The positive partial transpose test is one of the main criteria for detecting entanglement, and the set of states with positive partial transpose is considered as an approximation of the set of separable states. However, we do not know to what extent this criterion, as well as the approximation, are efficient. In this paper, we show that the positive partial transpose test gives no bound on the distance of a density matrix from separable states. More precisely, we prove that, as the dimension of the space tends to infinity, the maximum trace distance of a positive partial transpose state from separable states tends to 1. Using similar techniques, we show that the same result holds for other well-known separability criteria such as reduction criterion, majorization criterion and symmetric extension criterion. We also bring an evidence that the sets of positive partial transpose states and separable states have totally different shapes.
We analyze a class of positive partial transpose states (PPT) such that the positivity of its partial transposition is recognized with respect to canonical factorization of the original density operator (Cholesky block decomposition). We call such PPT states strong PPT states (SPPT). This property, contrary to PPT, is basis dependent. It is shown that there exists a proper subset of SPPT states which are separable and provide a separable decomposition for any of these states.
We show that the convex set of separable mixed states of the 2 x 2 system is a body of constant height. This fact is used to prove that the probability to find a random state to be separable equals 2 times the probability to find a random boundary state to be separable, provided the random states are generated uniformly with respect to the Hilbert-Schmidt (Euclidean) distance. An analogous property holds for the set of positive-partial-transpose states for an arbitrary bipartite system.
In the convex set of all $3\ot 3$ states with positive partial transposes, we show that one can take two extreme points whose convex combinations belong to the interior of the convex set. Their convex combinations may be even in the interior of the convex set of all separable states. In general, we need at least $mn$ extreme points to get an interior point by their convex combination, for the case of the convex set of all $m\ot n$ separable states. This shows a sharp distinction between PPT states and separable states. We also consider the same questions for positive maps and decomposable maps…
Usual separability criteria applicable to distinguishable particles are not applicable to identical particles. Here we show that Partial transposition and symmetrization (or anti symmetrization) of density matrix of bipartite boson systems (fermion systems) can be used to check whether a state is separable or not.By using determinant based separability criteria it has been found that bipartite states of identical particles are always separable. It is found that partial transposition and symmetrization is equivalent to realignment criteria proposed by Wu.
We construct faces of the convex set of all $2\otimes 4$ bipartite separable states, which are affinely isomorphic to the simplex $Δ_{9}$ with ten extreme points. Every interior point of these faces is a separable state which has a unique decomposition into 10 product states, even though ranks of the state and its partial transpose are 5 and 7, respectively. We also note that the number 10 is greater than $2\times 4$, to disprove a conjecture on the lengths of qubit-qudit separable states. This face is inscribed in the corresponding face of the convex set of all PPT states so that sub-simplice…
We show that all quantum states that do not have a positive partial transpose are distillable via channels, which preserve the positivity of the partial transpose. The question whether NPT bound entanglement exist is therefore closely related to the connection between the set of separable superoperators and PPT-preserving maps.
We construct a large class of bipartite M x N quantum states which defines a proper subset of states with positive partial transposes (PPT). Any state from this class is PPT but the positivity of its partial transposition is recognized with respect to canonical factorization of the original density operator. We propose to call elements from this class states with strong positive partial transposes (SPPT). We conjecture that all SPPT states are separable.
We show that all $2\otimes 4$ states with strong positive partial transposes (SPPT) are separable. We also construct a family of $2\otimes 5$ entangled SPPT states, so the conjecture on the separability of SPPT states are completely settled. In addition, we clarify the relation between the set of all $2\otimes d$ separable states and the set of all $2\otimes d$ SPPT states for the case of $d=3,4$.
