We extend the quantum discord to continuous variable systems and evaluate Gaussian quantum discord C(ρ) for bipartite Gaussian states. In particular, for squeezed thermal states (STS), we explicitly maximize the extractable information over Gaussian measurements: C(ρ) is minimized by a generalized measurement rather than a projective one. Almost all STS have nonzero Gaussian discord: they may be either separable or entangled if the discord is below the threshold C(ρ)=1, whereas they are all entangled above the threshold. We elucidate the general role of state parameters in determining the discord and discuss its evolution in noisy channels.
Gaussian quantum discord is a measure of quantum correlations in Gaussian systems. Using Gaussian discord we quantify the quantum correlations of a bipartite entangled state and a separable two-mode mixture of coherent states. We experimentally analyze the effect of noise addition and dissipation on Gaussian discord and show that the former noise degrades the discord while the latter noise for some states leads to an increase of the discord. In particular, we experimentally demonstrate the near-death of discord by noisy evolution and its revival through dissipation.
In this paper, we theoretically prove that the Gaussian quantum discord state of optical field can be used to complete continuous variable (CV) quantum key distribution (QKD). The calculation shows that secret key can be distilled with a Gaussian quantum discord state against entangling cloner attack. Secret key rate is increased with the increasing of quantum discord for CV QKD with the Gaussian quantum discord state. Although the calculated results point out that secret key rate using the Gaussian quantum discord state is lower than that using squeezed state and coherent state at the same en…
We introduce an operational discord-type measure for quantifying nonclassical correlations in bipartite Gaussian states based on using Gaussian measurements. We refer to this measure as operational Gaussian discord (OGD). It is defined as the difference between the entropies of two conditional probability distributions associated to one subsystem, which are obtained by performing optimal local and joint Gaussian measurements. We demonstrate the operational significance of this measure in terms of a Gaussian quantum protocol for extracting maximal information about an encoded classical signal. …
We address the experimental estimation of Gaussian quantum discord for two-mode squeezed thermal state, and demonstrate a measurement scheme based on a pair of homodyne detectors assisted by Bayesian analysis which provides nearly optimal estimation for small value of discord. Besides, though homodyne detection is not optimal for Gaussian discord, the noise ratio to the ultimate quantum limit, as dictacted by the quantum Cramer-Rao bound, is limited to about 10 dB.
In recent years the paradigm based on entanglement as the unique measure of quantum correlations has been challenged by the rise of new correlation concepts, such as quantum discord, able to reveal quantum correlations that are present in separable states. It is in general difficult to compute quantum discord, because it involves a minimization over all possible local measurements in a bipartition. In the realm of continuous variable (CV) systems, a Gaussian version of quantum discord has been put forward upon restricting to Gaussian measurements. It is natural to ask whether non-Gaussian meas…
Quantum discord quantifies how much Alice's system is disrupted after a measurement is performed on Bob's. Conceptually, this behavior acts the same way as quantum steering and we find that the discord grows with better steering from Bob to Alice. Using Venn diagrams, the relations between the different classes of Gaussian continuous variable entanglement and the links to discord for the squeezed-thermal states are established. We identify a directional quantum teleportation task for each class of squeezed-thermal state entanglement, and establish a unified signature for quantum steering, enta…
Quantum discord is a measure of non-classical correlations, which are excess correlations inherent in quantum states that cannot be accessed by classical measurements. For multipartite states, the classically accessible correlations can be defined by the mutual information of the multipartite measurement outcomes. In general the quantum discord of an arbitrary quantum state involves an optimisation of over the classical measurements which is hard to compute. In this paper, we examine the quantum discord in the experimentally relevant case when the quantum states are Gaussian and the measuremen…
Especially investigated in recent years, the Gaussian discord can be quantified by a distance between a given two-mode Gaussian state and the set of all the zero-discord two-mode Gaussian states. However, as this set consists only of product states, such a distance captures all the correlations (quantum and classical) between modes. Therefore it is merely un upper bound for the geometric discord, no matter which is the employed distance. In this work we choose for this purpose the Hellinger metric that is known to have many beneficial properties recommending it as a good measure of quantum beh…
