Practical Bayesian tomography

In recent years, Bayesian methods have been proposed as a solution to a wide range of issues in quantum state and process tomography. State-of-the-art Bayesian tomography solutions suffer from three problems: numerical intractability, a lack of informative prior distributions, and an inability to tr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Christopher Granade, Joshua Combes, D G Cory
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2016-01-01
Series:New Journal of Physics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/3/033024
Description
Summary:In recent years, Bayesian methods have been proposed as a solution to a wide range of issues in quantum state and process tomography. State-of-the-art Bayesian tomography solutions suffer from three problems: numerical intractability, a lack of informative prior distributions, and an inability to track time-dependent processes. Here, we address all three problems. First, we use modern statistical methods, as pioneered by Huszár and Houlsby (2012 Phys. Rev. A http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.85.052120 85 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.85.052120 ) and by Ferrie (2014 New J. Phys. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/16/9/093035 16 http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/16/9/093035 ), to make Bayesian tomography numerically tractable. Our approach allows for practical computation of Bayesian point and region estimators for quantum states and channels. Second, we propose the first priors on quantum states and channels that allow for including useful experimental insight. Finally, we develop a method that allows tracking of time-dependent states and estimates the drift and diffusion processes affecting a state. We provide source code and animated visual examples for our methods.
ISSN:1367-2630