Ancilla-Assisted Calibration of a Measuring Apparatus

G. Brida, L. Ciavarella, I. P. Degiovanni, M. Genovese, A. Migdall, M. G. Mingolla, M. G. A. Paris, F. Piacentini, and S. V. Polyakov

Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 253601 – Published 19 June 2012

Abstract

A quantum measurement can be described by a set of matrices, one for each possible outcome, which represents the positive operator-valued measure (POVM) of the sensor. Efficient protocols of POVM extraction for arbitrary sensors are required. We present the first experimental POVM reconstruction that takes explicit advantage of a quantum resource, i.e., nonclassical correlations with an ancillary state. A POVM of a photon-number-resolving detector is reconstructed by using strong quantum correlations of twin beams generated by parametric down-conversion. Our reconstruction method is more statistically robust than POVM reconstruction methods that use classical input states.

Received 23 March 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.253601

Authors & Affiliations

G. Brida¹, L. Ciavarella¹, I. P. Degiovanni¹, M. Genovese¹, A. Migdall², M. G. Mingolla^1,3, M. G. A. Paris^4,5,1, F. Piacentini¹, and S. V. Polyakov²

¹Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, Strada delle Cacce 91, Torino 10135, Italy
²Joint Quantum Institute and National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8410, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA
³Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino 10129, Italy
⁴Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano I-20133, Italy
⁵Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze Fisiche della Materia, Udr Milano, Milano I-20133, Italy

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Vol. 108, Iss. 25 — 22 June 2012

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