Joint measurements via quantum cloning

Abstract

We explore the possibility of achieving optimal joint measurements of noncommuting observables on a single quantum system by performing conventional measurements of commuting self adjoint operators on optimal clones of the original quantum system. We consider the case of both finite dimensional and infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces. In the former we study the joint measurement of three orthogonal components of a spin 1/2, in the latter we consider the case of the joint measurements of any pair of noncommuting quadratures of one mode of the electromagnetic field. We show that universally covariant cloning is not ideal for joint measurements, and a suitable non universally covariant cloning is needed.