Resource theories can be used to formalize the quantification and manipulation of resources in quantum information processing such as entanglement, asymmetry and coherence of quantum states, and incompatibility of quantum measurements. Given a certain state or measurement, one can ask whether there is a task in which it performs better than any resourceless state or measurement. Using conic programming, we prove that any general robustness measure (with respect to a convex set of free states or measurements) can be seen as a quantifier of such outperformance in some discrimination task. We apply the technique to various examples, e.g., joint measurability, positive operator valued measures simulable by projective measurements, and state assemblages preparable with a given Schmidt number.

Conventional methods for computing maximum-likelihood estimators (MLE) often converge slowly in practical situations, leading to a search for simplifying methods that rely on additional assumptions for their validity. In this work, we provide a fast and reliable algorithm for maximum-likelihood reconstruction that avoids this slow convergence. Our method utilizes the state-of-the-art convex optimization scheme, an accelerated projected-gradient method, that allows one to accommodate the quantum nature of the problem in a different way than in the standard methods. We demonstrate the power of our approach by comparing its performance with other algorithms for $n$-qubit state tomography. In particular, an eight-qubit situation that purportedly took weeks of computation time in 2005 can now be completed in under a minute for a single set of data, with far higher accuracy than previously possible. This refutes the common claim that MLE reconstruction is slow and reduces the need for alternative methods that often come with difficult-to-verify assumptions. In fact, recent methods assuming Gaussian statistics or relying on compressed sensing ideas are demonstrably inapplicable for the situation under consideration here. Our algorithm can be applied to general optimization problems over the quantum state space; the philosophy of projected gradients can further be utilized for optimization contexts with general constraints.

Collective measurements on identically prepared quantum systems can extract more information than local measurements, thereby enhancing information-processing efficiency. Although this nonclassical phenomenon has been known for two decades, it has remained a challenging task to demonstrate the advantage of collective measurements in experiments. Here, we introduce a general recipe for performing deterministic collective measurements on two identically prepared qubits based on quantum walks. Using photonic quantum walks, we realize experimentally an optimized collective measurement with fidelity 0.9946 without post selection. As an application, we achieve the highest tomographic efficiency in qubit state tomography to date. Our work offers an effective recipe for beating the precision limit of local measurements in quantum state tomography and metrology. In addition, our study opens an avenue for harvesting the power of collective measurements in quantum information-processing and for exploring the intriguing physics behind this power.

We show that a special type of measurements, called symmetric informationally complete positive operator-valued measures (SIC POVMs), provide a stronger entanglement detection criterion than the computable cross-norm or realignment criterion based on local orthogonal observables. As an illustration, we demonstrate the enhanced entanglement detection power in simple systems of qubit and qutrit pairs. This observation highlights the significance of SIC POVMs for entanglement detection.

Among various multipartite entangled states, Dicke states stand out because their entanglement is maximally persistent and robust under particle losses. Although they have attracted much attention for their potential applications in quantum information processing and foundational studies, the characterization of Dicke states remains as a challenging task in experiments. Here we propose efficient and practical protocols for verifying arbitrary $n$-qubit Dicke states in both adaptive and nonadaptive ways. Our protocols require only two distinct settings based on Pauli measurements besides permutations of the qubits. To achieve infidelity $ϵ$ and confidence level $1-\delta$, the total number of tests required is only $O(n{ϵ}^{-1}\ln {\delta }^{-1})$. This performance is exponentially more efficient than all previous protocols based on local measurements, including quantum state tomography and direct fidelity estimation, and is comparable to the best global strategy. Our protocols are readily applicable with current experimental techniques and are able to verify Dicke states of hundreds of qubits.

The efficient and reliable certification of quantum states is essential for various quantum information processing tasks as well as for the general progress on the implementation of quantum technologies. In the last few years several methods have been introduced which use advanced statistical methods to certify quantum states in a resource‐efficient manner. In this article, a review of the recent progress in this field is presented. How the verification and fidelity estimation of a quantum state can be discussed in the language of hypothesis testing is explained first. Then, various strategies for the verification of entangled states with local measurements or measurements assisted by local operations and classical communication are explained in detail. Finally, several extensions of the problem, such as the certification of quantum channels and the verification of entanglement are discussed.