The Average Quantum Coherence of Pure State Decomposition

TL;DR

This paper investigates the average quantum coherence in pure state decompositions of mixed states, providing bounds, geometric insights for qubits, and methods to estimate coherence with fewer measurements.

Contribution

It introduces universal bounds and conditions for average quantum coherence, and offers a geometric framework for qubit state decompositions.

Findings

Upper bound for average quantum coherence established

Conditions for saturation of the bound identified

Optimal pure state decompositions characterized in the Bloch sphere

Abstract

We study the average quantum coherence over the pure state decompositions of a mixed quantum state. An upper bound of the average quantum coherence is provided and sufficient conditions for the saturation of the upper bound are shown. These sufficient conditions always hold for two and three dimensional systems. This provides a tool to estimate the average coherence experimentally by measuring only the diagonal elements, which remarkably requires less measurements compared with state tomography. We then describe the pure state decompositions of qubit state in Bloch sphere geometrically. For any given qubit state, the optimal pure state decomposition achieving the maximal average quantum coherence as well as three other pure state decompositions are shown in the Bloch sphere. The order relations among their average quantum coherence are invariant for any coherence measure. The results presented in this paper are universal and suitable for all coherence measures.