Coherent state evolution in a superconducting qubit from partial-collapse measurement

Science. 2006 Jun 9;312(5779):1498-500. doi: 10.1126/science.1126475.

Abstract

Measurement is one of the fundamental building blocks of quantum-information processing systems. Partial measurement, where full wavefunction collapse is not the only outcome, provides a detailed test of the measurement process. We introduce quantum-state tomography in a superconducting qubit that exhibits high-fidelity single-shot measurement. For the two probabilistic outcomes of partial measurement, we find either a full collapse or a coherent yet nonunitary evolution of the state. This latter behavior explicitly confirms modern quantum-measurement theory and may prove important for error-correction algorithms in quantum computation.