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In general, a quantum measurement yields an undetermined answer and alters the system to be consistent with the measurement result. This process maps multiple initial states into a single state and thus cannot be reversed. This has important implications in quantum information processing, where errors can be interpreted as measurements. Therefore, it seems that it is impossible to correct errors in a quantum information processor, but protocols exist that are capable of eliminating them if they affect only part of the system. In this work we present the deterministic reversal of a fully projective measurement on a single particle, enabled by a quantum error-correction protocol in a trapped ion quantum information processor. We further introduce an in-sequence, single-species recooling procedure to counteract the motional heating of the ion string due to the measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of ideal quantum measurements is one of the fundamental predictions of quantum mechanics. In theory, an ideal measurement projects a quantum state onto the eigenbasis of the measurement observable, while preserving coherences between eigenstates that have the same eigenvalue. The question arises whether there are processes in nature that correspond to such ideal quantum measurements and how such processes are dynamically implemented in nature. Here we address this question and present experimental results monitoring the dynamics of a naturally occurring measurement process: the coupling of a trapped ion qutrit to the photon environment. By taking tomographic snapshots during the detection process, we show that the process develops in agreement with the model of an ideal quantum measurement with an average fidelity of 94%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]