Epsilon-smooth measure of coherence

Abstract

In this paper, by minimizing the coherence quantifiers over all states in an $ε$ ball around a given state, we define a generalized smooth quantifier, called the $ε$-smooth measure of coherence. We use it to estimate the difference between the expected state and the actually prepared state and quantify quantum coherence contained in an actually prepared state, and it can been interpreted as the minimal coherence guaranteed to present in an $ε$ ball around given quantum state. We find that the $ε$-smooth measure of any coherence monotone is still a coherence monotone, but it does not satisfy monotonicity on average under incoherent operations. We show the $ε$-smooth measure of coherence is continuous even if the original coherence quantifier is not. We also study the $ε$-smooth measure of distance-based coherence quantifiers, and some interesting properties are given. Moreover, we discuss the dual form of the $ε$-smooth measure of coherence by maximizing over all states in an $ε$ ball around the given state and show that the dual $ε$-smooth measure of coherence provides an upper bound of one-shot coherence distillation.