Accuracy of quantum-state estimation utilizing Akaike's information criterion

Abstract

We report our theoretical and experimental investigations into errors in quantum state estimation, putting a special emphasis on their asymptotic behavior. Tomographic measurements and maximum likelihood estimation are used for estimating several kinds of identically prepared quantum states (bi-photon polarization states) produced via spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Excess errors in the estimation procedures are eliminated by introducing a new estimation strategy utilizing Akaike's information criterion. We make a quantitative comparision between the errors of the experimentally estimated states and their asymptotic lower bounds, which are derived from the Cramér-Rao inequality. Our results reveal influence of entanglement on the errors in the estimation. An alternative measurement strategy employing inseparable measurements is also discussed, and its performance is numerically explored.