used to widen the scope of compelling applications of cat states. Specifically, we show how to leverage them to achieve savings in the number of injected qubits, and also to induce scrambling dynamics in otherwise non-entangling Clifford circuits in a controlled manner.

Optical hybrid entanglement can be created between two qubits, one encoded in a single photon and another one in coherent states with opposite phases. It opens the path to a variety of quantum technologies, such as heterogeneous quantum networks, merging continuous- and discrete-variable encoding, and enabling the transport and interconversion of information. However, reliable characterization of the non-local nature of this quantum state is limited so far to full quantum state tomography. Here, we perform a thorough study of Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt Bell inequality tests, enabling practical verification of quantum nonlocality for optical hybrid entanglement. We show that a practical violation of this inequality is possible with simple photon number on/off measurements if detection efficiencies stay above 82%. Another approach, based on photon-number parity measurements, requires 94% efficiency but works well in the limit of higher photon populations. Both tests use no postselection of the measurement outcomes and they are free of the fair-sampling hypothesis. Our proposal paves the way to performing loophole-free tests using feasible experimental tasks such as coherent state interference and photon counting.

Hybrid quantum systems based on magnons in magnetic materials have made significant progress in the past decade. They are built based on the couplings of magnons with microwave photons, optical photons, vibration phonons, and superconducting qubits. In particular, the interactions among magnons, microwave cavity photons, and vibration phonons form the system of cavity magnomechanics (CMM), which lies in the interdisciplinary field of cavity QED, magnonics, quantum optics, and quantum information. Here, we review the experimental and theoretical progress of this emerging field. We first introduce the underlying theories of the magnomechanical coupling, and then some representative classical phenomena that have been experimentally observed, including magnomechanically induced transparency, magnomechanical dynamical backaction, magnon-phonon cross-Kerr nonlinearity, etc. We also discuss a number of theoretical proposals, which show the potential of the CMM system for preparing different kinds of quantum states of magnons, phonons, and photons, and hybrid systems combining magnomechanics and optomechanics and relevant quantum protocols based on them. Finally, we summarize this review and provide an outlook for the future research directions in this field.

Mode entanglement in many-body quantum systems is an active area of research. It provides crucial insight into the suitability of many-body systems for quantum information processing tasks. Local super-selection rules must be taken into account when assessing the amount of physically accessible entanglement. This requires amending well-established entanglement measures by incorporating local parity and local particle number constraints. In this paper, we report on mode entanglement present in the analytically solvable system of N -Harmonium. To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first analytic study of the physically accessible mode and mode-mode entanglement of an interacting many-body system in a continuous state space. We find that super-selection rules dramatically reduce the amount of physically accessible entanglement, which vanishes entirely in some cases. Our results strongly suggest the need to re-evaluate intra and inter-mode entanglement in other fermionic and bosonic systems.

The search for anyons is a field of immense interest owing to its potential application in the field of quantum information. Quantum critical Kondo impurities constitute one possible platform for their realization and topological Kondo effect (TKE) by virtue of remaining critical in the presence of perturbations, seems to be especially promising in this regard. In this paper we discuss practical steps for a realization of TKE with a relatively high Kondo temperature $T_{\mathrm{K}}$ . Its central feature is the so-called Majorana-Cooper box (MCB) and we argue that a particular type of iron-based topological superconductor is especially suitable for realization of TKE. Once MCB is available one needs to connect it to external metallic leads to produce TKE. A relatively high value of the Kondo temperature $T_{\mathrm{K}}$ is then aided by a large superconducting gap of the iron-based superconductor. We give estimates for $T_{\mathrm{K}}$ , for the cases of both isotropic and anisotropic exchange couplings of MCB with the leads.

We study quantum advantage in one-step rendezvous games on simple graphs analytically, numerically, and using noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) processors. Our protocols realise the recently discovered (Mironowicz 2023 New J. Phys. 25 013023) optimal bounds for small cycle graphs and cubic graphs. In the case of cycle graphs, we generalise the protocols to arbitrary graph size. The NISQ processor experiments realise the expected quantum advantage with high accuracy for rendezvous on the complete graph K _3 . In contrast, for the graph $2K_4$ , formed by two disconnected 4-vertex complete graphs, the performance of the NISQ hardware is sub-classical, consistent with the deeper circuit and known qubit decoherence and gate error rates.

