Abstract

We study the physical implementation of an optimal tomographic reconstruction scheme for the case of determining the state of a multiqubit system, where trapped ions are used for defining qubits. The protocol is based on the use of mutually unbiased measurements and on the physical information described in H. Häffner [Nature (London) 438, 643 (2005)]. We introduce the concept of physical complexity for different types of unbiased measurements and analyze their generation in terms of one and two qubit gates for trapped ions. © 2008 The American Physical Society.