Equivalence relations between conical 2-designs and mutually unbiased generalized equiangular tight frames

Abstract: Quantum measurements play a fundamental role in quantum information. Therefore, increasing efforts are being made to construct symmetric measurement operators for qudit systems. A wide class of projective measurements corresponds to complex projective 2-designs, which include symmetric, informationally complete (SIC) POVMs and mutually unbiased bases (MUBs). In this paper, we establish a one-to-one correspondence between conical 2-designs and mutually unbiased generalized equiangular tight frames, both of which are common generalizations of SIC POVMs and MUBs to operators of arbitrary rank. It turns out that there exist rich families of operators that belong to only one of those two classes. This raises important questions about which symmetries have to be preserved for applicational prominence.