dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaA single quantum cannot be teleported
| Authors | Daniele Tommasini |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0210060 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0210060 |
Abstract
Due to the Heisemberg uncertainty principle, it is impossible to design a procedure which permits perfect cloning of an arbitrary, unknown "qubit" (the spin or polarization state of a single quantum system)1,2. However, it is believed that a perfect copying protocol can be achieved, at least in principle, if the qubit to be copied is destroyed in the original system. Quantum teleportation3,4 is supposed to allow for such a result. Here, this belief is shown to be invalidated by a fundamental uncertainty about the number of particles involved in any process, as predicted by Quantum Field Theory. As a result, teleportation cannot provide an infallible copying procedure for the single qubits, not even in the limit of perfect experimental sensitivities. The no-cloning theorem1,2 can then be generalized to the case of destroying the original. Teleportation remains an interesting statistical procedure, having an unavoidable theoretical error at the percent level or few orders of magnitude smaller, depending on the physical process that is used. Although it cannot be made arbitrarily small, such an error is small enough to remain hidden in present experiments.
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"abstract": "Due to the Heisemberg uncertainty principle, it is impossible to design a\nprocedure which permits perfect cloning of an arbitrary, unknown \"qubit\" (the\nspin or polarization state of a single quantum system)1,2. However, it is\nbelieved that a perfect copying protocol can be achieved, at least in\nprinciple, if the qubit to be copied is destroyed in the original system.\nQuantum teleportation3,4 is supposed to allow for such a result. Here, this\nbelief is shown to be invalidated by a fundamental uncertainty about the number\nof particles involved in any process, as predicted by Quantum Field Theory. As\na result, teleportation cannot provide an infallible copying procedure for the\nsingle qubits, not even in the limit of perfect experimental sensitivities. The\nno-cloning theorem1,2 can then be generalized to the case of destroying the\noriginal. Teleportation remains an interesting statistical procedure, having an\nunavoidable theoretical error at the percent level or few orders of magnitude\nsmaller, depending on the physical process that is used. Although it cannot be\nmade arbitrarily small, such an error is small enough to remain hidden in\npresent experiments.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0210060",
"authors": [
"Daniele Tommasini"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"title": "A single quantum cannot be teleported",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0210060"
},
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