A Hierarchy for Replica Quantum Advantage

Abstract

We prove that given the ability to make entangled measurements on at most $k$ replicas of an $n$-qubit state $\rho$ simultaneously, there is a property of $\rho$ which requires at least order $2^n$ measurements to learn. However, the same property only requires one measurement to learn if we can make an entangled measurement over a number of replicas polynomial in $k,n$. Because the above holds for each positive integer $k$, we obtain a hierarchy of tasks necessitating progressively more replicas to be performed efficiently. We introduce a powerful proof technique to establish our results, and also use this to provide new bounds for testing the mixedness of a quantum state.

3+17 pages, 2 figures; v2: typos fixed