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We report on a detailed characterization of a three-qubit linear optical quantum Toffoli gate. Our experiment utilizes correlated photon pairs generated in the process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Two qubits are encoded into polarization and spatial degrees of freedom of a signal photon, and the third qubit is represented by polarization of an idler photon. The linear optical Toffoli gate is implemented by interference of photons on a partially polarizing beam splitter inserted inside a Mach Zehnder interferometer formed by two calcite beam displacers. We have measured 4032 different two-photon coincidences, which allows us to estimate the fidelity of the gate to be 90%. Although these data are not tomographically complete, we show that they are sufficient for a reliable reconstruction of the quantum process matrix of the gate via the recently proposed maximum likelihood-maximum entropy estimation procedure. To probe the entangling capability of the gate, we have investigated generation of three-qubit GHZ states from fully and partially separable input states and we have performed a full tomography of the output states. We compare the reconstructed states with theoretical predictions obtained with the use of the estimated quantum process matrix and obtain a very good agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A special configuration of graph state stabilizers, which contains only Pauli σX operators, is studied. The vertex sets associated with such configurations are defined as what we call X chains of graph states. The X chains of a general graph state can be determined efficiently. They form a group structure such that one can obtain the explicit representation of graph states in the X basis via the so-called X-chain factorization diagram. We show that graph states with different X-chain groups can have different probability distributions of X-measurement outcomes, which allows one to distinguish certain graph states with X measurements. We provide an approach to find the Schmidt decomposition of graph states in the X basis. The existence of X chains in a subsystem facilitates error correction in the entanglement localization of graph states. In all of these applications, the difficulty of the task decreases with increasing number of X chains. Furthermore, we show that the overlap of two graph states can be efficiently determined via X chains, while its computational complexity with other known methods increases exponentially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate optimal discrimination between two projective single-qubit measurements in a scenario where the measurement can be performed only once. We consider general setting involving a tunable fraction of inconclusive outcomes and we prove that the optimal discrimination strategy requires an entangled probe state for any nonzero rate of inconclusive outcomes. We experimentally implement this optimal discrimination strategy for projective measurements on polarization states of single photons. Our setup involves a real-time electrooptical feed-forward loop which allows us to fully harness the benefits of entanglement in discrimination of quantum measurements. The experimental data clearly demonstrate the advantage of entanglement-based discrimination strategy as compared to unentangled single-qubit probes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quantum analog of the fundamental classical NOT gate is a quantum gate that would transform any input qubit state onto an orthogonal state. Intriguingly, this universal NOT gate is forbidden by the laws of quantum physics. This striking phenomenon has far-reaching implications concerning quantum information processing and encoding information about directions and reference frames into quantum states. It also triggers the question of under what conditions the preparation of quantum states orthogonal to input states becomes possible. Here we report on experimental demonstration of orthogonalization of partly unknown single- and two-qubit quantum states. A state orthogonal to an input state is conditionally prepared by quantum filtering, and the only required information about the input state is a mean value of a single arbitrary operator. We show that perfect orthogonalization of partly unknown two-qubit entangled states can be performed by applying the quantum filter to one of the qubits only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]