dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaImpossibility of deleting an unknown quantum state
| Authors | Arun Kumar Pati, Samuel L. Braunstein |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/9911090 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9911090 |
| DOI | 10.1038/35004532 |
| Journal | Nature, 404: 164 (2000) |
Abstract
A photon in an arbitrary polarization state cannot be cloned perfectly. But suppose that at our disposal we have several copies of an unknown photon. Is it possible to delete the information content of one or more of these photons by a physical process? Specifically, if two photons are in the same initial polarization state is there a mechanism that produces one photon in the same initial state and the other in some standard polarization state. If this can be done, then one would create a standard blank state onto which one could copy an unknown state approximately, by deterministic cloning or exactly, by probabilistic cloning. This might be useful in quantum computation, where one could store some new information in an already computed state by deleting the old information. Here we show that the linearity of quantum theory does not allow us to delete a copy of an arbitrary quantum state perfectly. Though in a classical computer information can be deleted against a copy, the same task cannot be accomplished with quantum information.
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"abstract": "A photon in an arbitrary polarization state cannot be cloned perfectly. But\nsuppose that at our disposal we have several copies of an unknown photon. Is it\npossible to delete the information content of one or more of these photons by a\nphysical process? Specifically, if two photons are in the same initial\npolarization state is there a mechanism that produces one photon in the same\ninitial state and the other in some standard polarization state. If this can be\ndone, then one would create a standard blank state onto which one could copy an\nunknown state approximately, by deterministic cloning or exactly, by\nprobabilistic cloning. This might be useful in quantum computation, where one\ncould store some new information in an already computed state by deleting the\nold information. Here we show that the linearity of quantum theory does not\nallow us to delete a copy of an arbitrary quantum state perfectly. Though in a\nclassical computer information can be deleted against a copy, the same task\ncannot be accomplished with quantum information.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/9911090",
"authors": [
"Arun Kumar Pati",
"Samuel L. Braunstein"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1038/35004532",
"journal_ref": "Nature, 404: 164 (2000)",
"title": "Impossibility of deleting an unknown quantum state",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9911090"
},
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