Unambiguous pure-state identification without classical knowledge

Abstract

We study how to unambiguously identify a given quantum pure state with one of the two reference pure states when no classical knowledge on the reference states is given but a certain number of copies of each reference quantum state are presented. By unambiguous identification, we mean that we are not allowed to make a mistake but our measurement can produce an inconclusive result. Assuming the two reference states are independently distributed over the whole pure state space in a unitary invariant way, we determine the optimal mean success probability for an arbitrary number of copies of the reference states and a general dimension of the state space. It is explicitly shown that the obtained optimal mean success probability asymptotically approaches that of the unambiguous discrimination as the number of the copies of the reference states increases.