We investigate conditions on a finite set of multi-partite product vectors for which separable states with corresponding product states have unique decomposition, and show that this is true in most cases if the number of product vectors is sufficiently small. In the three qubit case, generic five dimensional spaces give rise to faces of the convex set consisting of all separable states, which are affinely isomorphic to the five dimensional simplex with six vertices. As a byproduct, we construct three qubit entangled PPT edge states of rank four with explicit formulae. This covers those entangl…
The absolute separability problem asks for a characterization of the quantum states $ρ\in M_m\otimes M_n$ with the property that $UρU^\dagger$ is separable for all unitary matrices $U$. We investigate whether or not it is the case that $ρ$ is absolutely separable if and only if $UρU^\dagger$ has positive partial transpose for all unitary matrices $U$. In particular, we develop an easy-to-use method for showing that an entanglement witness or positive map is unable to detect entanglement in any such state, and we apply our method to many well-known separability criteria, including the range cri…
We investigate separability and entanglement of mixed states in ${\cal C}^2\otimes{\cal C}^2\otimes{\cal C}^N$ three party quantum systems. We show that all states with positive partial transposes that have rank $\le N$ are separable. For the 3 qubit case (N=2) we prove that all states $ρ$ that have positive partial transposes and rank 3 are separable. We provide also constructive separability checks for the states $ρ$ that have the sum of the rank of $ρ$ and the ranks of partial transposes with respect to all subsystems smaller than 15N-1.
We use the linear programming algorithm introduced by Akulin et al. [V. M. Akulin, G. A. Kabatiansky, and A. Mandilara, Phys. Rev. A 92, 042322 (2015)] to perform best separable approximation on two-qutrit random density matrices. We combine the numerical results with theoretical methods in order to generate random representative families of positive partial transposed bound entangled (BE) states and analyze their properties. Our results are disclosing that for the two-qutrit system the BE states have negligible volume and that these form tiny `islands' sporadically distributed over the surfac…
Power symmetric matrices defned and studied by R. Sinkhorn (1981) and their generalization by R.B. Bapat, S.K. Jain and K. Manjunatha Prasad (1999) have been utilized to give positive block matrices with trace one possessing positive partial transpose, the so-called PPT states. Another method to construct such PPT states is given, it uses the form of a matrix unitarily equivalent to its transpose obtained by S.R. Garcia and J.E. Tener (2012). Evolvement or suppression of separability or entanglement of various levels for a quantum dynamical semigroup of completely positive maps has been studie…
We prove that the minimal Renyi entropy of order 2 (RE2) output of a positive-partial-transpose(PPT)-inducing channel joint to an arbitrary other channel is equal to the sum of the minimal RE2 output of the individual channels. PPT-inducing channels are channels with a Choi matrix which is bound entangled or separable. The techniques used can be easily recycled to prove additivity for some non-PPT-inducing channels such as the depolarizing and transpose depolarizing channels, though not all known additive channels. We explicitly make the calculations for generalized Werner-Holevo channels as a…
In this note a very crude but simple approximation to the set of separable states in an arbitrary simplex of commutative states is given using the fact that on the lines connecting the maximally mixed state and an arbitrary pure state the positivity of the partial transpose is both necessary and sufficient condition for separability of states. The lower limit to the volume of separable states in a simplex is slightly improved.
We construct one parameter families of three qubit separable states with length ten, which is strictly greater than the whole dimension eight. These states are located on the boundary of the convex set of all separable states, but they are in the interior of the convex set of all states with positive partial transposes. They are also decomposed into the convex sum of ten pure product states in a unique way.
