Bob's Measurement Research Articles

Negativity and steering: A stronger Peres conjecture

The violation of a Bell inequality certifies the presence of entanglement even if neither party trusts their measurement devices. Recently Moroder et. al. showed how to make this statement quantitative, using semidefinite programming to calculate how much entanglement is certified by a given violation. Here I adapt their techniques to the case where Bob's measurement devices are in fact trusted, the setting for "EPR-steering" inequalities. Interestingly, all of the steering inequalities studied turn out to require negativity for their violation. This supports a significant strengthening of Peres' conjecture that negativity is required to violate a bipartite Bell inequality.

Extracting information from a qubit by multiple observers: toward a theory of sequential state discrimination.

We discuss sequential unambiguous state-discrimination measurements performed on the same qubit. Alice prepares a qubit in one of two possible states. The qubit is first sent to Bob, who measures it, and then on to Charlie, who also measures it. The object in both cases is to determine which state Alice sent. In an unambiguous state discrimination measurement, we never make a mistake, i.e., misidentify the state, but the measurement may fail, in which case we gain no information about which state was sent. We find that there is a nonzero probability for both Bob and Charlie to identify the state, and we maximize this probability. The probability that Charlie's measurement succeeds depends on how much information about the state Alice sent is left in the qubit after Bob's measurement, and this information can be quantified by the overlap between the two possible states in which Bob's measurement leaves the qubit. This Letter is a first step toward developing a theory of nondestructive sequential quantum measurements, which could be useful in quantum communication schemes.

Decoy-state quantum key distribution with biased basis choice.

We propose a quantum key distribution scheme that combines a biased basis choice with the decoy-state method. In this scheme, Alice sends all signal states in the Z basis and decoy states in the X and Z basis with certain probabilities, and Bob measures received pulses with optimal basis choice. This scheme simplifies the system and reduces the random number consumption. From the simulation result taking into account of statistical fluctuations, we find that in a typical experimental setup, the proposed scheme can increase the key rate by at least 45% comparing to the standard decoy-state scheme. In the postprocessing, we also apply a rigorous method to upper bound the phase error rate of the single-photon components of signal states.

Wavelength attack on practical continuous-variable quantum-key-distribution system with a heterodyne protocol

We present the wavelength attack on a practical continuous-variable quantum-key-distribution system with a heterodyne protocol, in which the transmittance of beam splitters at Bob's station is wavelength dependent. Our strategy is proposed independent of but analogous to that of Huang et al. [arXiv:1206.6550v1 [quant-ph]], but in that paper the shot noise of the two beams that Eve sends to Bob, transmitting after the homodyne detector, is unconsidered. However, shot noise is the main contribution to the deviation of Bob's measurements from Eve's when implementing the wavelength attack, so it must be considered accurately. In this paper, we first analyze the solutions of the equations specifically that must be satisfied in this attack, which is not considered rigorously by Huang et al. Then we calculate the shot noise of the homodyne detector accurately and conclude that the wavelength attack can be implemented successfully in some parameter regime.

A necessary condition for the security of differential-phase-shift quantum key distribution

A necessary condition for the security of a quantum key distribution protocol is that Bob's measurement is described by non-commuting POVM elements. The differential-phase-shift quantum key distribution protocol is formalised, and this condition is shown to be met.

Experimental investigation of quantum key distribution with position and momentum of photon pairs

We investigate the utility of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations of the position and momentum of photon pairs from parametric down-conversion in the implementation of a secure quantum key distribution protocol. We show that security is guaranteed by the entanglement between downconverted pairs, and can be checked by either direct comparison of Alice and Bob's measurement results or evaluation of an inequality of the sort proposed by Mancini et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 120401 (2002)).

