Quantum Physics

The question whether SICs exist can be viewed as a question about the structure of the convex set of quantum measurements, or turned into one about quantum states, asserting that they must have a high degree of symmetry. I\'ll address Chris Fuchs\' contrast of a \'probability first\' view of the issue with a \'generalized probabilistic theories\' view of it. I\'ll review some of what\'s known about the structure of convex state and measurement spaces with symmetries of a similar flavor, including the quantum one, and speculate on connections to recent SIC triple product results. And I\'ll present some old calculations, which will look familiar to old hands but may be worth contemplating yet again, reducing the Heisenberg-symmetric-SIC existence problem to the existence of solutions to a set of simultaneous polynomials in unit-modulus complex variables.

Abstract: Complete sets of mutually unbiased bases are clearly \'cousins\' of SICs. One difference is that there is a \'theory\' for MUBs, in the sense that they are straightforward to construct in some cases, and probably impossible to construct in others. Moreover complete sets of MUBs do appear naturally in the algebraic geometry of projective space (in particular they come from elliptic curves with certain symmetries). I will describe some unsuccessful attempts I have made to go from MUBs to SICs.

I present three realizations about the SIC problem which excited me several years ago but which did not - unsurprisingly - lead anywhere. 1. In odd dimensions d, the metaplectic representation of SL(2,Z_d) decomposes into two irreducible components, acting on the odd and even parity subspaces respectively. It follows that if a fiducial vector | Psi> possesses some Clifford-symmetry, the same is already true for both its even and its odd parity components |Psi_e>, |Psi_o>. What is more, these components have potentially a larger symmetry group than their sum. Indeed, this effect can be verified when looking at the known numerical solutions in d=5 and d=7. A finding of remarkably little consequence! 2. In composite dimensions d=p_1^r_1 ... p_k^r_k, all elements of the Clifford group factor with respect to some tensor decomposition C^d=C^(p_1^r_1) x ... x C^(p_k^r_k) of the underlying Hilbert space. This structure may potentially be used to simplify the constraints on fiducial vectors. My optimism is vindicated by the following, ground-breaking result: In even dimensions 2d not divisible by four, the Hilbert space is of the form C^2 x C^d. So it makes sense to ask for the Schmidt-coefficients of a fiducial vector with respect to that tensor product structure. They can be computed to be 1/2(1 +/- sqrt{3/(d+1)}), removing one (!) parameter from the problem and establishing that, asymptotically, fiducial vectors are maximally entangled. 3. Becoming slightly more esoteric, I could move on to talk about discrete Wigner functions and show in what sense finding elements of a set of MUBs corresponds to imposing that a certain matrix be positive, while a similar argument for fiducial vectors requires a related matrix to be unitary. Now, positivity has \'local\' consequences: it implies constraints on small sub-matrices. Unitarity, on the other hand, seems to be more \'global\' in that all algebraic consequences of unitarity involve \'many\' matrix elements at the same time. This point of view suggests that SICs are harder to find than MUBs (in case anybody wondered). If we solve the problem by Wednesday, I\'ll talk about quantum expanders.

As a means of exactly derandomizing certain quantum information processing tasks, unitary designs have become an important concept in quantum information theory. A unitary design is a collection of unitary matrices that approximates the entire unitary group, much like a spherical design approximates the entire unit sphere. We use irreducible representations of the unitary group to find a general lower bound on the size of a unitary t-design in U(d), for any d and t. The tightness of these bounds is then considered, where specific unitary 2-designs are introduced that are analogous to SIC-POVMs and complete sets of MUBs in the complex projective case. Additionally, we catalogue the known constructions of unitary t-designs and give an upper bound on the size of the smallest weighted unitary t-design in U(d). This is joint work with Aidan Roy (Calgary): \'Unitary designs and codes,\' arXiv:0809.3813.

Abstract: Adapting the concept of Wigner functions to finite dimensional systems is no simple matter. Basic issues with existing proposals are that they are either over-complete in the sense that the degrees of freedom in the Wigner function does not match the degrees of freedom in the original density matrix, or that they work only for restricted dimensions, namely for prime powers. We propose a new way to define a Wigner function and associated quantum phase space for some non-prime power dimensions. This allows to perform quantum state tomography from the measurement statistics of a minimal number of yes/no measurements.