We show that the length of a qubit-qutrit separable state is equal to the max(r,s), where r is the rank of the state and s is the rank of its partial transpose. We refer to the ordered pair (r,s) as the birank of this state. We also construct examples of qubit-qutrit separable states of any feasible birank (r,s). We determine the closure of the set of normalized two-qutrit entangled states of rank four having positive partial transpose (PPT). The boundary of this set consists of all separable states of length at most four. We prove that the length of any qubit-qudit separable state of birank (…
Using the Hilbert-Schmidt (HS) decomposition we suggest new possible choices of Bell operators and entanglement witnesses (EW ) for n (>2) qubits systems for (full/bi) separability. The latter give upper bounds for (full/bi) separability. Also using the HS decomposition, we find explicitly (full/bi) separable forms for some qubits states which give lower bounds for (full/bi) separability. When the lower bounds and upper bounds coincide it means that the EW is optimal. In the case of full separability, the positive transpose method can sometimes give optimal results. As concrete examples, we gi…
We address an open question about the existence of entangled continuous-variable (CV) Werner states with positive partial transpose (PPT). We prove that no such state exists by showing that all PPT CV Werner states are separable. The separability follows by observing that these CV Werner states can be approximated by truncating the states into a finite-dimensional convex mixture of product states. In addition, the constituents of the product states comprise a generalized non-Gaussian measurement which gives, rather surprisingly, a strictly tighter upper bound on quantum discord than photon cou…
We analyze the separability properties of density operators supported on $\C^2\otimes \C^N$ whose partial transposes are positive operators. We show that if the rank of $ρ$ equals N then it is separable, and that bound entangled states have rank larger than N. We also give a separability criterion for a generic density operator such that the sum of its rank and the one of its partial transpose does not exceed 3N. If it exceeds this number we show that one can subtract product vectors until decreasing it to 3N, while keeping the positivity of $ρ$ and its partial transpose. This automatically gi…
We study the distinguishability of bipartite quantum states by Positive Operator-Valued Measures with positive partial transpose (PPT POVMs). The contributions of this paper include: (1). We give a negative answer to an open problem of [M. Horodecki $et. al$, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 047902(2003)] showing a limitation of their method for detecting nondistinguishability. (2). We show that a maximally entangled state and its orthogonal complement, no matter how many copies are supplied, can not be distinguished by PPT POVMs, even unambiguously. This result is much stronger than the previous known on…
The Peres-Horodecki criterion of positivity under partial transpose is studied in the context of separability of bipartite continuous variable states. The partial transpose operation admits, in the continuous case, a geometric interpretation as mirror reflection in phase space. This recognition leads to uncertainty principles, stronger than the traditional ones, to be obeyed by all separable states. For all bipartite Gaussian states, the Peres-Horodecki criterion turns out to be necessary and sufficient condition for separability.
We show how to design families of operational criteria that distinguish entangled from separable quantum states. The simplest of these tests corresponds to the well-known Peres-Horodecki positive partial transpose (PPT) criterion, and the more complicated tests are strictly stronger. The new criteria are tractable due to powerful computational and theoretical methods for the class of convex optimization problems known as semidefinite programs. We successfully applied the results to many low-dimensional states from the literature where the PPT test fails. As a byproduct of the criteria, we prov…
We construct a set of PPT (positive partial transpose) states and show that these PPT states are not separable, thus present a class of bound entangled quantum states.
The partial transpose (PT) is an important function for entanglement testing and quantification and also for the study of geometrical aspects of the quantum state space. In this article, considering general bipartite and multipartite discrete systems, explicit formulas ready for the numerical implementation of the PT and of related entanglement functions are presented and the Fortran code produced for that purpose is described. What is more, we obtain an analytical expression for the Hilbert-Schmidt entanglement of two-qudit systems and for the associated closest separable state. In contrast t…
We have studied mixed states in the system of three qubits with the property that all their partial transposes are positive, these are called PPT states. We classify a PPT state by the ranks of the state itself and its three single partial transposes. In random numerical searches we find entangled PPT states with a large variety of rank combinations. For ranks equal to five or higher we find both extremal and nonextremal PPT states of nearly every rank combination, with the restriction that the square sum of the four ranks of an extremal PPT state can be at most 193. We have studied especially…
