Experimental Multi-Party Sequential State Discrimination

Abstract: Recently, a protocol for quantum state discrimination (QSD) in a multi-party scenario has been introduced [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 100501 (2013)]. In this protocol, Alice generates a quantum system in one of two pre-defined non-orthogonal qubit states, and the goal is to send the generated state information to different parties without classical communication exchanged between them during the protocol's session. The interesting feature is that, by resorting to sequential generalized measurements onto this single system, there is a non-vanishing probability that all observers identify the state prepared by Alice. Here, we present the experimental implementation of this protocol based on polarization single-photon states. Our scheme works over an optical network, and since QSD lies in the core of many protocols, it represents a step towards experimental multi-party quantum information processing.