Physical accessible transformations on a finite number of quantum states

Abstract

We consider to treat the usual probabilistic cloning, state separation, unambiguous state discrimination, \emph{etc} in a uniform framework. All these transformations can be regarded as special examples of generalized completely positive trace non-increasing maps on a finite number of input states. From the system-ancilla model we construct the corresponding unitary implementation of pure $\to$ pure, pure $\to$ mixed, mixed $\to$ pure, and mixed $\to$ mixed states transformations in the whole system and obtain the necessary and sufficient conditions on the existence of the desired maps. We expect our work will be helpful to explore what we can do on a finite set of input states.