High-dimensional entanglement is significant for the fundamental studies of quantum physics and offers unique advantages in various quantum information processing tasks. Integrated quantum devices have recently emerged as a promising platform for creating, processing, and detecting complex high-dimensional entangled states. A crucial step toward practical quantum technologies is to verify that these devices work reliably with an optimal strategy. In this work, we experimentally implement an optimal quantum verification strategy on a three-dimensional maximally entangled state using local projective measurements on a silicon photonic chip. A 95% confidence is achieved from 1190 copies to verify the target quantum state. The obtained scaling of infidelity as a function of the number of copies is âˆ'0.5497 ± 0.0002, exceeding the standard quantum limit of âˆ'0.5 with 248 standard deviations. Our results indicate that quantum state verification could serve as an efficient tool for complex quantum measurement tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by recent advances in neuroscience, in this work, we explore the emergent behaviour of quantum systems with a dynamical biologically-inspired qubits interaction. We use a minimal model of two interacting qubits with an activity-dependent dynamic interplay as in classical dynamic synapses that induces the so-called synaptic depression, that is, synapses that present synaptic fatigue after heavy presynaptic stimulation. Our study shows that in absence of synaptic depression the two-qubits quantum system shows typical Rabi oscillations whose frequency decreases when synaptic depression is introduced, so one can trap excitations for a large period of time. This creates a population imbalance between the qubits even though the Hamiltonian is Hermitian. This imbalance can be sustained in time by introducing a small energy shift between the qubits. In addition, we report that long time entanglement between the two qubits raises naturally in the presence of synaptic depression. Moreover, we propose and analyse a plausible experimental setup of our two-qubits system which demonstrates that these results are robust and can be experimentally obtained in a laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum inverse problem (QIP) is the problem of estimating an unknown quantum system from a set of measurements, whereas the classical counterpart is the inverse problem of estimating a distribution from a set of observations. In this paper, we present a neural-network-based method for QIPs, which has been widely explored for its classical counterpart. The proposed method utilizes the quantumness of the QIPs and takes advantage of the computational power of neural networks to achieve remarkable efficiency for the quantum state estimation. We test the method on the problem of maximum entropy estimation of an unknown state ρ from partial information both numerically and experimentally. Our method yields high fidelity, efficiency and robustness for both numerical experiments and quantum optical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent breakthroughs in quantum computing promise the nascence of the quantum information age, quantum states remain delicate to control. Moreover, the required energy budget for large scale quantum applications has only sparely been considered. Addressing either of these issues necessitates a careful study of the most energetically efficient implementation of elementary quantum operations. In the present analysis, we show that this optimal control problem can be solved within the powerful framework of quantum speed limits. To this end, we derive state-independent lower bounds on the energetic cost, from which we find the universally optimal implementation of unitary quantum gates, for both single and N -qubit operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generation of entanglement between remote matter qubits has developed into a key capability for fundamental investigations as well as for emerging quantum technologies. In the single-photon, protocol entanglement is heralded by generation of qubit-photon entangled states and subsequent detection of a single photon behind a beam splitter. In this work we perform a detailed theoretical and experimental investigation of this protocol and its various sources of infidelity. We develop an extensive theoretical model and subsequently tailor it to our experimental setting, based on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. Experimentally, we verify the model by generating remote states for varying phase and amplitudes of the initial qubit superposition states and varying optical phase difference of the photons arriving at the beam splitter. We show that a static frequency offset between the optical transitions of the qubits leads to an entangled state phase that depends on the photon detection time. We find that the implementation of a Charge-Resonance check on the nitrogen-vacancy center yields transform-limited linewidths. Moreover, we measure the probability of double optical excitation, a significant source of infidelity, as a function of the power of the excitation pulse. Finally, we find that imperfect optical excitation can lead to a detection-arm-dependent entangled state fidelity and rate. The conclusion presented here are not specific to the nitrogen-vacancy centers used to carry out the experiments, and are therefore readily applicable to other qubit platforms.

We study how the number of employed modes impacts the ability to witness non-Markovian evolutions via correlation backflows in continuous-variable quantum dynamics. We first prove the existence of non-Markovian Gaussian evolutions that do not show any revivals in the correlations between the mode evolving through the dynamics and a single ancillary mode. We then demonstrate how this scenario radically changes when two ancillary modes are considered. Indeed, we show that the same evolutions can show correlation backflows along a specific bipartition when three-mode states are employed, and where only one mode is subjected to the evolution. These results can be interpreted as a form of activation phenomenon in non-Markovianity detection and are proven for two types of correlations, entanglement and steering, and two classes of Gaussian evolutions, a classical noise model and the quantum Brownian motion model.

