Experimental characterization of qutrits using SIC-POVMs

TL;DR

This paper presents an experimental method for performing arbitrary POVMs, specifically SIC-POVMs, to fully characterize qutrit states using linear optics, enabling simplified state prediction without complex calculations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel linear-optical technique to implement arbitrary POVMs, including SIC-POVMs, for qutrit state characterization, demonstrating a new experimental approach.

Findings

First experimental characterization of a qutrit state using SIC-POVMs

SIC-POVMs enable simple Bayesian prediction of measurement outcomes

The method simplifies quantum state tomography for qutrits

Abstract

Generalized quantum measurements (also known as POVMs) are of great importance in quantum information and quantum foundations, but often difficult to perform. We present an experimental approach which can in principle be used to perform arbitrary POVMs in a linear-optical context. One of the most interesting POVMs, the SIC-POVM, is the most compact, set of measurements that can be used to fully describe a quantum state. We use our technique to carry out the first experimental characterization of the state of a qutrit using SIC-POVMs. Because of the highly symmetric nature of this measurement, such a representation has the unique property that it permits all other measurement outcomes to be predicted by a simple extension of the classical Bayesian sum rule, making no use of complex amplitudes or Hilbert-space operators. We demonstrate this approach on several qutrit states encoded in single photons.