Quantum Copying: Beyond the No-Cloning Theorem

Abstract

We analyze to what extent it is possible to copy arbitrary states of a two-level quantum system. We show that there exists a "universal quantum copying machine", which approximately copies quantum mechanical states in such a way that the quality of its output does not depend on the input. We also examine a machine which combines a unitary transformation with a selective measurement to produce good copies of states in a neighborhood of a particular state. We discuss the problem of measurement of the output states.