We propose a special relativistic framework for quantum mechanics. It is based on introducing a Hilbert space for events. Events are taken as primitive notions (as customary in relativity), whereas quantum systems (e.g. fields and particles) are emergent in the form of joint probability amplitudes for position and time of events. Textbook relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory can be recovered by dividing the event Hilbert spaces into space and time (a foliation) and then conditioning the event states onto the time part. Our theory satisfies the full Lorentz symmetry as a ‘geometric’ unitary transformation, and possesses relativistic observables for space (location of an event) and time (position in time of an event).

We investigate the influence of the external fields on the statistics of energy levels and towers of eigenstates in spin- $1/2$ isotropic Heisenberg clusters, including chain, ladder, square and triangular lattices. In the presence of uniform field in one direction, the SU(2) symmetry of the system allows that almost whole spectrum consists of a large number of towers with identical level spacing. Exact diagonalization on finite clusters shows that random transverse fields in other two directions drive the level statistics from Poisson to Wigner–Dyson distributions with different values of mean level spacing ratio, indicating the transition from integrability to non-integrability. However, for the three types of clusters, it is found that the largest tower still hold approximately even the symmetry is broken, resulting to a quantum scar. Remarkably, the non-thermalized states cover the Greenberger–Horn–Zeilinger and W states, which maintain the feature of revival while a Neel state decays fast in the dynamic processes. In addition, some dynamic schemes for experimental detection are proposed. Our finding reveals the possibility of quantum information processing that is immune to the thermalization in finite size quantum spin clusters.

Multipartite entanglement plays a central role in optical quantum technologies. One way to entangle two photons is to prepare them in orthogonal internal states, for example, in two polarisations, and then send them through a balanced beam splitter. Post-selecting on the cases where there is one photon in each output port results in a maximally entangled state. This idea can be extended to schemes for the post-selected generation of larger entangled states. Typically, switching between different types of entangled states requires different arrangements of beam splitters and so a new experimental setup. Here, we demonstrate a simple and versatile scheme to generate different types of genuine tripartite entangled states with only one experimental setup. We send three photons through a three-port splitter and vary their internal states before post-selecting on certain output distributions. This results in the generation of tripartite W, G and GHZ states. We obtain fidelities of up to $(87.3\pm 1.1)\%$ with regard to the respective ideal states, confirming a successful generation of genuine tripartite entanglement.

Using the quantum information model of dynamical diffraction we consider a neutron cavity composed of two perfect crystal silicon blades capable of containing the neutron wavefunction. We show that the internal confinement of the neutrons through Bragg diffraction can be modelled by a quantum random walk. Furthermore, we introduce a toolbox for modelling crystal imperfections such as surface roughness and defects. Good agreement is found between the simulation and the experimental implementation, where leakage beams are present, modelling of which is impractical with the conventional theory of dynamical diffraction. Analysis of the standing neutron waves is presented in regards to the crystal geometry and parameters; and the conditions required for well-defined bounces are derived. The presented results enable new approaches to studying the setups utilizing neutron confinement, such as the experiments to measure neutron magnetic and electric dipole moments.

An outstanding challenge involves understanding the many-particle entanglement of liquid states of quantum matter that arise in systems of interacting electrons. The Fermi liquid (FL) shows a violation of the area-law in real-space entanglement entropy of a subsystem, believed to be a signature of the ground state of a gapless quantum critical system of interacting fermions. Here, we apply a T = 0 renormalization group approach to the FL, unveiling the long-wavelength quantum fluctuations from which long-range entanglement arises. A similar analysis of non-Fermi liquids such as the 2D marginal Fermi liquid (MFL) and the 1D Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid reveals a universal logarithmic violation of the area-law in gapless electronic liquids, with a proportionality constant that depends on the nature of the underlying Fermi surface. We extend this analysis to classify the gapped quantum liquids emergent from the destabilisation of the Fermi surface by renormalisation group relevant quantum fluctuations arising from backscattering processes.

Storing quantum information in a quantum error correction code can protect it from errors, but the ability to transform the stored quantum information in a fault tolerant way is equally important. Logical Pauli group operators can be implemented on Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) codes, a commonly-studied category of codes, by applying a series of physical Pauli X and Z gates. Logical operators of this form are fault-tolerant because each qubit is acted upon by at most one gate, limiting the spread of errors, and are referred to as transversal logical operators. Identifying transversal logical operators outside the Pauli group is less well understood. Pauli operators are the first level of the Clifford hierarchy which is deeply connected to fault-tolerance and universality. In this work, we study transversal logical operators composed of single- and multi-qubit diagonal Clifford hierarchy gates. We demonstrate algorithms for identifying all transversal diagonal logical operators on a CSS code that are more general or have lower computational complexity than previous methods. We also show a method for constructing CSS codes that have a desired diagonal logical Clifford hierarchy operator implemented using single qubit phase gates. Our methods rely on representing operators composed of diagonal Clifford hierarchy gates as diagonal XP operators and this technique may have broader applications.

