Cyclic measurements and simplified quantum state tomography

Quantum 9, 1763 (2025).

https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2025-06-04-1763

Tomographic reconstruction of quantum states plays a fundamental role in benchmarking quantum systems and accessing information encoded in quantum-mechanical systems. Among the informationally complete sets of quantum measurements, the tight ones provide a linear reconstruction formula and minimize the propagation of statistical errors. However, implementing tight measurements in the lab is challenging due to the high number of required measurement projections, involving a series of experimental setup preparations. In this work, we introduce the notion of cyclic tight measurements, which allow us to perform full quantum state tomography while considering only repeated application of a single unitary-based quantum device during the measurement stage. This type of measurement significantly simplifies the complexity of the experimental setup required to retrieve the quantum state of a physical system. Additionally, we design a feasible setup preparation procedure that produces well-approximated cyclic tight measurements in every finite dimension.