We cast the problem of illuminating an object in a noisy environment into a communication protocol. A probe is sent into the environment, and the presence or absence of the object constitutes a signal encoded on the probe. The probe is then measured to decode the signal. We calculate the Holevo information and bounds to the accessible information between the encoded and received signal with two different Gaussian probes---an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state and a coherent state. We also evaluate the Gaussian discord consumed during the encoding process with the EPR probe. We find that the H…
In the framework of the theory of open systems, we give a description of quantum entanglement and quantum discord for two non-interacting modes embedded in a thermal environment. We describe the evolution of entanglement in terms of the covariance matrix for Gaussian input states. For all values of the temperature of the thermal reservoir, an initial separable squeezed thermal state remains separable for all times. In the case of an entangled initial squeezed thermal state, entanglement suppression (entanglement sudden death) takes place, for non-zero temperatures of the environment. The Gauss…
We experimentally determine the quantum discord present in two-mode squeezed vacuum generated by a four-wave mixing process in hot rubidium vapor. The frequency spectra of the discord, as well as the quantum and classical mutual information are also measured. In addition, the effects of symmetric attenuation introduced into both modes of the squeezed vacuum on the discord, the quantum mutual information and the classical correlations are examined experimentally. Finally, we show that due to the multi-spatial-mode nature of the four-wave mixing process, the quantum discord may exhibit sub- or s…
We introduce a measurement-based method for verifying quantum discord of any bipartite quantum system. We show that by performing an informationally complete POVM (IC-POVM) on one subsystem and checking the commutativity of the conditional states of the other subsystem, quantum discord from the second subsystem to the first can be verified. This is an improvement upon previous methods, which enables us to efficiently apply our method to continuous-variable systems, as IC-POVMs are readily available from homodyne or heterodyne measurements. We show that quantum discord for Gaussian states can b…
We analyze the evolution of the Gaussian discord between two resonant harmonic oscillators coupled to a common environment. For this, we use the same tools we applied before to fully characterize the evolution of the entanglement in this system [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 220401 (2008)]. The asymptotic value of Gaussian discord is obtained as a function of parameters characterizing the environment (temperature, couplings, etc.) and the initial state of the system (initial squeezing, initial purity, etc.) The type of Gaussian measurement optimizing the extraction of information between the oscillato…
We provide experimental evidence of quantum features in bi-partite states classified as entirely classical according to a conventional criterion based on the Glauber P-function but possessing non-zero Gaussian quantum discord. Their quantum nature is experimentally revealed by acting locally on one part of the discordant state. Adding an environmental system purifying the state, we unveil the flow of quantum correlations within a global pure system using the Koashi-Winter inequality. We experimentally verify and investigate the counterintuitive effect of discord increase under the action of lo…
We introduce a simple and efficient technique to verify quantum discord in unknown Gaussian states and a certain class of non-Gaussian states. We show that any separation in the peaks of the marginal distributions of one subsystem conditioned on two different outcomes of homodyne measurements performed on the other subsystem indicates correlation between the corresponding quadratures, and hence nonzero discord. We also apply this method to non-Gaussian states that are prepared by overlapping a statistical mixture of coherent and vacuum states on a beam splitter. We experimentally demonstrate t…
Consider two bosonic modes which are prepared in one of two possible Gaussian states with the same local energy: either a tensor-product thermal state (with zero correlations) or a separable Gaussian state with maximal correlations (with both classical and quantum correlations, the latter being quantified by quantum discord). For the discrimination of these states, we compare the optimal joint coherent measurement with the best local measurement based on single-mode Gaussian detections. We show how the coherent measurement always strictly outperforms the local detection strategy for both singl…
Protecting quantum correlation from decoherence is one of the crucial issues in quantum information processing. It has been commonly recognized that any initial quantum correlation of a composite system diminishes asymptotically or abruptly to zero under local Markovian decoherence. Here we show that, contrary to this recognition, a noticeable Gaussian quantum discord of a continuous-variable bipartite system can be frozen in the steady state in the non-Markovian dynamics if each of the subsystems forms a localized mode with its local reservoir. The condition for this frozen quantum discord ca…