In this paper we present and analyze an information-theoretic task that consists in learning a bit of information by spatially moving the ‘target’ particle that encodes it. We show that, on one hand, the task can be solved with the use of additional independently prepared quantum particles, only if these are indistinguishable from the target particle. On the other hand, the task can be solved with the use of distinguishable quantum particles, only if they are entangled with the target particle. Our task thus provides a new example in which the entanglement apparently inherent to independently prepared indistinguishable quantum particles is put into use for information processing. Importantly, a novelty of our protocol lies in that it does not require any spatial overlap between the involved particles. Besides analyzing the class of quantum-mechanical protocols that solve our task, we gesture towards possible ways of generalizing our results and of applying them in cryptography.

Non-locality is not only one of the most prominent quantum features but can also serve as a resource for various information-theoretical tasks. Analysing it from an information-theoretical perspective has linked it to applications such as non-adaptive measurement-based quantum computing (NMQC). In this type of quantum computing the goal is to output a multivariate function. The success of such a computation can be related to the violation of a generalised Bell inequality. So far, the investigation of binary NMQC with qubits has shown that quantum correlations can compute all Boolean functions using at most $2^n-1$ qubits, whereas local hidden variables (LHVs) are restricted to linear functions. Here, we extend these results to NMQC with qutrits and prove that quantum correlations enable the computation of all three-valued logic functions using the generalised qutrit Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state as a resource and at most $3^n-1$ qutrits. This yields a corresponding generalised GHZ type paradox for any three-valued logic function that LHVs cannot compute. We give an example for an n -variate function that can be computed with only n + 1 qutrits, which leads to convenient generalised qutrit Bell inequalities whose quantum bound is maximal. Finally, we prove that not all functions can be computed efficiently with qutrit NMQC by presenting a counterexample.

We analyse the quantum Cheshire cat using contextuality theory, to see if this can tell us anything about how best to interpret this paradox. We show that this scenario can be analysed using the relation between three different measurements, which seem to result in a logical contradiction. We discuss how this contextual behaviour links to weak values, and coherences between prohibited states. Rather than showing a property of the particle is disembodied, the quantum Cheshire cat instead demonstrates the effects of these coherences, which are typically found in pre- and post-selected systems.

Trapped Be+ ions are a leading platform for quantum information science (Gaebler et al 2016 Phys. Rev. Lett. 117 060505), but reactions with background gas species, such as H2 and H2O, result in qubit loss. Our experiment reveals that the BeOH+ ion is the final trapped ion species when both H2 and H2O exist in a vacuum system with cold, trapped Be+. The BeH+ product in the Be+ + H2 reaction further reacts with H2O to form BeOH+. To understand the loss mechanism, low-temperature reactions between sympathetically cooled BeD+ ions and H2O molecules have been investigated using an integrated, laser-cooled Be+ ion trap and high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer (Schneider et al 2014 Phys. Rev. Appl. 2 034013). Among all the possible products, BeH2O+, H2DO+, BeOD+, and BeOH+, only the BeOH+ molecular ion was observed experimentally, with the assumed co-product of HD. Theoretical analyses based on explicitly correlated restricted coupled cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples (RCCSD(T)-F12) method with the augmented correlation-consistent polarized triple zeta (AVTZ) basis set reveal that two intuitive direct abstraction product channels, Be + H2DO+ and D + BeH2O+, are not energetically accessible at the present reaction temperature (∼150 K). Instead, a double displacement BeOH+ + HD product channel is accessible due to a large exothermicity of 1.885 eV through a submerged barrier in the reaction pathway. While the BeOD+ + H2 product channel has a similar exothermicity, the reaction pathway is dynamically unfavourable, as suggested by a sudden vector projection analysis. This work sheds light on the origin of the loss and contaminations of the laser-cooled Be+ ions in quantum-information experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visibility of nonlinear SU(1,1) interference directly reflects the nonclassical properties of entangled bi-photons and squeezed light with practically unlimited bandwidth, high efficiency and ultra-high photon flux, orders of magnitude beyond the abilities of standard photo-detectors. We study experimentally the dependence of the SU(1,1) visibility on the phase matching conditions and beam parameters in a free-space configuration, and show that maximal SU(1,1) visibility requires extreme collinear conditions, which deviate from the conditions for maximal nonlinear conversion. We demonstrate near-ideal visibility of ∼95% (limited only by internal loss) in an ultra-broadband SU(1,1), interferometer with over 120 THz of squeezed light bandwidth. Utilizing this analysis we demonstrate efficient detection of the spectral phase of single-cycle bi-photons and precise compensation of the dispersion over a full octave of bandwidth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum coherence, the ability of a quantum system to be in a superposition of orthogonal quantum states, is a distinct feature of the quantum mechanics, thus marking a deviation from classical physics. Coherence finds its applications in quantum sensing and metrology, quantum thermodynamics and computation. A particularly interesting is the possibility to observe coherence arising in counter-intuitive way from thermal energy that is without implementation of intricate protocols involving coherent driving sequences. In this manuscript, we investigate quantum coherence emerging in a hybrid system composed of a two-level system (qubit) and a thermal quantum harmonic oscillator (a material mechanical oscillator), inspired by recent experimental progress in fabrication of such systems. We show that quantum coherence is created in such a composite system solely from the interaction of the parts and persists under relevant damping. Implementation of such scheme will demonstrate previously unobserved mechanisms of coherence generation and can be beneficial for hybrid quantum technologies with mechanical oscillators and qubits.

