Resource theories are broad frameworks that capture how useful objects are in performing specific tasks. In this paper we devise a formal resource theory quantum measurements, focusing on the ability of a measurement to acquire information. The objects of the theory are equivalence classes of positive operator-valued measures, and the free transformations are changes to a measurement device that can only deteriorate its ability to report information about a physical system. We show that catalysis and purification, protocols that are possible in other resource theories, are impossible in our resource theory for quantum measurements. Standard measures of information gain are shown to be resource monotones, and the resource theory is applied to the task of quantum state discrimination.

资源理论是一个广泛的框架，它捕捉对象在执行特定任务时的有用程度。在本文中，我们设计了一个正式的资源理论量子测量，重点是测量获取信息的能力。该理论的对象是正算子值度量的等价类，而自由变换是对度量设备的更改，它只会降低其报告物理系统信息的能力。我们表明催化和纯化，在其他资源理论中可能的协议，在我们的量子测量资源理论中是不可能的。信息增益的标准度量被证明是资源单调的，并且资源理论被应用于量子状态区分的任务。