General theory of measurement with two copies of a quantum state

Abstract

We analyze the results of the most general measurement on two copies of a quantum state. We show that by using two copies of a quantum state it is possible to achieve an exponential improvement with respect to known methods for quantum state tomography. We demonstrate that μ can label a set of outcomes of a measurement on two copies if and only if there is a family of maps Cμ such that the probability Prob(μ) is the fidelity of each map, i.e., Prob(μ)=Tr[ρCμ(ρ)]. Here, the map Cμ must be completely positive after being composed with the transposition (these are called completely copositive, or CCP, maps) and must add up to the fully depolarizing map. This implies that a positive operator valued measure on two copies induces a measure on the set of CCP maps (i.e., a CCP map valued measure). © 2009 The American Physical Society.