Device-independent quantum key distribution (DI-QKD) can guarantee the security even with untrusted devices. Unfortunately, conventional DI-QKD protocols can tolerate low noises only and require high detection efficiencies to achieve positive key rates. To improve the noise robustness, one promising solution is implementing the two-way classical postprocessing, which has the advantage of reducing the bit errors. In this paper, we study the DI-QKD with B-step two-way classical postprocessing under individual attacks. We adopt the tool of convex combination attack, i.e. an optimal individual attack, to upper bound the Devetak-Winter key rate. We show that, by using the B-step procedure, our protocol can tolerate detection efficiencies as low as $81.0\%$ and depolarising noise of 0.799, which is better than the thresholds for the protocol with one-way error correction. This result can serve as the lower bounds on the critical noise and detection efficiency for the scenarios under general attacks. Our work justifies the advantage of two-way classical postprocessing for DI-QKD, thus offering a step towards its applications.

Estimating transmission or loss is at the heart of spectroscopy. To achieve the ultimate quantum resolution limit, one must use probe states with definite photon number and detectors capable of distinguishing the number of photons impinging thereon. In practice, one can outperform classical limits using two-mode squeezed light, which can be used to herald definite-photon-number probes, but the heralding is not guaranteed to produce the desired probes when there is loss in the heralding arm or its detector is imperfect. We show that this paradigm can be used to simultaneously measure distinct loss parameters in both modes of the squeezed light, with attainable quantum advantages. We demonstrate this protocol on Xanadu’s X8 chip, accessed via the cloud, building photon-number probability distributions from 10 ^6 shots and performing maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) on these distributions 10 ^3 independent times. Because pump light may be lost before the squeezing occurs, we also simultaneously estimate the actual input power, using the theory of nuisance parameters. MLE converges to estimate the transmission amplitudes in X8’s eight modes to be 0.392 02(6), 0.307 06(8), 0.369 37(6), 0.287 30(9), 0.382 06(6), 0.304 41(8), 0.372 29(6), and 0.286 21(8) and the squeezing parameters, which are proxies for effective input coherent-state amplitudes, their losses, and their nonlinear interaction times, to be 1.3000(2), 1.3238(3), 1.2666(2), and 1.3425(3); all of these uncertainties are within a factor of two of the quantum Cramér–Rao bound. This study provides crucial insight into the intersection of quantum multiparameter estimation theory, MLE convergence, and the characterization and performance of real quantum devices.

Bell’s inequality provides a remarkable way to test the consistency between quantum mechanics and classic local realistic theory. However, experimental demonstrations of the loophole-free Bell test are challenging and only recently have been demonstrated with bipartite systems. A central obstacle for the photonic system is that the sampling efficiency, including the collection and detection efficiencies, must be above a certain threshold. We here generalize two-particle Eberhard’s inequality to the n-particle systems and derive a Bell-type inequality for multi-particle systems, which significantly relaxes this threshold. Furthermore, an experimental proposal to achieve a multi-partite Bell test without the fair sampling assumption is presented for the case of three particles. For any given value of the sampling efficiency, we give the optimal configurations for actual implementation, the optimal state, the maximum background noise that the system can tolerate, and the lowest fidelity of the quantum state. We believe our work can serve as a recipe for experimentalists planning to violate local realism using a multi-partite quantum state without the sampling loophole.

