Noisy entanglement testing for ranging and communication

Given a quantum system S entangled with another system I, the entanglement-testing problem arises, prompting the identification of the system S within a set of m≥2 identical systems. This scenario serves as a model for the measurement task encountered in quantum ranging and entanglement-assisted communication [Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 240501, (2021)]. In this context, the optimal measurement approach typically involves joint measurements on all m+1 systems. However, we demonstrate that this is not the case when the subsystems containing system S are subjected to entanglement-breaking noise. Our approach utilizes the recently developed measurement technique of correlation-to-displacement conversion. We present a structured design for the entanglement-testing measurement, implementable with local operations and classical communications (LOCC) on the m+1 systems, while joint between multiple identical copies. Furthermore, we prove that this measurement approach, combining Gaussian operations and on and off photon detection, achieves optimality in terms of error probability asymptotically under noisy conditions. When applied to quantum illumination, our measurement design enables optimal ranging in scenarios with low signal brightness and high levels of noise. Similarly, when applied to entanglement-assisted pulse-position-modulated classical communication, the measurement design leads to a significant relative advantage in communication rates, particularly in scenarios with low signal brightness.