# Lecture 012 - Elitzur-Vaidman Bomb

Measuring One Qubit: When you measure entangled qubits, all related qubits collapse.

If I have a qubit and want you to decide which option the qubit is:

• either $|0\rangle, |1\rangle$: 100% probability

• either $|+\rangle, |-\rangle$: 100% probability

• either $|Rot_\theta\rangle, |Rot_{\theta+90\degree}\rangle$: 100% probability

• anything choice that is not orthogonal will result in error, but we can choose 2-sided error or 1-sided error

### Making Copies

Distinguish Between Qubits

• you cannot repeat test by copying cubit

• you cannot re-test one cubit

• you can do one sided error or two sided error for copies of cubit

• you can measure in both basis for copies of cubit waiting for 100% answer in one sided error.

• If you got the mystery rotation machine: to distinguish rotation $\theta = 0$ between $\theta = \frac{\pi}{n}$, you only need to send the mystery cubit into the machine by $\frac{n}{2}$ times.

### Given $n$ Cubits

Say we want you to tell the difference between $|Rot_{0}\rangle$ and $|Rot_{\pi/n}\rangle$ where $n$ is big.

Strategy: measure in $|0\rangle, |1\rangle$ basis and only guess $|Rot_{\pi/n}\rangle$ if result is $|1\rangle$

Given $n$ cubits to test with, the probability of guessing correct with one sided error is: $n\sin(\pi/n)^2 \simeq \frac{\pi^2}{n}$ which is bad.

Given $n^2$ cubits to test with, the expectorated number of time we guess correct is $\simeq n^2 \cdot \frac{\pi^2}{n^2} = \pi^2$ which is big. The probability of failure is $(1 - \sin(\frac{\pi}{n})^2)^{n^2} \simeq (1 - \frac{\pi^2}{n^2})^{n^2} \leq (e^{-\pi^2/n^2})^{n^2} = e^{-\pi^2}$ which is small.

With 2-sided error, the asymptotic complexity is the same.

### Obtain the Qubit Generator

Qubit Generator: given $|0\rangle$, generate a fixed mystery $|test\rangle$ qubit. We know the machine either generate $|0\rangle$ or $|Rot_\frac{\pi}{n}\rangle$.

We can feed the generated qubit back to the machine $\frac{n}{2}$ times to get either $0\rangle$ or $1\rangle$

### Elitzur-Vaidman Bomb Problem

Elitzur-Vaidman Bomb Problem: We got a box, potentially with a bomb fused to a horizontal filter. We want to know whether the box has a bomb in it. We can only do this by sending photon passing through box. However, if there is a filter and the filter generates heat, the bomb will explode.

Bomb Nothing
Send 0 No Info No Info
Send 1 Explode No Bomb

Observation:

• Sending $|1\rangle$ will immediately explode if there is bomb

• Sending $|0\rangle$ is useless and give us no information.

• Sending $|+\rangle$

• if there is bomb: 50% explode, 50% no explode and photon come out as $|0\rangle$, we know there is bomb
• if there is no bomb: photon come out as unmodified $|+\rangle$, but when we measure it we either get 1-sided error with $\frac{1}{2}$ or two sided error $15\%$

If we send $|Rot_{\pi}{n}\rangle$ instead of $|+\rangle$, to know the final answer, we need distinguish between $|Rot_{\pi}{n}\rangle$ from $|0\rangle$. We need to a know that takes $\frac{n}{2}$ many tries. Since the probability of explode is $\frac{\pi^2}{n^2}$, by union bound, the probability of explode is $\frac{n}{2} \cdot \frac{\pi^2}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{2n}$. Therefore, if we choose a large $n$, we can almost make it certain that the bomb will not explode before we know the status of the bomb for certain.

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