Quantum mechanics is well known to accelerate statistical sampling processes over classical techniques. In quantitative finance, statistical samplings arise broadly in many use cases. Here we focus on a particular one of such use cases, credit valuation adjustment (CVA), and identify opportunities and challenges towards quantum advantage for practical instances. To build a NISQ-friendly quantum circuit able to solve such problem, we draw on various heuristics that indicate the potential for significant improvement over well-known techniques such as reversible logical circuit synthesis. In minimizing the resource requirements for amplitude amplification while maximizing the speedup gained from the quantum coherence of a noisy device, we adopt a recently developed Bayesian variant of quantum amplitude estimation using engineered likelihood functions. We perform numerical analyses to characterize the prospect of quantum speedup in concrete CVA instances over classical Monte Carlo simulations.

We study the interplay between two environmental influences on excited state energy transfer in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes, namely, vibrationally assisted energy transfer (VAET) and environment-assisted quantum transport (ENAQT), considering a dimeric chromophore donor–acceptor model as a prototype for larger systems. We demonstrate how the basic features of the excitonic energy transfer are influenced by these two environments, both separately and together, with the environment being fully quantum in the case of VAET and treated in the Haken–Strobl–Reineker classical limit in the case of ENAQT. Our results reveal that in the weak noise regime, the presence of a classical noise source is detrimental to the energy transfer that is resonantly assisted by the exciton-vibration interactions intrinsic to VAET. In the strong noise regime we reproduce all the features of ENAQT, including the turnover into a Zeno regime where energy transfer is suppressed, and VAET is insignificant.

Tensor-network codes enable the construction of large stabilizer codes out of tensors describing smaller stabilizer codes. An application of tensor-network codes was an efficient and exact decoder for holographic codes. Here, we show how to write some topological codes, including the surface code and colour code, as simple tensor-network codes. We also show how to calculate distances of stabilizer codes by contracting a tensor network. The algorithm actually gives more information, including a histogram of all logical coset weights. We prove that this method is efficient in the case of stabilizer codes encoded via local log-depth circuits in one dimension and holographic codes. Using our tensor-network distance calculator, we find a modification of the rotated surface code that has the same distance but fewer minimum-weight logical operators by ‘doping’ the tensor network, i.e., we break the homogeneity of the tensor network by locally replacing tensors. For this example, this corresponds to an improvement in successful error correction of almost 2% against depolarizing noise (in the perfect-measurement setting), but comes at the cost of introducing three higher-weight stabilizers. Our general construction lets us pick a network geometry (e.g., a Euclidean lattice in the case of the surface code), and, using only a small set of seed codes (constituent tensors), build extensive codes with the potential for optimisation.

Symmetry principles are fundamental in physics, and while they are well understood within Lagrangian mechanics, their impact on quantum channels has a range of open questions. The theory of asymmetry grew out of information-theoretic work on entanglement and quantum reference frames, and allows us to quantify the degree to which a quantum system encodes coordinates of a symmetry group. Recently, a complete set of entropic conditions was found for asymmetry in terms of correlations relative to infinitely many quantum reference frames. However, these conditions are difficult to use in practice and their physical implications unclear. In the present theoretical work, we show that this set of conditions has extensive redundancy, and one can restrict to reference frames forming any closed surface in the state space that has the maximally mixed state in its interior. This in turn implies that asymmetry can be reduced to just a single entropic condition evaluated at the maximally mixed state. Contrary to intuition, this shows that we do not need macroscopic, classical reference frames to determine the asymmetry properties of a quantum system, but instead infinitesimally small frames suffice. Building on this analysis, we provide simple, closed conditions to estimate the minimal depolarization needed to make a given quantum state accessible under channels covariant with any given symmetry group.

The quantum speed limit indicates the maximal evolution speed of the quantum system. In this work, we determine speed limits on the informational measures, namely the von Neumann entropy, maximal information, and coherence of quantum systems evolving under dynamical processes. These speed limits ascertain the fundamental limitations on the evolution time required by the quantum systems for the changes in their informational measures. Erasing of quantum information to reset the memory for future use is crucial for quantum computing devices. We use the speed limit on the maximal information to obtain the minimum time required to erase the information of quantum systems via some quantum processes of interest.

The Mandelstam–Tamm quantum speed limit (QSL) puts a bound on how fast a closed system in a pure state can evolve. In this paper, we derive several extensions of this QSL to closed systems in mixed states. We also compare the strengths of these extensions and examine their tightness. The most widely used extension of the Mandelstam–Tamm QSL originates in Uhlmann’s energy dispersion estimate. We carefully analyze the underlying geometry of this estimate, an analysis that makes apparent that the Bures metric, or equivalently the quantum Fisher information, will rarely give rise to tight extensions. This observation leads us to address whether there is a tightest general extension of the Mandelstam–Tamm QSL. Using a geometric construction similar to that developed by Uhlmann, we prove that this is indeed the case. In addition, we show that tight evolutions of mixed states are typically generated by time-varying Hamiltonians, which contrasts with the case for systems in pure states.

