QIC Spring 2021 National Taiwan University

Quantum Information and Computation

Homework 1
(Report Due: March 21, 2021)

1. (8 points) Basic entanglement for two qubits.

1 k
(a) (2 points) Show that the state SAk e 2 ˆS00e  S01e  S10e  ˆ1 S11e is entangled if k 1 and
unentangled if k 0. Express the latter explicitly as a product state.
(b) (2 points) Can SAk e for k 0 or 1 be prepared from S0eS0e by applying only 1-qubit gates
(i.e. an 1-qubit unitary operation) on S0eS0e? Give a reason for your answer.
(c) (4 points) Generalizing 1a, show that Sψ e αS00e  β S01e  γ S10e  δ S11e is entangled if and
only if αδ  βγ x 0.

2. (6 points) Born rule, Pauli operations.

Let Sψ e aS0e  bS1e be any 1-qubit quantum state. Suppose we receive one of the four states
Sψ e, X Sψ e, Y Sψ e, and Z Sψ e, with equal prior probabilities of 41 . (The action on Sψ e is called Pauli-
twirling.)
Show that any outcome of any projective measurement on the Pauli-twirled version of Sψ e has
probability half.
Remark. Hence, the received state contains no information at all about the identity of Sψ e.
Namely, in the quantum teleportation protocol, without the two bits information from Alice
(after she performs the local operations), Bob does not learn anything about the teleportated
state from his system.

3. (22 points) Schmidt form; making 2-qubit states

The Schmidt decomposition theorem for bipartite quantum states is the following:

Theorem. Let Sψ eAB be any quantum state of a composite system comprising an m dimensional system
A and n dimensional system B. Let d min˜m, n.
Then there are orthonormal bases ˜Sα1 e , . . . , Sαm e of A and ˜Sβ1 e , . . . , Sβn e of B (called Schmidt bases
for Sψ e) and non-negative real numbers λ1 , . . . , λd (called the Schmidt coefficients of Sψ e), such that
d
Sψ e Q λi Sαie Sβie ,
i 1

i.e. when expressed in the Schmidt bases, Sψ e has no cross terms Sαi e Sβj e for i x j.
The number of non-zero Schmidt coefficients is called the Schmidt rank of Sψ e.

We will consider the Schmidt decomposition of states of two qubits (i.e. m n 2).

Instructor: 鄭皓中；TA: 廖允執、洪晟霖 1 Released on March 10, 2021

QIC Spring 2021 National Taiwan University

(a) (2 points) By inspection (or otherwise) find Schmidt bases, coefficients and ranks for the
1
product state Sae Sbe and for SA1 e 2 ˆS00e  S01e  S10e  S11e.
Show that º12 ˆS00e  S11e º12 ˆS e  Se and deduce that Schmidt bases are not uniquely
determined if two Schmidt coefficients are equal.
(b) (12 points) Recall the statement of the singular value decomposition theorem for matrices
(you may google it or find it in standard Textbooks if you don’t know it). Here we will use it
for 2  2 matrices. Writing a general 2-qubit state as Sψ e Pij aij Sij e, use the singular value
decomposition theorem to prove Schmidt decomposition theorem for pairs of qubits.
(Note that the Schmidt form for higher dimensions follows similarly from the singular
value decomposition theorem for larger matrices.)
(c) (8 points) Let ˜Sα0 e a S0e  b S1e , Sα1 e c S0e  d S1e be any orthonormal basis for a qubit.
Show that there is a 1-qubit unitary gate U with U S0e Sα0 e and U S1e Sα1 e.
Hence or otherwise, show that any 2-qubit state can be manufactured from S0e S0e by appli-
cation of a sequence of unitary gates comprising only 1-qubit gates and at most just a single
application of the 2-qubit CN OT gate. For which states is the CN OT gate not required?
(d) (Bonus 5 points) The Schmidt form does not in fact generalize to tri-partite systems. To see
this, show that there are states Sψ eABC of three qubits that cannot be expressed as
2
Sψ e Q λi Sαie Sβie Sγie
i 1

(i.e. with no cross terms in the bases) for any triple of bases ˜Sαi e, ˜Sβi e, ˜Sγi e. You may
assume that Schmidt bases are unique (up to overall phases and ordering of vectors) if the
Schmidt coefficients are different. It may be helpful to begin with the (valid) Schmidt form
of Sψ eABC for the bi-partition of A vs. BC.

4. (24 points) No-deleting principle.

A deleting operation for two distinct non-orthogonal states Sψi e with i > ˜0, 1 is any process acting
on two copies Sψi e Sψi e with an ancilla SM e, effecting the following:

Sψi e Sψi e SM e ( Sψie S0e SMie

i.e. given two copies we ‘delete’ one of them. Here S0e is any fixed state (independent of i) and
SMi e is a state that can depend on i.

(a) (8 points) Show that if such a deleting operation is unitary then Sψi e can always be recon-
stituted from SMi e alone i.e there is a unitary operation U with U S0e SMi e Sψi e SN e where
SN e is independent of i. In this sense, quantum information cannot be deleted by a unitary
process, even if we are given a second copy to help delete it; it can only be moved out to
‘another place’ (“the rubbish bin”) from where it can always be perfectly retrieved.
(b) (4 points) Show that quantum information can be deleted if we allow measurements in the
process.

Instructor: 鄭皓中；TA: 廖允執、洪晟霖 2 Released on March 10, 2021

QIC Spring 2021 National Taiwan University

(c) (2 points) Can classical information be deleted by purely reversible Boolean operations
(given, as above, an ancilla to help)?

