Quantum Computing Stack Exchange
Quantum Computing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [measurement]

For questions related to measurement and its effects as relevant to quantum computation and quantum information.

753 questions
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If all quantum gates must be unitary, what about measurement?

All quantum operations must be unitary to allow reversibility, but what about measurement? Measurement can be represented as a matrix, and that matrix is applied to qubits, so that seems equivalent to the operation of a quantum gate. That's…
auden
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How does measurement of one qubit affect the others?

To represent a quantum computer's state, all the qubits contribute to one state vector (this is one of the major differences between quantum and classical computing as I understand it). My understanding is that it's possible to measure only one…
auden
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How can I build a circuit to generate an equal superposition of 3 outcomes for 2 qubits?

Given a $2$ qubit-system and thus $4$ possible measurements results in the basis $\{|00\rangle$, $|01\rangle$, $|10\rangle$, $|11\rangle\}$, how can I prepare the state, where: only $3$ of these $4$ measurement results are possible (say,…
weekens
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What does "measurement in a certain basis" mean?

In the Wikipedia article about Bell states it is written: Independent measurements made on two qubits that are entangled in Bell states positively correlate perfectly, if each qubit is measured in the relevant basis. What does it even mean to…
user72
20
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Do multi-qubit measurements make a difference in quantum circuits?

Consider the unitary circuit model of quantum computation. If we need to generate entanglement between the input qubits with the circuit, it must have multi-qubit gates such as CNOT, as entanglement cannot increase under local operations and…
Kiro
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How to measure in another basis

I am new to qiskit and I have to simulate a quantum circuit. I read this documentation https://qiskit.org/textbook/ch-states/single-qubit-gates.html where it is left as an exercise to the reader to write a function to measure in the $|+i\rangle$ and…
thedumbkid
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What is the Helstrom measurement?

I have been reading the paper Belief propagation decoding of quantum channels by passing quantum messages by Joseph Renes for decoding Classical-Quantum channels and I have crossed with the concept of Helstrom Measurements. I have some knowledge…
Josu Etxezarreta Martinez
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What do the off-diagonal elements of a density matrix physically represent?

For simplicity, let's take a density matrix for a single qubit, written in the $\{|0\rangle,|1\rangle\}$ basis: $$ \rho = \begin{pmatrix} \rho_{00} & \rho_{01} \\ \rho_{10}^* & 1-\rho_{00} \end{pmatrix} $$ The diagonal elements give us the…
KnightShuffler
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What is the opposite of measurement, in a quantum circuit?

My understanding is that at the level of quantum mechanics, almost all operations are reversible in time. Most gates in a quantum circuit clearly obey this rule; they can be reversed by applying some other gate. But a measurement gate seems to be…
lacker
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Representation of real numbers in quantum computers

In classical binary computers, real numbers are often represented using the IEEE 754 standard. With quantum computers you can of course do this as well - and for measurements this (or a similar standard) will probably be necessary since the result…
blalasaadri
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How to calculate an Expected Value of some operator acting on qubits?

I'm trying to implement the Variational Quantum Eigensolver in Qiskit. Suppose, I have an operator $A = \sigma_1^z\sigma_2^z$ acting on some two-qubit state $|\psi\rangle$. After a measurement I get a set of probabilities corresponding to states…
C-Roux
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Density matrix after measurement on density matrix

Let's say Alice wants to send Bob a $|0\rangle$ with probability .5 and $|1\rangle$ also with probability .5. So after a qubit Alice prepares leaves her lab, the system could be represented by the following density matrix: $$\rho = .5 |0\rangle…
QuestionEverything
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What is the relation between POVMs and observables (as Hermitian operators)?

Let $\renewcommand{\calH}{{\mathcal{H}}}\calH$ be a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. An observable $A$ is here a Hermitian operator, $A\in\mathrm{Herm}(\calH)$. A POVM is here a collection of positive operators summing to the identity: $\{\mu(a):…
glS
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What makes quantum computations different from randomized classical computations?

One of the many thing that confuse me in the field of QC is what makes the measurement of a qubit in a quantum computer any different than just choosing at random (in a classical computer) (that's not my actual question) Suppose I have $n$ qubits,…
ItamarG3
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Are true Projective Measurements possible experimentally?

I have heard various talks at my institution from experimentalists (who all happened to be working on superconducting qubits) that the textbook idea of true "Projective" measurement is not what happens in real-life experiments. Each time I asked…
Dr. T. Q. Bit
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