Phase-matching quantum key distribution (PM-QKD) provides a promising solution to surpass the fundamental rate–distance bound without quantum repeaters. In this paper, we insert an additional advantage distillation (AD) step after quantum communication to improve the performance of PM-QKD. Simulation results show that, by splitting the raw key into blocks of only a few bits so as to identify highly correlated bit pairs, the AD method can tolerate high system misalignment errors and improve the secret key rate and transmission distance significantly, which is very promising in current PM-QKD systems.

We consider the task of spectral estimation of local quantum Hamiltonians. The spectral estimation is performed by estimating the oscillation frequencies or decay rates of signals representing the time evolution of states. We present a classical Monte Carlo (MC) scheme which efficiently estimates an imaginary-time, decaying signal for stoquastic (i.e. sign-problem-free) local Hamiltonians. The decay rates in this signal correspond to Hamiltonian eigenvalues (with associated eigenstates present in an input state) and can be extracted using a classical signal processing method like ESPRIT. We compare the efficiency of this MC scheme to its quantum counterpart in which one extracts eigenvalues of a general local Hamiltonian from a real-time, oscillatory signal obtained through quantum phase estimation circuits, again using the ESPRIT method. We prove that the ESPRIT method can resolve S = poly( n ) eigenvalues, assuming a 1/poly( n ) gap between them, with poly( n ) quantum and classical effort through the quantum phase estimation (QPE) circuits, assuming efficient preparation of the input state. We prove that our MC scheme plus the ESPRIT method can resolve S = O (1) eigenvalues, assuming a 1/poly( n ) gap between them, with poly( n ) purely classical effort for stoquastic Hamiltonians, requiring some access structure to the input state. However, we also show that under these assumptions, i.e. S = O (1) eigenvalues, assuming a 1/poly( n ) gap between them and some access structure to the input state, one can achieve this with poly( n ) purely classical effort for general local Hamiltonians. These results thus quantify some opportunities and limitations of MC methods for spectral estimation of Hamiltonians. We numerically compare the MC eigenvalue estimation scheme (for stoquastic Hamiltonians) and the quantum-phase-estimation-based eigenvalue estimation scheme by implementing them for an archetypal stoquastic Hamiltonian system: the transverse field Ising chain.

Quantum annealing (QA) is a promising method for solving combinational optimization problems and performing quantum chemical calculations. The main sources of errors in QA are the effects of decoherence and non-adiabatic transition. We propose a method for suppressing both these effects using inhomogeneous twist operators corresponding to the twist angles of transverse fields applied to qubits. Furthermore, we adopt variational methods to determine the optimal inhomogeneous twist operator for minimizing the energy of the state after QA. Our approach is useful for increasing the energy gap and/or making the quantum states robust against decoherence during QA. In summary, our results can pave the way to a new approach for realizing practical QA.

The ability to know and verifiably demonstrate the origins of messages can often be as important as encrypting the message itself. Here we present an experimental demonstration of an unconditionally secure digital signature (USS) protocol implemented for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, on a fully connected quantum network without trusted nodes. We choose a USS protocol which is secure against forging, repudiation and messages are transferrable. We show the feasibility of unconditionally secure signatures using only bi-partite entangled states distributed throughout the network and experimentally evaluate the performance of the protocol in real world scenarios with varying message lengths.

We present a way of directly manipulating an arbitrary qubit, without the exchange of any particles. This includes as an application the exchange-free preparation of an arbitrary quantum state at Alice by a remote classical Bob. As a result, we are able to propose a protocol that allows one party to directly enact, by means of a suitable program, any computation exchange-free on a remote second party's unknown qubit. Further, we show how to use this for the exchange-free control of a universal two-qubit gate, thus opening the possibility of directly enacting any desired algorithm remotely on a programmable quantum circuit.

We propose an information-theoretic quantifier for the advantage gained from cooperation that captures the degree of dependency between subsystems of a global system. The quantifier is distinct from measures of multipartite correlations despite sharing many properties with them. It is directly computable for classical as well as quantum systems and reduces to comparing the respective conditional mutual information between any two subsystems. Exemplarily we show the benefits of using the new quantifier for symmetric quantum secret sharing. We also prove an inequality characterizing the lack of monotonicity of conditional mutual information under local operations and provide intuitive understanding for it. This underlines the distinction between the multipartite dependence measure introduced here and multipartite correlations.

