Maximum-likelihood estimation of quantum measurement -: art. no. 024102

Maximum-likelihood estimation is applied to the determination of an unknown quantum measurement. The calibrated measuring apparatus carries out measurements on many different quantum states and the positive operator-valued measure governing the measurement statistics is then inferred from the collected data via the maximum-likelihood principle. In contrast to the procedures based on linear inversion, our approach always provides a physically sensible result. We illustrate the method on the case of the Stem-Gerlach apparatus.