Optimal lower bounds for quantum state tomography

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Scharnhorst, Thilo, Spilecki, Jack, Wright, John
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Scharnhorst, Thilo
Spilecki, Jack
Wright, John
author_facet Scharnhorst, Thilo
Spilecki, Jack
Wright, John
contents We show that $n = Ω(rd/\varepsilon^2)$ copies are necessary to learn a rank $r$ mixed state $ρ\in \mathbb{C}^{d \times d}$ up to error $\varepsilon$ in trace distance. This matches the upper bound of $n = O(rd/\varepsilon^2)$ from prior work, and therefore settles the sample complexity of mixed state tomography. We prove this lower bound by studying a special case of full state tomography that we refer to as projector tomography, in which $ρ$ is promised to be of the form $ρ= P/r$, where $P \in \mathbb{C}^{d \times d}$ is a rank $r$ projector. A key technical ingredient in our proof, which may be of independent interest, is a reduction which converts any algorithm for projector tomography which learns to error $\varepsilon$ in trace distance to an algorithm which learns to error $O(\varepsilon)$ in the more stringent Bures distance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_07699
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optimal lower bounds for quantum state tomography
Scharnhorst, Thilo
Spilecki, Jack
Wright, John
Quantum Physics
Computational Complexity
Data Structures and Algorithms
We show that $n = Ω(rd/\varepsilon^2)$ copies are necessary to learn a rank $r$ mixed state $ρ\in \mathbb{C}^{d \times d}$ up to error $\varepsilon$ in trace distance. This matches the upper bound of $n = O(rd/\varepsilon^2)$ from prior work, and therefore settles the sample complexity of mixed state tomography. We prove this lower bound by studying a special case of full state tomography that we refer to as projector tomography, in which $ρ$ is promised to be of the form $ρ= P/r$, where $P \in \mathbb{C}^{d \times d}$ is a rank $r$ projector. A key technical ingredient in our proof, which may be of independent interest, is a reduction which converts any algorithm for projector tomography which learns to error $\varepsilon$ in trace distance to an algorithm which learns to error $O(\varepsilon)$ in the more stringent Bures distance.
title Optimal lower bounds for quantum state tomography
topic Quantum Physics
Computational Complexity
Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07699