Understanding of Various Type of Unambiguous Discrimination in View of Coherence Distribution

Unambiguous State Discrimination with Intrinsic Coherence

We investigate the discrimination of pure-mixed (quantum filtering) and mixed-mixed states and compare their optimal success probability with the one for discriminating other pairs of pure states superposed by the vectors included in the mixed states. We prove that under the equal-fidelity condition, the pure-pure state discrimination scheme is superior to the pure-mixed (mixed-mixed) one. With respect to quantum filtering, the coherence exists only in one pure state and is detrimental to the state discrimination for lower dimensional systems; while it is the opposite for the mixed-mixed case with symmetrically distributed coherence. Making an extension to infinite-dimensional systems, we find that the coherence which is detrimental to state discrimination may become helpful and vice versa.

Quantum Contextual Advantage Depending on Nonzero Prior Probabilities in State Discrimination of Mixed Qubit States

Recently, Schmid and Spekkens studied the quantum contextuality in terms of state discrimination. By dealing with the minimum error discrimination of two quantum states with identical prior probabilities, they reported that quantum contextual advantage exists. Meanwhile, if one notes a striking observation that the selection of prior probability can affect the quantum properties of the system, it is necessary to verify whether the quantum contextual advantage depends on the prior probabilities of the given states. In this paper, we consider the minimum error discrimination of two states with arbitrary prior probabilities, in which both states are pure or mixed. We show that the quantum contextual advantage in state discrimination may depend on the prior probabilities of the given states. In particular, even though the quantum contextual advantage always exists in the state discrimination of two nonorthogonal pure states with nonzero prior probabilities, the quantum contextual advantage depends on prior probabilities in the state discrimination of two mixed states.