Coherence based on positive operator-valued measures for standard and concatenated quantum state discrimination with inconclusive results

Abstract: The optimal measurement that discriminates nonorthogonal quantum states with fixed rates of inconclusive outcomes (FRIO) can be decomposed into an assisted separation of the inputs, yielding conclusive and inconclusive outputs, followed by a minimum-error (ME) measurement for the conclusive ones (standard FRIO) or both ones (concatenated FRIO). The implementation of these measurements is underpinned by quantum resources, and here we investigate coherence based on positive operator-valued measures (POVMs) as a resource for both strategies in discriminating equally probable symmetric states of arbitrary dimension. First, we show that the POVM coherence in the assisted separation stage decomposes into the coherence of the ancillary state and the quantum discord between the system and the ancilla, evidencing coherence as a more elementary resource than quantum correlations. Next, it is demonstrated that the POVM coherence for standard and concatenated FRIO decomposes into the POVM coherence measures for state separation and ME measurement, weighted by the probabilities of occurrence of each event. Due to the ME discrimination of inconclusive states, the coherence required for the concatenated scheme is shown to be greater than that of the standard one. We discuss other general aspects of our results by characterizing the POVM coherence in the discrimination of qutrit states, with respect to the distinguishability of the inputs and the inconclusive rate. Finally, by exploiting POVM-based coherence as a quantifier of cryptographic randomness gain, we discuss the standard and concatenated FRIO strategies from the perspective of generating random bits that are secret to an eavesdropper.