A new preprint posted to arXiv — not yet peer-reviewed — proposes a significant generalization of a foundational connection in quantum information theory. The work addresses the long-studied relationship between entanglement and state distinguishability, which has typically been formalized only under the assumption of complementary bases (as in quantum error correction). The authors claim this assumption is far stronger than necessary.
The central result is that a property called irreducibility of a POVM (positive operator-valued measure) is sufficient to establish a quantitative bound linking two error quantities: the infidelity of a one-sided local transformation toward a maximally entangled state, and the failure probability in state discrimination. When both errors vanish simultaneously, the paper characterizes precisely what that implies. The authors further apply this framework to entanglement distillation and quantum error correction, arguing that these protocols' performance can be certified purely from classical input-output correlations obtained through local measurements — no complementarity required.
The paper also claims to bridge two historically separate lines in quantum measurement theory — the information gain versus irreversibility trade-off and the noise-disturbance trade-off — under a single framework. These are notable claims with broad potential implications for experimental certification of quantum protocols, but readers should bear in mind this is an unreviewed preprint and the results await independent scrutiny.