Distributed sampling, quantum communication witnesses, and measurement incompatibility

Abstract

We study prepare-and-measure experiments where the sender (Alice) receives trusted quantum inputs but has an untrusted state-preparation device and the receiver (Bob) has a fully untrusted measurement device. A distributed-sampling task naturally arises in this scenario, where the goal is for Alice and Bob to reproduce the statistics of his measurements on her quantum inputs using a fixed communication channel. Their performance of this task can certify quantum communication (QC), and this is formalized by measurement-device-independent QC witnesses. Furthermore, we prove that QC can provide an advantage (over classical communication) for distributed sampling if and only if Bob's measurements are incompatible. This gives an operational interpretation to measurement incompatibility and motivates a generalized notion of it related to a subset of quantum states. Our findings have both fundamental and applied implications.