In the framework of the theory of open systems based on completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups, we give a description of the continuous-variable quantum entanglement and quantum discord for a system consisting of two noninteracting modes embedded in a thermal environment. Entanglement and discord are used to quantify the quantum correlations of the system. For all values of the temperature of the thermal reservoir, an initial separable Gaussian state remains separable for all times. We study the time evolution of logarithmic negativity, which characterizes the degree of entanglement,…
Here, we compare the behavior of the quantum discord, 1-norm geometric quantum discord and concurrence under the effect of decoherence for XXX Heisenberg spin chain. Their dependencies on temperature and coupling constant are presented in detail. By a comparison between them we can see that quantum discord and 1-norm geometric quantum discord are more robust than the concurrence against decoherence in the sense that quantum discord and 1-norm geometric quantum discord takes a nonzero value and decrease asymptotically, while the concurrence is zero in a large range of parameters including tempe…
Quantum discord-breaking channels were previously defined as the local channels that act on subsystem $A$ to produce classical-quantum states across system $AB$. However, unlike entanglement, discord is asymmetric. Here, we characterise the discord-breaking channels that act on subsystem $B$, thus completing the overall description of discord-breaking channels. We then introduce the notion of discord-annihilating channels, which act globally on system $AB$ to destroy quantum discord, and find their closed form. Discord-annihilating channels have clear operational description, involving subspac…
We study bipartite quantum discord as a manifestation of a multipartite entanglement structure in the tripartite purified system. In particular, we find that bipartite quantum discord necessarily manifests itself in the presence of both bipartite and tripartite entanglement in the purification. This allows one to understand the asymmetry of quantum discord (between D[A,B] and D[B,A]) in terms of entanglement monogamy. As instructive special cases, we study discord for qubits and Gaussian states in detail. As a result of this we shed new light on a counterintuitive property of Gaussian states: …
Quantum discord, a measure of quantum correlation beyond entanglement, is initially defined as the discord between two classically equivalent while quantum discordant definitions of mutual information. In this paper, we report some new interpretations of discord which rely on the differences between measurement induced effects on the local measured system and the whole system. Specifically, with proper quantitative definitions introduced in [Buscemi, Hayashi and Horodecki, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 2210504 (2008)], we find that quantum discord can be interpreted as the differences of measurement i…
Quantum discord was proposed as an information theoretic measure of the ``quantumness'' of correlations. I show that discord determines the difference between the efficiency of quantum and classical Maxwell's demons in extracting work from collections of correlated quantum systems.
Hilbert - Schmidt and trace norm geometric quantum discord are compared with regard to their behavior during local time evolution. We consider the system of independent two - level atoms with time evolution given by the dissipative process of spontaneous emission. It is explicitly shown that the Hilbert - Schmidt norm discord has nonphysical properties with respect to such local evolution and cannot serve as a reasonable measure of quantum correlations and the better choice is to use trace norm discord as such a measure.
We extend the geometric measure of quantum discord, introduced and computed for two-qubit states in [B. Dakic, C. Brukner, and V. Vedral, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)], to quantify non-classical correlations in composite Gaussian states of continuous variable systems. We lay the formalism for the evaluation of a Gaussian geometric discord in two-mode Gaussian states, and present explicit formulas for the class of two-mode squeezed thermal states. In such a case, under physical constraints of bounded mean energy, geometric discord is shown to admit upper and lower bounds for a fixed valu…
Quantum discord is an effective measure of quantum correlation introduced by Olliver and Zurek. We evaluate analytically the quantum discord for a large family of non-X-states. Exact solutions of the quantum discord are obtained of the four parametric space for non-X-states. Dynamic behavior of the quantum discord is also explored under the action of the Kraus operator.
We show that two qubits initially in completely classical state can create quantum discord through a local generalized amplitude damping channel, but high temperature will impede the creating of quantum discord.
