Commutator Relations Reveal Solvable Structures in Unambiguous State Discrimination

Abstract

We present a criterion, based on three commutator relations, that allows to decide whether two self-adjoint matrices with non-overlapping support are simultaneously unitarily similar to quasidiagonal matrices, i.e., whether they can be simultaneously brought into a diagonal structure with 2x2-dimensional blocks. Application of this criterion to unambiguous state discrimination provides a systematic test whether the given problem is reducible to a solvable structure. As an example, we discuss unambiguous state comparison.

5 pages, discussion of related work added