Abstract

Optimally discriminating between non-orthogonal states is critical to both quantum communications and quantum computation. As such, much work focuses on finding quantum bounds for minimal error discrimination and then comparing these quantum bounds with the performance of structured receivers. Pure state discrimination is well understood but deriving experimental strategies for discriminating mixed states has been less explored. We compute quantum bounds and receiver performance for discriminating between mixed states prepared by a pure coherent state mixed with thermal noise light in a channel and the same pure coherent state subject to weak measurement in a channel. We calculate the Helstrom bound for the case where a single copy of the quantum state is available for measurement and the quantum Chernoff bound, where copies of the quantum state occupy many modes and can be …

Date

July 16, 2025

Authors

Piper Wysocki, Jonathan Habif, Federico Spedalieri

Journal

APS March Meeting Abstracts

Volume

2023

Pages

A58. 002