Discrimination and synthesis of recursive quantum states in high-dimensional Hilbert spaces

Abstract: We propose an interferometric method for statistically discriminating between nonorthogonal states in high dimensional Hilbert spaces for use in quantum information processing. The method is illustrated for the case of photon orbital angular momentum (OAM) states. These states belong to pairs of bases that are mutually unbiased on a sequence of two-dimensional subspaces of the full Hilbert space, but the vectors within the same basis are not necessarily orthogonal to each other. Over multiple trials, this method allows distinguishing OAM eigenstates from superpositions of multiple such eigenstates. Variations of the same method are then shown to be capable of preparing and detecting arbitrary linear combinations of states in Hilbert space. One further variation allows the construction of chains of states obeying recurrence relations on the Hilbert space itself, opening a new range of possibilities for more abstract information-coding algorithms to be carried out experimentally in a simple manner. Among other applications, we show that this approach provides a simplified means of switching between pairs of high-dimensional mutually unbiased OAM bases.