Informationally complete POVM

A POVM is informationally complete if its outcome probabilities determine every input density operator uniquely. Its effects must span the real space of Hermitian operators. For a qubit, normalization leaves at most $m-1$ independent probabilities from $m$ outcomes; an arbitrary Bloch vector has three real parameters, so one fixed informationally complete measurement requires at least four outcomes. Using several differently oriented binary measurements is a different experimental setting and can also perform quantum state tomography.

Choose the four unit Bloch vectors at the vertices of a regular tetrahedron, so ${\sum }_i{\mathbf{n}}_i=0$ and ${\sum }_i{\mathbf{n}}_i{\mathbf{n}}_i^T=4I/3$. The displayed four positive rank-one effects sum to $I$. On input $(I+\mathbf{r}\cdot \mathbf{\sigma })/2$, their probabilities are $p_i=(1+\mathbf{r}\cdot {\mathbf{n}}_i)/4$, giving the reconstruction $\mathbf{r}=3{\sum }_i{p}_i{\mathbf{n}}_i$. This realizes the smallest fixed qubit informationally complete POVM.