We investigate the Peres-Horodecki positive partial transpose (PPT) criterion in the context of conserved quantities and derive a condition of in- separability for a composite bipartite system depending only on the dimen- sions of its subsystems, which leads to a bi-linear entanglement witness for the two qubit system. A separability inequality using generalized Schrodinger- Robertson uncertainty relation taking suitable operators, has been derived, which proves to be stronger than the bi-linear entanglement witness operator. In the case of mixed density matrices, it identically distinguishes …
We present a framework for deciding whether a quantum state is separable or entangled using covariance matrices of locally measurable observables. This leads to the covariance matrix criterion as a general separability criterion. We demonstrate that this criterion allows to detect many states where the familiar criterion of the positivity of the partial transpose fails. It turns out that a large number of criteria which have been proposed to complement the positive partial transpose criterion - the computable cross norm or realignment criterion, the criterion based on local uncertainty relatio…
We investigate the asymptotic behavior of the empirical eigenvalues distribution of the partial transpose of a random quantum state. The limiting distribution was previously investigated via Wishart random matrices indirectly (by approximating the matrix of trace 1 by the Wishart matrix of random trace) and shown to be the semicircular distribution or the free difference of two free Poisson distributions, depending on how dimensions of the concerned spaces grow. Our use of Wishart matrices gives exact combinatorial formulas for the moments of the partial transpose of the random state. We find …
The positivity of the partial transpose is in general only a necessary condition for separability. There exist quantum states that are not separable, but nevertheless are positive under partial transpose. States of this type are known as bound entangled states meaning that these states are entangled but they do not allow distillation of pure entanglement by means of local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We present a parametrization of a class of $2\times 2$ bound entangled Gaussian states for bipartite continuous-variable quantum systems with two modes on each side. We propose a…
Given integers n $\geq$ m, let Sep(n,m) be the set of separable states on the Hilbert space $\mathbb{C}^n \otimes \mathbb{C}^m$. It is well-known that for (n,m)=(3,2) the set of separable states has a simple description using semidefinite programming: it is given by the set of states that have a positive partial transpose. In this paper we show that for larger values of n and m the set Sep(n,m) has no semidefinite programming description of finite size. As Sep(n,m) is a semialgebraic set this provides a new counterexample to the Helton-Nie conjecture, which was recently disproved by Scheiderer…
As a consequence of having a positive partial transpose, bound entangled states lack many of the properties otherwise associated with entanglement. It is therefore interesting to identify properties that distinguish bound entangled states from separable states. In this paper, it is shown that some bound entangled states violate a non-symmetric class of local uncertainty relations (quant-ph/0212090). This result indicates that the asymmetry of non-classical correlations may be a characteristic feature of bound entanglement.
In this paper, we study the separability of quantum states in bosonic system. Our main tool here is the "separability witnesses", and a connection between "separability witnesses" and a new kind of positivity of matrices--- "Power Positive Matrices" is drawn. Such connection is employed to demonstrate that multi-qubit quantum states with Dicke states being its eigenvectors is separable if and only if two related Hankel matrices are positive semidefinite. By employing this criterion, we are able to show that such state is separable if and only if it's partial transpose is non-negative, which co…
This note deals with estimating the volume of the set of separable mixed quantum states when the dimension of the state space grows to infinity. This has been studied recently for qubits; here we consider larger particles and conclude that, in all cases, the proportion of the states that are separable is super-exponentially small in the dimension of the set. We also show that the partial transpose criterion becomes imprecise when the dimension increases, and that the lower bound $6^{-N/2}$ on the (Hilbert-Schmidt) inradius of the set of separable states on N qubits obtained recently by Gurvits…
Let K, K' be convex cones residing in finite-dimensional real vector spaces E, E'. An element in the tensor product E \otimes E' is K \otimes K'-separable if it can be represented as finite sum \sum_l x_l \otimes x'_l with x_l \in K and x_l' \in K' for all l. Let S(n), H(n), Q(n) be the spaces of n x n real symmetric, complex hermitian and quaternionic hermitian matrices, respectively. Let further S_+(n), H_+(n), Q_+(n) be the cones of positive semidefinite matrices in these spaces. If a matrix in H(mn) = H(m) \otimes H(n) is H_+(m) \otimes H_+(n)-separable, then it fulfills also the so-called…
We study families of positive and completely positive maps acting on a bipartite system $\mathbb{C}^M\otimes \mathbb{C}^N$ (with $M\leq N$). The maps have a property that when applied to any state (of a given entanglement class) they result in a separable state, or more generally a state of another certain entanglement class (e.g., Schmidt number $\leq k$). This allows us to derive useful families of sufficient separability criteria. Explicit examples of such criteria have been constructed for arbitrary $M,N$, with a special emphasis on $M=2$. Our results can be viewed as generalizations of th…