Preserving quantum coherence is fundamental challenge in the field of quantum computation. Here, I investigate the frozen discord phenomenon and non-Markovianity for qubits experiencing local dephasing in a classical environment. The quantum discord of a certain initial bipartite state, independently interacting with stochastic Gaussian fields, can be frozen for a finite time. The preservation of discord is shown to be intimately related to the backflow of information from the environment. The relevant result for quantum dephasing environment is compared.
Like entanglement, quantum discord quantifies the quantum correlations. Unlike entanglement, whose detection is extremely difficult, the quantum discord of an arbitrary bipartite state allows itself to be detected perfectly by a single observable, the quantum discord witness. In particular, we report a single observable whose expectation value provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the vanishing quantum discord of an arbitrary bipartite unknown state with four copies. A quantum circuit is designed to measure the quantum discord witness by using only local qubit-measurements.
For any bipartite state, how strongly can one subsystem be quantum correlated with another? Using the Koashi-Winter relation, we study the upper bound of purified quantum discord, which is given by the sum of the von Neumann entropy of the unmeasured subsystem and the entanglement of formation shared between the unmeasured subsystem with the environment. In particular, we find that the Luo et al.'s conjecture on the quantum correlations and the Lindblad conjecture are all ture, when the entanglement of formation vanishes. Let the difference between the left discord and the right discord be cap…
The original definition of quantum discord of bipartite states was defined over projective measurements, in this paper we discuss some generalizations of it. These generalizations are defined over general measurements, rank-one general measurements or Neumark extension measurements. We investigate the nonnegativity, zero-discord sets of all these quantum discords and some properties about them.
Quantum discord has been studied extensively as a measure of non-classical correlations which includes entanglement as a subset. Although it is well known that non-zero discord can exist without entanglement, the origin of quantum discord is not well understood as compared to entanglement, which manifests itself more simply as inseparable higher dimensional quantum superposition. In this paper we establish the discordlike correlation of bipartite coherence and then compare it to quantum discord. Consequently, we show that the minimum of the discordlike correlation of coherence coincides with t…
One of the defining differences between classical and quantum systems is how measurements affect them. Here, we compare the approaches of contextuality and quantum discord in capturing quantum correlations in special classes of two-qubit states, demonstrating that although non-discordant states are non-contextual, discordant states are not always contextual.
The quantum discord of bipartite systems is one of the best-known measures of non-classical correlations and an important quantum resource. In the recent work appeared in [Phys. Rev. Lett 2020, 124:110401], the quantum discord has been generalized to multipartite systems. In this paper, we give analytic solutions of the quantum discord for tripartite states with fourteen parameters.
Using the Gaussian Rényi-2 entropy, we analyse the behaviour of two different aspects of quantum correlations (entanglement and quantum discord) in two optomechanical subsystems (optical and mechanical). We work in the resolved sideband and weak coupling regimes. In experimentally accessible parameters, we show that it is possible to create entanglement and quantum discord in the considered subsystems by quantum fluctuations transfer from either light to light or light to matter. We find that both mechanical and optical entanglement are strongly sensitive to thermal noises. In particular, we f…
Using Tsallis-q entropy, we introduce the generalized concept of global quantum discord, namely the q-global quantum discord, and provide its analytic evaluation for two classes of multi-qubit states. We also provide a sufficient condition, for which the pairwise quantum correlations in terms of q-global quantum discord is monogamous in multi-party quantum systems.
