Single-shot discrimination of quantum unitary processes

Abstract

We formulate minimum-error and unambiguous discrimination problems for quantum processes in the language of process positive operator valued measures (PPOVM). In this framework we present the known solution for minimum-error discrimination of unitary channels. We derive a "fidelity-like" lower bound on the failure probability of the unambiguous discrimination of arbitrary quantum processes. This bound is saturated (in a certain range of apriori probabilities) in the case of unambiguous discrimination of unitary channels. Surprisingly, the optimal solution for both tasks is based on the optimization of the same quantity called completely bounded process fidelity.