Quantum tomography for non-iid sources

arXiv:2602.22057v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Quantum state and process tomography are typically analyzed under the assumption that devices emit independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) states or channels. In realistic experiments, however, noise, drift, feedback, or adaptive behavior can violate this assumption. We show that projected least-squares tomography remains statistically optimal even under fully adaptive state and channel preparation. Specifically, we prove that the sample complexity for reconstructing the time-averaged state or channel matches the optimal i.i.d. scaling up to logarithmic factors for non-adaptive, single-copy measurements. For average states of rank $r$, the sample complexity is $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(d r^2/\epsilon^2)$ to achieve trace-norm accuracy $\epsilon$, while for process tomography it is $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(d^6/\epsilon^2)$ to achieve diamond-norm accuracy $\epsilon$. Thus, dropping the i.i.d.\ assumption does not increase the fundamental sample complexity of quantum tomography, but only changes the interpretation of the reconstructed object. Finally, by tracking the drift of the source using only past outcomes, we certify high average preparation purity and entanglement even when the time-averaged state is mixed or separable.