We have analytically calculated the quantum discord for a system composed of spin-$j$ and spin-1/2 subsystems possessing SU(2) symmetry. We have compared our results with the quantum discord of states having similar symmetries and seen that in our case amount of quantum discord is much higher. Moreover, using the well known entanglement properties of these states, we have also compared their quantum discord with entanglement. Although the system under consideration is separable nearly all throughout of its parameter space as $j$ increases, we have seen that discord content remains significantl…
Quantum discord and quantum uncertainty are two important features of the quantum world. In this work, the relation between entropic uncertainty relation and the shareability of quantum discord is studied. First, by using tripartite quantum-memory-assisted entropic uncertainty relation, an upper bound for the shareability of quantum discord among different partites of a composite system is obtained. It is also shown that, for a specific class of tripartite states, the obtained relation could be expressed as monogamy of quantum discord. Moreover, it is illustrated that the relation could be gen…
Measurements of Quantum Systems disturb their states. To quantify this non-classical characteristic, Zurek and Ollivier introduced the quantum discord, a quantum correlation which can be nonzero even when entanglement in the system is zero. Discord has aroused great interest as a resource that is more robust against the effects of decoherence and offers exponential speed up of certain computational algorithms. Here, we study general two-level bipartite systems and give general results on the relationship between discord, entanglement, and linear entropy, and identify the states for which disco…
In this paper, we consider quantum correlations (quantum discord and local quantum uncertainty) in a vertical quantum dot. Their dependencies on magnetic field and temperature are presented in detail. It is noticeable that, quantum discord and local quantum uncertainty behavior is similar to a large extent. In addition, the time evolution of quantum discord and local quantum uncertainty under dephasing and amplitude damping channels is investigated. It has been found that, for some Belldiagonal states quantum discord is invariant under some decoherence in a finite time interval [Phys. Rev. Let…
We evaluate analytically the quantum discord for a large family of multiqubit states. It is interesting to note that the quantum discord of three-qubits and five-qubits is the same, as is the quantum discord of two-qubits and six-qubits. We discover that the quantum discord of this family states can be concluded into three categories. The level surfaces of the quantum discord in the three categories is shown through images. Furthermore, we investigated the dynamic behavior of quantum discord under decoherence. For the odd partite systems, we prove the frozen phenomenon of quantum discord doesn…
It has been proven that the quantum discord is a more general tool to capture non-classical correlation than quantum entanglement, because there is a non-zero quantum discord in several mixed states that could not be measured by quantum entanglement. But because of optimization part in formulating quantum discord, it is very difficult and nearly impossible to find quantum discord for some quantum states. So people proposed geometric quantum discord, which in a bipartite state could be describe as the distance of the states from the closest zero-discord state. To understand better geometric qua…
Gaussian geometric discord, entanglement and EPR-steering of two rotational mirrors in a double Laguerre-Gaussian cavity optomechanics in the presence of YIG sphere
Quantum discord measures quantum correlation by comparing the quantum mutual information with the maximal amount of mutual information accessible to a quantum measurement. This paper analyzes the properties of diagonal discord, a simplified version of discord that compares quantum mutual information with the mutual information revealed by a measurement that correspond to the eigenstates of the local density matrices. In contrast to the optimized discord, diagonal discord is easily computable; it also finds connections to thermodynamics and resource theory. Here we further show that, for the ge…
We consider the quantum discord in a two-particle spin-1/2 system (dimer) governed by the standard multiple quantum (MQ) Hamiltonian and reveal the relation between the discord and the intensity of the second-order MQ coherence. Since the coherence intensities may be measured in experiment, we obtain a method of detecting the quantum discord in experiment. Comparison of discord and concurrence is represented.
Entanglement is known to be an essential resource for many quantum information processes. However, it is now known that some quantum features may be acheived with quantum discord, a generalized measure of quantum correlation. In this paper, we study how quantum discord, or more specifically, the measures of entropic discord and geometric discord are affected by the influence of amplitude damping decoherence. We also show that a protocol deploying weak measurement and quantum measurement reversal can effectively protect quantum discord from amplitude damping decoherence, enabling to distribute …
As quantum technologies move from the issues of principle to those of practice, it is important to understand the limitations on attaining tangible quantum advantages. In the realm of quantum communication, quantum discord captures the damaging effects of a decoherent environment. This is a consequence of quantum discord quantifying the advantage of quantum coherence in quantum communication. This establishes quantum discord as a resource for quantum communication processes. We discuss this progress, which derives a quantitative relation between the yield of the fully quantum Slepian-Wolf prot…
We present a dynamic approach to study the quantum discord and classical correlation. By local filtering operation, the evaluation of quantum discord is closely related to quantum channel and channel capacity. As a consequence, the traditional optimization over horizontal-or-vertical von Neumann measurements is replaced by that over horizontal-and-vertical three-element POVM measurement, from which more rigorous results of quantum discord are obtained.