QUANTUM SECURE CONDITIONAL DIRECT COMMUNICATION VIA EPR PAIRS

Two schemes for quantum secure conditional direct communication are proposed, where a set of EPR pairs of maximally entangled particles in Bell states, initially made by the supervisor Charlie, but shared by the sender Alice and the receiver Bob, functions as quantum information channels for faithful transmission. After insuring the security of the quantum channel and obtaining the permission of Charlie (i.e., Charlie is trustworthy and cooperative, which means the "conditional" in the two schemes), Alice and Bob begin their private communication under the control of Charlie. In the first scheme, Alice transmits secret message to Bob in a deterministic manner with the help of Charlie by means of Alice's local unitary transformations, both Alice and Bob's local measurements, and both of Alice and Charlie's public classical communication. In the second scheme, the secure communication between Alice and Bob can be achieved via public classical communication of Charlie and Alice, and the local measurements of both Alice and Bob. The common feature of these protocols is that the communications between two communication parties Alice and Bob depend on the agreement of the third side Charlie. Moreover, transmitting one bit secret message, the sender Alice only needs to apply a local operation on her one qubit and send one bit classical information. We also show that the two schemes are completely secure if quantum channels are perfect.

Mechanical measures of uncooked beef longissimus muscle can predict sensory panel tenderness and Warner-Bratzler shear force of cooked steaks.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate mechanical measures of tenderness on uncooked USDA Select longissimus muscle as a means to predict Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) and trained sensory panel tenderness (SPT) of cooked steaks. In Exp. 1, strip loins (n = 24) were aged 14 d postmortem and fabricated into steaks (2.54 cm). Medial, center, and lateral locations within uncooked steaks were evaluated by a plumb bob device and correlated with WBSF and SPT of cooked steaks. In Exp. 2, 24 strip loins were used to evaluate how well plumb bob and needle probe devices used on uncooked steaks predicted WBSF and SPT of cooked steaks. At 2 d postmortem, two steaks were fabricated from the anterior end. One uncooked steak (2.54 cm) was assigned to the plumb bob treatment and the other uncooked steak (5.08 cm) was assigned to needle probe treatment. At 14 d postmortem, one uncooked steak (5.08 cm) was assigned to needle probe treatment, a second uncooked steak (2.54 cm) was assigned to plumb bob treatment, whereas the remaining steaks (2.54 cm) were cooked and evaluated by a trained sensory panel and WBSF device. In Exp. 1, average plumb bob values were negatively correlated (P < 0.05) to average SPT scores (r = -0.48). However, correlations between WBSF and plumb bob values for medial, lateral, and average of all sections were not significant (P > 0.05). In Exp. 2, regression models to predict SPT from needle probe and plumb bob measurements individually taken at 2 d postmortem had R2 of 0.54 and 0.51, respectively. Combining needle probe and plumb bob measurements resulted in an R2 of 0.76; when quadratic terms for both variables were in the model, the R2 was 0.80. Regressing needle probe and plumb bob measurements at 2 d postmortem with WBSF produced R2 values of 0.51 and 0.45, respectively. If linear terms of both probes were combined to predict WBSF, the R2 increased to 0.77. An equation to predict WBSF, including both the linear and quadratic terms of needle probe and plumb bob measurements, resulted in an R2 of 0.84. Using plumb bob and needle probe devices on uncooked longissimus muscle at 2 d postmortem can predict cooked WBSF and SPT of USDA Select Grade steaks at 14 d postmortem.

Mechanical force measures on uncooked beef longissimus muscle can predict tenderness of strip loin steaks (2002)

We investigated mechanical force measurements on uncooked longissimus muscle as a means to predict Warner- Bratzler shear force (WBSF) and trained sensory panel tenderness (SPT) of cooked strip loin steaks. Uncooked steaks from 24 USDA Select strip loins (IMPS 180) were evaluated at 2 and 14 days postmortem using plumb bob and needle probe devices attached to an Instron Universal Testing Machine. Cooked steaks aged 14 days were then evaluated for WBSF and SPT. Regression models to predict SPT from needle probe and plumb bob measurements individually taken at 2 days postmortem had R2 of 0.54 and 0.51, respectively. Combining needle probe and plumb bob measurements resulted in an R2 of 0.76; however, when quadratic terms for both variables were in the model, R2 was 0.80. Regressing needle probe and plumb bob measurements at 2 days postmortem with WBSF produced R2 of 0.51 and 0.45, respectively. When linear terms of both probes were combined, R2 improved to 0.77. An equation to predict WBSF including both the linear and quadratic terms of needle probe and plumb bob measurements resulted in R2 of 0.84. Using plumb bob and needle probe combined on uncooked longissimus muscle at 2 days postmortem can predict cooked WBSF and SPT of strip loin steaks aged for 14 days.