Unlearning Quantum Information

Abstract

Quantum dynamics can be driven by measurement. By constructing measurements that gain no information, effective unitary evolution can be induced on a quantum system, for example in ancilla driven quantum computation. In the non-ideal case where a measurement does reveal some information about the system, it may be possible to "unlearn" this information and restore unitary evolution through subsequent measurements. Here we analyse two methods of quantum "unlearning" and present a simplified proof of the bound on the probability of successfully applying the required correction operators. We find that the probability of successful recovery is inversely related to the ability of the initial measurement to exclude the possibility of a state.