Statistical reconstruction of qutrits

We discuss a procedure of measurement followed by the reproduction of the quantum state of a three-level optical system--a frequency--and spatially degenerate two-photon field. The method of statistical estimation of the quantum state based on solving the likelihood equation and analyzing the statistical properties of the obtained estimates is developed. Using the root approach of estimating quantum states, the initial two-photon state vector is reproduced from the measured fourth moments in the field. The developed approach applied to quantum-state reconstruction is based on the amplitudes of mutually complementary processes. The classical algorithm of statistical estimation based on the Fisher information matrix is generalized to the case of quantum systems obeying Bohr's complementarity principle. It has been experimentally proved that biphoton-qutrit states can be reconstructed with the fidelity of 0.995-0.999 and higher