How Discord underlies the Noise Resilience of Quantum Illumination

TY - UNPB

T1 - How Discord underlies the Noise Resilience of Quantum Illumination

AU - Weedbrook, Christian

AU - Pirandola, Stefano

AU - Thompson, Jayne

AU - Vedral, Vlatko

AU - Gu, Mile

N1 - 7 pages, 3 figures. Comments are welcome

PY - 2013/12/11

Y1 - 2013/12/11

N2 - Quantum illumination employs entanglement to detect reflecting objects in environments so noisy that all entanglement is destroyed. This appears paradoxical: the benefit of entanglement outlasts entanglement itself. Here we demonstrate that the resilience of quantum illumination is due to quantum discord - a more resilient form of quantum correlations. We prove a direct equality between the performance gain in quantum illumination and the amount of discord which is expended to resolve the target. Discord outlasts entanglement; and in harnessing this discord, quantum illumination outperforms all conventional techniques. This simultaneously explains why quantum illumination thrives in entanglement breaking noise, and confirms discord is a resource of immediate value.

AB - Quantum illumination employs entanglement to detect reflecting objects in environments so noisy that all entanglement is destroyed. This appears paradoxical: the benefit of entanglement outlasts entanglement itself. Here we demonstrate that the resilience of quantum illumination is due to quantum discord - a more resilient form of quantum correlations. We prove a direct equality between the performance gain in quantum illumination and the amount of discord which is expended to resolve the target. Discord outlasts entanglement; and in harnessing this discord, quantum illumination outperforms all conventional techniques. This simultaneously explains why quantum illumination thrives in entanglement breaking noise, and confirms discord is a resource of immediate value.

KW - quant-ph

M3 - Preprint

SP - 1

EP - 7

BT - How Discord underlies the Noise Resilience of Quantum Illumination

ER -