Auxiliary Schmidt Rank as a Resource for Photonic Bell Measurements

Abstract

In quantum communication and fusion-based quantum computation, photonic Bell measurements are fundamentally limited when only passive linear optics is employed. While for qubits, some Bell states can be unambiguously identified with static beam splitters and no extra photons or entanglement, additional auxiliary photons or at least additional auxiliary degrees of freedom with a certain level of additional entanglement are needed to approach or attain a complete, deterministic Bell measurement. Here, we prove an exact resource threshold when the same two photons carry system qudits of dimension $d$ and a fixed auxiliary entangled state $Φ$, possibly distributed over several additional degrees of freedom, with total Schmidt rank $r_Φ$. We show that a single conclusive Bell-label functional can occur for $r_Φ\geqslant\lceil d/2\rceil$, but deterministic discrimination of all $d^2$ Bell-state labels requires $r_Φ\geqslant d$. A maximally entangled rank-$d$ auxiliary state achieves the bound by local Bell-basis sorting between each photon's system and auxiliary degrees of freedom. Thus, the auxiliary Schmidt rank is a certified resource for ancilla-photon-free, embedded photonic Bell measurements.