By definition, SIC-POVMs are symmetric in the sense that the magnitude of the inner product between any pair of vectors is constant. All known constructions are based on additional symmetries, mainly with respect to the Weyl-Heisenberg group. Analyzing solutions for small dimensions, Zauner has identified an additional symmetry of order three and conjectured that these symmetries can be used to construct SIC-POVMs for all dimensions. Appleby has confirmed that all numerical solutions of Renes et al. indeed have that additional symmetry. This leads to the main questions addressed in the talk: Do all SIC-POVMs necessarily possess these symmetries, or can we construct SIC-POVMs without or with other symmetries?

We study the possibility of a self-correcting quantum memory based on stabilizer codes with geometrically-local stabilizer generators. We prove that the distance of such stabilizer codes in D dimensions is bounded by O(L^{D-1}) where L is the linear size of the D-dimensional lattice. In addition, we prove that in D=1 and D=2, the energy barrier separating different logical states is upper-bounded by a constant independent of L. This shows that in such systems there is no natural energy dissipation mechanism which prevents errors from accumulating. Our results are in contrast with the existence of a classical 2D self-correcting memory, the 2D Ising ferromagnet.

We start by studying the non-computational geometry of fractionally-dimensioned measure-zero dynamically-invariant subsets of phase space, associated with certain deterministic nonlinear dissipative dynamical systems. Then, by studying the asymptotic states of the Hawking Box, the existence of such invariant subsets is conjectured for gravitationally-bound systems. The argument hinges around the phase-space properties of black holes. Like Penrose, it is assumed that phase-space volumes shrink when the contents of the Hawking Box contain black holes. However, unlike Penrose, we do not argue for any corresponding phase-space divergence when the Box does not contain black holes. We now make the hypothesis that these invariant phase-space subsets play a primitive role in fundamental physics; specifically that the state of the universe (“reality”) lies on such an invariant subset (now and hence forever). Attention is focussed on the implications of this hypothesis for the foundations of quantum theory. For example, what are referred to as “measurements” of the quantum state, are defined in terms of symbolic dynamics on the invariant set, relative to some partition of the invariant set. This immediately leads to the notion that any theory which treats these invariant sets as primitive, must be contextual (since counterfactual perturbations almost certainly take states off the measure-zero invariant set and hence to “unreal” regions of phase space where the symbolic partition is undefined). This in turn leads to a new perspective, both on the foundations of quantum theory and on the role of gravity in formulating these foundations. In particular, a measurement-free Neo-Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, based on the Invariant Set Hypothesis will be presented.

The rise of quantum information science has been paralleled by the development of a vigorous research program aimed at obtaining an informational characterization or reconstruction of the quantum formalism, in a broad framework for stochastic theories that encompasses quantum and classical theory, but also a wide variety of other theories that can serve as foils to them. Such a reconstruction, at its most ambitious, is envisioned as playing a role in quantum physics similar to Einstein\'s reconstruction of the dynamics and kinetics of macroscopic bodies, and later of their gravitational interactions, on the basis of simple principles with clear operational meanings and experimental consequences. But short of such an ambitious goal, it could still lead to a principled understanding of the features of quantum mechanics that account for its greater-than-classical information-processing power, an understanding which could help guide the search for new quantum algorithms and protocols. I will summarize a convex operational framework for possible physical theories, and present results from a project to characterize quantum mechanics in terms of principles tightly linked to the possibility or impossibility of various information processing protocols. Previous results identified properties, like the existence of information-disturbance tradeoffs and restrictions on cloning and broadcasting, common to all nonclassical theories. In this talk I will focus on recent results involving protocols that are less generic. These are: the existence of exponentially secure bit commitment in non-classical theories without entanglement, the consequences for theories of the existence of a conclusive teleportation scheme, and sufficient conditions for the existence of a deterministic teleportation scheme. I\'ll also discuss sufficient conditions for \'remote steering\' of ensembles using entanglement, rendering insecure bit commitment protocols of the form shown to be secure in the unentangled case. Connections to the category-theoretic approach of Coecke and Abramsky, Selinger, Baez, and collaborators may be touched on if time permits. Joint work with various groups of collaborators including Jonathan Barrett, Matthew Leifer, Alexander Wilce, Oscar Dahlsten, and Ben Toner.