Quantum State Tomography via Reduced Density Matrices

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 118; no. 2; p. 020401
• Main Authors: Xin, Tao, Lu, Dawei, Klassen, Joel, Yu, Nengkun, Ji, Zhengfeng, Chen, Jianxin, Ma, Xian, Long, Guilu, Zeng, Bei, Laflamme, Raymond
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 13.01.2017
• ISSN: 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.118.020401

Quantum state tomography via local measurements is an efficient tool for characterizing quantum states. However, it requires that the original global state be uniquely determined (UD) by its local reduced density matrices (RDMs). In this work, we demonstrate for the first time a class of states that are UD by their RDMs under the assumption that the global state is pure, but fail to be UD in the absence of that assumption. This discovery allows us to classify quantum states according to their UD properties, with the requirement that each class be treated distinctly in the practice of simplifying quantum state tomography. Additionally, we experimentally test the feasibility and stability of performing quantum state tomography via the measurement of local RDMs for each class. These theoretical and experimental results demonstrate the advantages and possible pitfalls of quantum state tomography with local measurements.