Flipping qubits

On a classical level the information can be represented by bits, each of which can be either 0 or 1. Quantum information, on the other hand, consists of qubits which can be represented as two-level quantum systems with one level labeled |0> and the other |1>. Unlike bits, qubits cannot only be in one of the two levels, but in any superposition of them as well. This superposition principle makes quantum information fundamentally different from its classical counterpart. One of the most striking difference between the classical and quantum information is as follows: it is not a problem to flip a classical bit, i.e., to change the value of a bit, a 0 to a 1 and vice versa. This is accomplished by a NOT gate. Flipping a qubit, however, is another matter: there exists the fundamental bound which prohibits to flip a qubit prepared in an arbitrary state |Ψ>=α|0> and to obtain the state |ΨT>=β*|0>-α*|1> which is orthogonal to it, i.e., <ΨT|Ψ>=0. We experimentally realize the best possible approximation of the qubit flipping that achieves bounds imposed by complete positivity of quantum mechanics