Self-testing was originally introduced as a device-independent method of certification of entangled quantum states and local measurements performed on them. Recently, in (Baccari et al 2020 Phys. Rev. Lett. 125 260507) the notion of state self-testing has been generalized to entangled subspaces and the first self-testing strategies for exemplary genuinely entangled subspaces have been given. The main aim of our work is to pursue this line of research and to address the question how ‘large’ (in terms of dimension) are genuinely entangled subspaces that can be self-tested, concentrating on the multiqubit stabilizer formalism. To this end, we first introduce a framework allowing to efficiently check whether a given stabilizer subspace is genuinely entangled. Building on it, we then determine the maximal dimension of genuinely entangled subspaces that can be constructed within the stabilizer subspaces and provide an exemplary construction of such maximally-dimensional subspaces for any number of qubits. Third, we construct Bell inequalities that are maximally violated by any entangled state from those subspaces and thus also any mixed states supported on them, and we show these inequalities to be useful for self-testing. Interestingly, our Bell inequalities allow for identification of higher-dimensional face structures in the boundaries of the sets of quantum correlations in the simplest multipartite Bell scenarios in which every observer performs two dichotomic measurements.

Quantum machine learning is where nowadays machine learning (ML) meets quantum information science. In order to implement this new paradigm for novel quantum technologies, we still need a much deeper understanding of its underlying mechanisms, before proposing new algorithms to feasibly address real problems. In this context, quantum generative adversarial learning is a promising strategy to use quantum devices for quantum estimation or generative ML tasks. However, the convergence behaviours of its training process, which is crucial for its practical implementation on quantum processors, have not been investigated in detail yet. Indeed here we show how different training problems may occur during the optimization process, such as the emergence of limit cycles. The latter may remarkably extend the convergence time in the scenario of mixed quantum states playing a crucial role in the already available noisy intermediate scale quantum devices. Then, we propose new strategies to achieve a faster convergence in any operating regime. Our results pave the way for new experimental demonstrations of such hybrid classical-quantum protocols allowing to evaluate the potential advantages over their classical counterparts.

The speed of the transmission of a physical signal from a sender to a receiver is limited by the speed of light, regardless of the physical system being classical or quantum. In this sense, quantum mechanics can not provide any enhancement of the speed of information transmission. If instead we consider that the information needing to be transmitted is not localized at the sender’s location, but dispersed throughout space, spatial coherence might provide some enhancement. In this work, we demonstrate a quantum mechanical advantage in the speed of acquirement and transmission of information globally encoded in space. We present a task for which we prove a quadratic enhancement to the information acquisition speed using quantum information carriers with respect to their classical counterpart. Our findings can naturally be applied in situations where the information source has limited power, i.e. bounded number of signals that can be sent per unit time.

The detection loophole problem arises when quantum devices fail to provide an output for some runs. If treating these devices in a device-independent manner, failure to include the unsuccessful runs in the output statistics can lead to an adversary falsifying security i.e. Bell inequality violation. If the devices fail with too high frequency, known as the detection threshold , then no security is possible, as the full statistics cannot violate a Bell inequality. In this work we provide an intuitive local hidden-variable strategy that the devices may use to falsify any two-party, binary-outcome no-signalling distribution up to a threshold of 2( m _A + m _B − 8)/( m _A m _B − 16), where m _A , m _B refer to the number of available inputs choices to the two parties. This value is the largest analytically predicted lower bound for no-signalling distributions. We strongly conjecture it gives the true detection threshold for m _A = m _B , and for computationally tractable scenarios we provide the Bell inequality which verifies this. We also prove that a non-trivial detection threshold remains, even when allowing one party an arbitrary number of input choices.

One of the fundamental tasks in quantum metrology is to estimate multiple parameters embedded in a noisy process, i.e. a quantum channel. In this paper, we study fundamental limits to quantum channel estimation via the concept of amortization and the right logarithmic derivative (RLD) Fisher information value. Our key technical result is the proof of a chain-rule inequality for the RLD Fisher information value, which implies that amortization, i.e. access to a catalyst state family, does not increase the RLD Fisher information value of quantum channels. This technical result leads to a fundamental and efficiently computable limitation for multiparameter channel estimation in the sequential setting, in terms of the RLD Fisher information value. As a consequence, we conclude that if the RLD Fisher information value is finite, then Heisenberg scaling is unattainable in the multiparameter setting.