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No-go theorems on probabilistically enhancing measurement incompatibility’s advantages
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  • Published: 20 May 2026

No-go theorems on probabilistically enhancing measurement incompatibility’s advantages

  • Huan-Yu Ku1,
  • Chung-Yun Hsieh2 &
  • Costantino Budroni3 

npj Quantum Information (2026) Cite this article

We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

Subjects

  • Information theory and computation
  • Quantum information
  • Quantum physics
  • Theoretical physics

Abstract

We show that the quantum advantages arising from incompatibility of a set of measurements cannot be enhanced by subjecting them to a filter, namely, by combining them with a device that post-selects the incoming states on a fixed outcome of a stochastic transformation. This result holds for several measures of incompatibility, such as those based on robustness and convex weight. As an application, we show that, for Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, our no-go results determine the maximum steerability attainable under the most general local filters, together with an explicit expression for the optimal filter. Moreover, our results generalize to nonphysical maps, i.e., positive but not completely positive linear maps.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge fruitful discussions with Joonwoo Bae, Jessica Bavaresco, Shin-Liang Chen, Máté Farkas, Erkka Haapasalo, Yeong-Cherng Liang, Simon Milz, Miguel Navascués, Bartosz Regula, Yen-An Shih, Anthony Short, Paul Skrzypczyk, Ryuji Takagi, and Hao-Cheng Weng. This work is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, (Grants No. MOST 112-2112-M-003-020-MY3), the Higher Education Sprout Project of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan, the Royal Society through Enhanced Research Expenses (NFQI), the ERC Advanced Grant (FLQuant), and the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (“Quantum complementarity: a novel resource for quantum science and technologies” with Grant No. ECF-2024-310).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Huan-Yu Ku

  2. H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Chung-Yun Hsieh

  3. Department of Physics “E. Fermi” University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Costantino Budroni

Authors
  1. Huan-Yu Ku
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  2. Chung-Yun Hsieh
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  3. Costantino Budroni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chung-Yun Hsieh.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Cite this article

Ku, HY., Hsieh, CY. & Budroni, C. No-go theorems on probabilistically enhancing measurement incompatibility’s advantages. npj Quantum Inf (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-026-01270-7

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  • Received: 07 February 2025

  • Accepted: 06 May 2026

  • Published: 20 May 2026

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-026-01270-7

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npj Quantum Information (npj Quantum Inf)

ISSN 2056-6387 (online)

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