We study the quantum communication protocol of remote state preparation (RSP)
for pure states of qubits encoded in single photons transmitted through a
double slit, the so-called spatial qubits. Two measurement strategies that one
can adopt to remotely prepare the states are discussed. The first strategy is
the well-known spatial postselection, where a single-pixel detector measures
the transverse position of the photon between the focal and the image plane of
a lens. The second strategy, proposed by ourselves, is a generalized
measurement divided into two steps: the implementation of a two-outcome
positive operator-valued measurement (POVM) followed by the spatial
postselection at the focal plane of the lens by a two-pixel detector in each
output of the POVM. In both cases we analyze the effects of the finite spatial
resolution of the detectors over three figures of merit of the protocol,
namely, the probability of preparation, the fidelity and purity of the remotely
prepared states. It is shown that our strategy improves these figures compared
with spatial postselection, at the expense of increasing the classical
communication cost as well as the required experimental resources. In addition,
we present a modified version of our strategy for RSP of spatial qudits which
is able to prepare arbitrary pure states, unlike spatial postselection alone.
We expect that our study may also be extended for RSP of the angular spectrum
of a single-photon field as an alternative for quantum teleportation which
requires very inefficient nonlinear interactions.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures. Published versio