Universality of Sequential Quantum Measurements

Abstract: Unavoidable disturbance caused by a quantum measurement implies that the realizable subsequent measurements are getting limited after one performs some measurement. The obvious general limitation that one cannot circumvent by sequential or any other method is that the actually implemented measurements must be jointly measurable. In this work we show that any jointly measurable pair of observables can be obtained in a sequential measurement scheme, even if the second observable would be decided after the first measurement. This universality feature holds only for measurement schemes with a specific structure. As a supplementing result, we provide a characterization of all possible joint measurements obtained from a sequential measurement lacking universality.