5. (10 points) Unambiguous discrimination.

Let ˜Sα1 e , . . . , Sαn e be a set of n quantum states. They can be unambiguously discriminated if
there is a quantum process and a measurement with n  1 outcomes labeled 1, . . . , n and ‘fail’
such that if the outcome k occurs then the input state was certainly Sαk e, and if outcome ‘fail’
occurs then the process was inconclusive. Also for every k, on input Sαk e, outcome k must have
a non-zero probability of occurring.
You may assume that any prospective discrimination process is a unitary process (with inclu-
sions of ancillas) having just a final measurement at the end. (This is called the Deferred Meas-
ruement Principle; see e.g. [§4.4, N&C].)

(a) (10 points) Show that if the states can be unambiguously discriminated then they must
form a linearly independent set.
(b) (Bonus 5 points) Show that if the states are linearly independent then they can be unam-
biguously discriminated. (It may help to begin by adjoining an n-dimensional ancilla.)

6. (14 points) Ambiguous discrimination. Alice sends Bob one of N equally likely states Sαk e for
k 1, . . . , N , each being a state in d dimensions, representing the message k. On receiving the
state Bob attempts to read Alice’s message by first adjoining an ancilla SAe to the received state
and then performing a measurement on the total state, with projection operators Πk , k 1, . . . , N
respectively for concluding that the message was k.

(a) (2 points) Write down an expression for the probability PS that Bob will correctly identify
Alice’s intended message k.

(b) (10 points) Show that for any measurement we have PS B d~N .
Hint: Some results in Homework 0 maybe useful. For example, if X is positive semi-definite
and Π is a projection then ΠXΠ is positive semi-definite. Here you may treat Π as projection
onto the span of the N states Sαk e SAe in the enlarged space with the ancilla. If you can show
that this subspace has dimension at most d, then the projection has trace at most d. Other
useful facts might include that if X is positive semi-definite then `ψ S X Sψ e B Tr X  for any
normalized state vector Sψ e.
(c) (2 points) Is the bound d~N on PS here tight for a given set of N states Sαk e in d dimensions?
Give a reason for your answer.

Remark. Thus we see that d-dimensional states can never be used to reliably send more than d
messages, and if we attempt to use larger N ’s then the success probability will be correspond-
ingly necessarily worse. This proves the resource inequality: 1 qubit C~ N cbits ¦N A 1.

Instructor: 鄭皓中；TA: 廖允執、洪晟霖 3 Released on March 10, 2021

QIC Spring 2021 National Taiwan University

7. (16 points) Generalized Pauli operations for dimension d.

For a d-dimensional quantum system (a so-called qudit) with orthonormal basis ˜Sj e  j > Zd ,
introduce the operations X and Z defined by their actions on basis states:

X Sj e Sj  1 mod de Z Sj e wj Sj e
2πi
where w e 1d . Note that X and Z are unitary (why?) but not Hermitian (unless d 2).

(a) (2 points) Show ZX wXZ, X d Zd I and express ˆX a † and ˆZ b † in terms of X and

Z for a, b > Zd .
(b) (2 points) Show that Tr X a Z b  0 for all ˆa, b > Zd  Zd except ˆa, b ˆ0, 0.

(c) (2 points) Consider the 2-qudit state SΦe º1d Pid01 Sie Sie. Show that for any operator V on
one qudit, we have Trace V  d ` ΦS V a I SΦe. (Again, recall that Trace V  is the trace of
the matrix of V with respect to the orthonormal qudit basis of Sie’s, and this trace is in fact
independent of choice of qudit orthonormal basis as shown in Homework 0).
(d) (10 points) Using the above, invent a quantum dense coding scheme for d dimensional
systems (generalizing the basic case of d 2).
Remark. The same formalism can be used to also give a quantum teleportation scheme for
qudits too.

(e) (Bonus 5 points) If d 2n (i.e. the qudit is isomorphic to a composite system n qubits) how
does the scheme in 7d compare to the use of the basic qubit dense coding scheme (as in
lectures) applied separately on each on n qubits? Why is the reason?

8. (10 points) Teleporting entanglement.

(a) (8 points) Alice holds an entangled state SαeA A of two qubits Aœ A and she teleports qubit
œ

A to Bob i.e. she just applies the standard teleportation protocol to qubit A. Show that the
teleportation preserves entanglement, i.e. that at the end, Bob’s qubit B will be entangled
with Aœ just as A was, so that Alice and Bob will jointly hold the state SαeA B . œ

(b) (2 points) (Entanglement swapping, aka quantum repeater)

Alice (A) and Bob (B) are separated by distance 2d and wish to share a SΦ e Bell state. How-
ever because of environmental effects (maybe air pollution), flying qubits (maybe photonic
polarisation qubits) retain their entanglement properties only up to a distance d so A can-
not just locally prepare SΦ e and send one of its qubits over to B. Their friend Charlie (C)
is positioned midway between A and B (i.e. distance d away from each) and has shared a
Sϕ e state with each of them. Show how C can then grant A and B their wish by using only
local operations at C and classical communication to other parties.
Remark. Thus if we can directly set up entanglement only over a (possibly small) bounded
distance, then by repeating the above process (hence “quantum repeater”) we establish
entanglement over arbitrarily large distances, and entangle particles that have never been
near to each other (hence “entanglement swapping”).

Instructor: 鄭皓中；TA: 廖允執、洪晟霖 4 Released on March 10, 2021