Type: Article
Publication Date: 2004-01-23
Citations: 43
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.69.010304
We discuss the problem of estimating a qubit mixed state. We give the optimal estimation that can be inferred from any given set of measurements. For collective measurements and for a large number N of copies, we show that the error in the estimation varies as $1/N.$ For local measurements, we focus on the simpler case of states lying on the equatorial plane of the Bloch sphere. We show that the error using plain tomography varies as ${1/N}^{1/4},$ while our approach leads to an error proportional to ${1/N}^{3/4}.$