Experimental Demonstration of Inequivalent Mutually Unbiased Bases

Wen-Zhe Yan, Yunting Li, Zhibo Hou, Huangjun Zhu, Guo-Yong Xiang, Chuan-Feng Li, and Guang-Can Guo

Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 080202 – Published 21 February 2024

Abstract

Quantum measurements based on mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) play crucial roles in foundational studies and quantum information processing. It is known that there exist inequivalent MUBs, but little is known about their operational distinctions, not to say experimental demonstration. In this Letter, by virtue of a simple estimation problem, we experimentally demonstrate the operational distinctions between inequivalent triples of MUBs in dimension 4 based on high-precision photonic systems. The experimental estimation fidelities coincide well with the theoretical predictions with only 0.16% average deviation, which is 25 times less than the difference (4.1%) between the maximum estimation fidelity and the minimum estimation fidelity. Our experiments clearly demonstrate that inequivalent MUBs have different information extraction capabilities and different merits for quantum information processing.

Received 23 September 2023
Accepted 12 January 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.080202

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Quantum foundations Quantum information processing Quantum measurements Quantum optics

Quantum Information, Science & Technology

Authors & Affiliations

Wen-Zhe Yan^1,2,*, Yunting Li^3,4,5,*, Zhibo Hou^1,2,6,†, Huangjun Zhu^3,4,5,‡, Guo-Yong Xiang ^1,2,6,§, Chuan-Feng Li^1,2,6, and Guang-Can Guo^1,2,6

¹CAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, People’s Republic of China
²CAS Center For Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, People’s Republic of China
³State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
⁴Institute for Nanoelectronic Devices and Quantum Computing, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
⁵Center for Field Theory and Particle Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
⁶Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230088, People’s Republic of China

^*These authors contributed equally to this work.
^†houzhibo@ustc.edu.cn
^‡zhuhuangjun@fudan.edu.cn
^§gyxiang@ustc.edu.cn

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Vol. 132, Iss. 8 — 23 February 2024

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