Experimental characterisation of unsharp qubit observables and sequential measurement incompatibility via quantum random access codes

Abstract: Unsharp measurements are increasingly important for foundational insights in quantum theory and quantum information applications. Here, we report an experimental implementation of unsharp qubit measurements in a sequential communication protocol, based on a quantum random access code. The protocol involves three parties; the first party prepares a qubit system, the second party performs operations which return both a classical and quantum outcome, and the latter is measured by the third party. We demonstrate a nearly-optimal sequential quantum random access code that outperforms both the best possible classical protocol and any quantum protocol which utilises only projective measurements. Furthermore, while only assuming that the involved devices operate on qubits and that detected events constitute a fair sample, we demonstrate the noise-robust characterisation of unsharp measurements based on the sequential quantum random access code. We apply this characterisation towards quantifying the degree of incompatibility of two sequential pairs of quantum measurements.