General physical background of Peres-Horodecki positive partial transpose (ppt-) separability criterion is revealed. Especially, the physical sense of partial transpose operation is shown to be equivalent to the "local causality reversal" (LCR-) procedure for all separable quantum systems or to the uncertainty in a global time arrow direction in all entangled cases. Using these universal causal considerations the heuristic causal separability criterion has been proposed for arbitrary $ D^{N} \times D^{N}$ density matrices acting in $ \mathcal{H}_{D}^{\otimes N} $ Hilbert spaces which describe …
Motivated by the separability problem in quantum systems $2\otimes4$, $3\otimes3$ and $2\otimes2\otimes2$, we study the maximal (proper) faces of the convex body, $S_1$, of normalized separable states in an arbitrary quantum system with finite-dimensional Hilbert space $H=H_1\otimes H_2\otimes\cdots\otimes H_n$. To any subspace $V$ of $H$ we associate a face $F_V$ of $S_1$ consisting of all states $ρ\in S_1$ whose range is contained in $V$. We prove that $F_V$ is a maximal face if and only if $V$ is a hyperplane. If $V$ is the hyperplane orthogonal to a product vector, we prove that $\dim F_V=…
We consider a bipartite quantum system H_A x H_B with M=dim H_A and N=dim H_B. We study the set E of extreme points of the compact convex set of all states having positive partial transpose (PPT) and its subsets E_r={rho in E: rank rho=r}. Our main results pertain to the subsets E_r^{M,N} of E_r consisting of states whose reduced density operators have ranks M and N, respectively. The set E_1 is just the set of pure product states. It is known that E_r^{M,N} is empty for 1< r <= min(M,N) and for r=MN. We prove that also E_{MN-1}^{M,N} is empty. Leinaas, Myrheim and Sollid have conjectured that…
We introduce the notions of positive and copositive types for entanglement witnesses, depending on the distance to the positive part and copositive part. An entanglement witness $W$ is of positive type if and only if its partial transpose $W^Γ$ is of copositive type. We show that if the structural physical approximation of $W$ is separable then $W$ should be of copositive type, and the SPA of $W^Γ$ is never separable unless $W$ is of both positive and copositive type. This shows that the SPA conjecture is meaningful only for those of copositive type. We provide examples to show that the SPA co…
We study quantum information aspects of the fermionic entanglement negativity recently introduced in [Phys. Rev. B 95, 165101 (2017)] based on the fermionic partial transpose. In particular, we show that it is an entanglement monotone under the action of local quantum operations and classical communications--which preserves the local fermion-number parity-- and satisfies other common properties expected for an entanglement measure of mixed states. We present fermionic analogs of tripartite entangled states such as W and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states and compare the results of bosonic and …
We propose a Partial Lorentz Transformation (PLT) test for detecting entanglement in a two qubit system. One can expand the density matrix of a two qubit system in terms of a tensor product of $(\mathbb{I}, \vecσ)$. The matrix $A$ of the coefficients that appears in such an expansion can be "squared" to form a $4\times4$ matrix $B$. It can be shown that the eigenvalues $λ_0, λ_1, λ_2, λ_3$ of $B$ are positive. With the choice of $λ_0$ as the dominant eigenvalue, the separable states satisfy $\sqrt{λ_1}+\sqrt{λ_2}+\sqrt{λ_3}\leq \sqrt{λ_0}$. Violation of this inequality is a test of entanglemen…
We investigate the set a) of positive, trace preserving maps acting on density matrices of size N, and a sequence of its nested subsets: the sets of maps which are b) decomposable, c) completely positive, d) extended by identity impose positive partial transpose and e) are superpositive. Working with the Hilbert-Schmidt (Euclidean) measure we derive tight explicit two-sided bounds for the volumes of all five sets. A sample consequence is the fact that, as N increases, a generic positive map becomes not decomposable and, a fortiori, not completely positive. Due to the Jamiolkowski isomorphism, …
In this paper we consider the separability problem for bipartite quantum states arising from graphs. Earlier it was proved that the degree criterion is the graph-theoretic counterpart of the familiar positive partial transpose criterion for separability, although there are entangled states with positive partial transpose for which the degree criterion fails. Here we introduce the concept of partially symmetric graphs and degree symmetric graphs by using the well-known concept of partial transposition of a graph and degree criteria, respectively. Thus, we provide classes of bipartite separable …
Separability criteria are typically of the necessary, but not sufficient, variety, in that satisfying some separability criterion, such as positivity of eigenvalues under partial transpose, does not strictly imply separability. Certifying separability amounts to proving the existence of a decomposition of a target mixed state into some convex combination of separable states; determining the existence of such a decomposition is "hard." We show that it is effective to ask, instead, if the target mixed state "fits" some preconstructed separable form, in that one can generate a sufficient separabi…
