Minimal number of runs and the sequential scheme for local discrimination between special unitary operations

• Published in: Scientific reports 2016-05, Vol.6 (1), p.26696-26696, Article 26696
• Main Authors: Cao, Tian-Qing, Yang, Ying-Hui, Zhang, Zhi-Chao, Tian, Guo-Jing, Gao, Fei, Wen, Qiao-Yan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/705/1041; 639/766/483/481; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep26696

It has been shown that any two different multipartite unitary operations are perfectly distinguishable by local operations and classical communication with a finite number of runs. Meanwhile, two open questions were left. One is how to determine the minimal number of runs needed for the local discrimination and the other is whether a perfect local discrimination can be achieved by merely a sequential scheme. In this paper, we answer the two questions for some unitary operations U 1 and U 2 with locally unitary equivalent to a diagonal unitary matrix in a product basis. Specifically, we give the minimal number of runs needed for the local discrimination, which is the same with that needed for the global discrimination. In this sense, the local operation works the same with the global one. Moreover, when adding the local property to U 1 or U 2 , we present that the perfect local discrimination can be also realized by merely a sequential scheme with the minimal number of runs. Both results contribute to saving the resources used for the discrimination.