Parameter estimation for mixed states from a single copy

Thomas Konrad, Otfried Gühne, Jürgen Audretsch, Hans J. Briegel

Published 2007-02-23, updated 2007-05-08Version 2

Given a single copy of a mixed state of the form \rho=\lambda\rho_1+(1-\lambda)\rho_2, what is the optimal measurement to estimate the parameter \lambda, if \rho_1 and \rho_2 are known? We present a general strategy to obtain the optimal measurements employing a Bayesian estimator. The measurements are chosen to minimize the deviation between the estimated- and the true value of \lambda. We explicitly determine the optimal measurements for a general two-dimensional system and for important higher dimensional cases.