Quantum discord characterizes "non-classicality" of correlations in quantum mechanics. It has been proposed as the key resource present in certain quantum communication tasks and quantum computational models without containing much entanglement. We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of non-zero quantum discord for any dimensional bipartite states. This condition is easily experimentally implementable. Based on this, we propose a geometrical way of quantifying quantum discord. For two qubits this results in a closed form of expression for discord. We apply our results…
Xu [Jianwei Xu, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 45 405304 (2012)] generalized geometric quantum discord [B.Dakic, V. Vedral, and C . Brukner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 190502 (2010)] to multipartite states and proposed the geometric global quantum discord. In this paper, we first derive the analytical formulas of the geometric global quantum discord and geometric quantum discord for two-qubit X states, respectively. Second, we give five concrete examples to demonstrate the use of our formulas. Finally, we prove that the geometric quantum discord is a tight lower bound of the geometric global quantum disco…
We investigate the dynamics of quantum discord during the purification process. In the case of Werner states, it is shown that quantum discord is increased after a round of purification protocol. Furthermore, quantum mutual information and classical correlation is also increased during this process.Wealso give an analytic expression for a class of higher dimensional states which have additive quantum discord.
The quantum discord was introduced by Ollivier, Zurek, Henderson and Vedral as an indicator of the degree of quantumness of mixed states. In this paper, we give out the decomposition condition of quantum discords. Moreover, we show that under the condition, the quantum correlations between the quantum systems can be captured completely by the entanglement measure.
Weak measurements cause small change to quantum states, thereby opening up the possibility of new ways of manipulating and controlling quantum systems. We ask, can weak measurements reveal more quantum correlation in a composite quantum state? We prove that the weak measurement induced quantum discord, called as the "super quantum discord", is always larger than the quantum discord captured by the strong measurement. Moreover, we prove the monotonicity of the super quantum discord as a function of the measurement strength. We find that unlike the normal quantum discord, for pure entangled stat…
Quantum discord is usually referred to as a measure for quantum correlations. In the search of the fundamental resource to gain a quantum advantage in quantum information applications, quantum discord is considered a promising candidate. In this paper we present an alternative view on quantum correlations in terms of the rank of the correlation matrix as introduced by Dakic, Vedral, and Brukner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)]. According to our analysis, information about the quantum discord does not necessarily determine the amount of quantum correlations but rather the quantumness of th…
Quantum discord witnesses the nonclassicality of quantum states even when there is no entanglement in these quantum states. This type of quantum correlation also has some interesting and significant applications in quantum information processing. Quantum discord has been evaluated explicitly only for certain class of two-qubit states. We extend the previous studies to $2 \otimes d$ quantum systems and derive an analytical expression for quantum discord for a two-parameter class of states for $d \geq 3$. We compare quantum discord, classical correlation, and entanglement for qubit-qutrit system…
Recent measures of nonclassical correlations are motivated by different notions of classicality and operational means. Quantum discord has received a great deal of attention in studies involving quantum computation, metrology, dynamics, many-body physics, and thermodynamics. In this article I show how quantum discord is different from quantum entanglement from a pedagogical point of view. I begin with a pedagogical introduction to quantum entanglement and quantum discord, followed by a historical review of quantum discord. Next, I give a novel definition of quantum discord in terms of any clas…
Two-qubit X-state is a large class of quantum states which plays an important role in the quantification and dynamical study of quantum correlations. However, the corresponding quantification of quantum discord is still missing for bona fide discord measures, like original quantum discord, Bures distance of discord, and relative entropy of discord. In this paper, we consider the calculation of Bures distance of discord, which is a kind of correlation satisfying all criteria of a discord measure, for two-qubit X-states. Firstly, we derive an explicit expression for Bures distance of discord for…
