Purification of Single Qubits and reconstruction from Post-Measurement State

Abstract

Purification of mixed states in Quantum Mechanics, by which we mean the transformation into pure states, has been viewed as an {\it Operation} in the sense of Kraus et al and explicit {\it Kraus Operators} \cite{kra1,kra2,kra3} have been constructed for two seperate purification protocols. The first one, initially due to Schrodinger \cite{sch} and subsequently elaborated by Sudarshan et al \cite{sudar}, is based on the {\it preservation of probabilities}. We have constructed a second protocol here based on {\it optimization of fidelities}. Both purification protocols have been implemented on a single qubit in an attempt to improve the fidelity of the purified post measurement state of the qubit with the initial pure state. We have considered both {\it complete} and {\it partial} measurements and have established bounds and inequalities for various fidelities. We show that our purification protocol leads to better state reconstruction, most explicitly so, when partial measurements are made.