Quantum information theory of measurement
Quantum measurement lies at the heart of quantum information processing and is one of the criteria for quantum computation. Despite its central role, there remains a need for a robust quantum information-theoretical description of measurement. In this work, I will quantify how information is processed in a quantum measurement by framing it in quantum information-theoretic terms. I will consider a diverse set of measurement scenarios, including weak and strong measurements, and parallel and consecutive measurements. In each case, I will perform a comprehensive analysis of the role of entanglement and entropy in the measurement process and track the flow of information through all subsystems. In particular, I will discuss how weak and strong measurements are fundamentally of the same nature and show that weak values can be computed exactly for certain measurements with an arbitrary interaction strength. In the context of the Bell-state quantum eraser, I will derive a trade-off between the coherence and "which-path" information of an entangled pair of photons and show that a quantum information-theoretic approach yields additional insights into the origins of complementarity. I will consider two types of quantum measurements: those that are made within a closed system where every part of the measurement device, the ancilla, remains under control (what I will call unamplified measurements), and those performed within an open system where some degrees of freedom are traced over (amplified measurements). For sequences of measurements of the same quantum system, I will show that information about the quantum state is encoded in the measurement chain and that some of this information is "lost" when the measurements are amplified-the ancillae become equivalent to a quantum Markov chain. Finally, using the coherent structure of unamplified measurements, I will outline a protocol for generating remote entanglement, an essential resource for quantum teleportation and quantum cryptographic tasks.
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- In Collections
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Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Copyright Status
- In Copyright
- Material Type
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Theses
- Authors
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Glick, Jennifer Ranae
- Thesis Advisors
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Adami, Christoph
- Committee Members
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Birge, Norman
Duxbury, Phillip
O'Shea, Brian
Pratt, Scott
- Date
- 2017
- Program of Study
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Physics - Doctor of Philosophy
- Degree Level
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Doctoral
- Language
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English
- Pages
- xviii, 245 pages
- ISBN
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9780355158038
0355158035