We show that any bipartite quantum state of rank four is distillable, when the partial transpose of the state has at least one negative eigenvalue, i.e., the state is NPT. For this purpose we prove that if the partial transpose of a two-qutrit NPT state has two non-positive eigenvalues, then the state is distillable. We further construct a parametrized two-qutrit NPT entangled state of rank five which is not 1-distillable, and show that it is not $n$-distillable for any given $n$ when the parameter is sufficiently small. This state has the smallest rank among all 1-undistillable NPT states. We conjecture that the state is not distillable.
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 introduce a formalism that connections entanglement witnesses and the distillation and activation properties of a state. We apply this formalism to two cases: First, we rederive the results presented in quant-ph/0104095 by Eggeling et al., namely that on copy of any bipartite state with non--positive partial transpose (NPPT) is either distillable, or activable. Second, we show that there exist three--partite NPPT states, with the property that two copies can neither be distilled, nor activated.
We prove that the bipartite entangled state of rank three is distillable. So there is no rank three bipartite bound entangled state. By using this fact, We present some families of rank four states that are distillable. We also analyze the relation between the low rank state and the Werner state.
We show that positivity of {\it every} partial transpose of $N$-partite quantum states implies new inequalities on Bell correlations which are stronger than standard Bell inequalities by a factor of $2^{(N-1)/2}$. A violation of the inequality implies the system is in a bipartite distillable entangled state. It turns out that a family of $N$-qubit bound entangled states proposed by Dür {[Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 87}, 230402 (2001)]} violates the inequality for $N\geq 4$.
We consider bipartite mixed states in a $d\otimes d$ quantum system. We say that $ρ$ is PPT if its partial transpose $1 \otimes T (ρ)$ is positive semidefinite, and otherwise $ρ$ is NPT. The well-known Werner states are divided into three types: (a) the separable states (the same as the PPT states); (b) the one-distillable states (necessarily NPT); and (c) the NPT states which are not one-distillable. We give several different formulations and provide further evidence for validity of the conjecture that the Werner states of type (c) are not two-distillable.
Criteria for distillability, and the property of having a positive partial transpose, are introduced for states of general bipartite quantum systems. The framework is sufficiently general to include systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom, including quantum fields. We show that a large number of states in relativistic quantum field theory, including the vacuum state and thermal equilibrium states, are distillable over subsystems separated by arbitrary spacelike distances. These results apply to any quantum field model. It will also be shown that these results can be generalized t…
We demonstrate the irreversibility of asymptotic entanglement manipulation under quantum operations that completely preserve the positivity of partial transpose (PPT), resolving a major open problem in quantum information theory. Our key tool is a new efficiently computable additive lower bound for the asymptotic relative entropy of entanglement with respect to PPT states, which can be used to evaluate the entanglement cost under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We find that for any rank-two mixed state supporting on the $3\otimes3$ antisymmetric subspace, the amount of dis…
Two-copy distillability of one-copy-undistillable negative-partial-transpose states in every dimension
Hon Hai (Foxconn) Research Institute（鸿海（富士康）研究院）；Department of Physics and Center for Quantum Frontiers of Research & Technology (QFort), National Cheng Kung University（国立成功大学物理系与量子前沿研究与技术中心 (QFort)）
We show that bipartite quantum states of any dimension, which do not have a positive partial transpose, become 1-distillable when one adds an infinitesimal amount of bound entanglement. To this end we investigate the activation properties of a new class of symmetric bound entangled states of full rank. It is shown that in this set there exist universal activator states capable of activating the distillation of any NPPT state.
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…
It is known that entangled mixed states that are positive under partial transposition (PPT states) must have rank at least four. In a previous paper we presented a classification of rank four entangled PPT states which we believe to be complete. In the present paper we continue our investigations of the low rank entangled PPT states. We use perturbation theory in order to construct rank five entangled PPT states close to the known rank four states, and in order to compute dimensions and study the geometry of surfaces of low rank PPT states. We exploit the close connection between low rank PPT …
We conduct quasi-Monte Carlo numerical integrations in two very high (80 and 79)-dimensional domains -- the parameter spaces of rank-9 and rank-8 qutrit-qutrit (9 x 9) density matrices. We, then, estimate the ratio of the probability -- in terms of the Hilbert-Schmidt metric -- that a generic rank-9 density matrix has a positive partial transpose (PPT) to the probability that a generic rank-8 density matrix has a PPT (a precondition to separability/nonentanglement). Close examination of the numerical results generated -- despite certain large fluctuations -- indicates that the true ratio may, …
We explore the relation between the rank of a bipartite density matrix and the existence of bound entanglement. We show a relation between the rank, marginal ranks, and distillability of a mixed state and use this to prove that any rank n bound entangled state must have support on no more than an n \times n Hilbert space. A direct consequence of this result is that there are no bipartite bound entangled states of rank two. We also show that a separability condition in terms of a quantum entropy inequality is associated with the above results. We explore the idea of how many pure states are nee…
We prove an analytic positive lower bound for the geometric distance between entangled positive partial transpose (PPT) states of a broad class and any private state that delivers one secure key bit. Our proof holds for any Hilbert space of finite dimension. Although our result is proven for a specific class of PPT states, we show that our bound nonetheless holds for all known entangled PPT states with non-zero distillable key rates whether or not they are in our special class.
We construct $3\otimes 3$ PPT entangled edge states with maximal ranks, to complete the classification of $3\otimes 3$ PPT entangled edge states by their types. The ranks of the states and their partial transposes are 8 and 6, respectively. These examples also disprove claims in the literature.
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.
In $3\times 3$ dimensions, entangled mixed states that are positive under partial transposition (PPT states) must have rank at least four. They are well understood. We say that they have rank $(4,4)$ since a state $ρ$ and its partial transpose $ρ^P$ both have rank four. The next problem is to understand the extremal PPT states of rank $(5,5)$. We call two states $\textrm{SL}\otimes\textrm{SL}$-equivalent if they are related by a product transformation. A generic rank $(5,5)$ PPT state $ρ$ is extremal, and $ρ$ and $ρ^P$ both have six product vectors in their ranges, and no product vectors in th…
We identify five selected open problems in the theory of quantum information, which are rather simple to formulate, were well-studied in the literature, but are technically not easy. As these problems enjoy diverse mathematical connections, they offer a huge breakthrough potential. The first four concern existence of certain objects relevant for quantum information, namely a family of symmetric informationally complete generalized measurements in an infinite sequence of dimensions, mutually unbiased bases in dimension six, absolutely maximally entangled states for four subsystems with six leve…
It is found that the problem of existence of bound entangled states with non-positive partial transpose (NPPT) has the intriguing relation to the Hilbert's 17th problem. More precisely, we compute the expectation value of the partially transposed Werner states by Schmidt rank-2 vectors for NPPT and 1-copy undistillable region. It is the positive polynomial but shown not to be expressed as the sum of squares of polynomials. A remedy for such pathological behavior as well as a similar but different approach to the problem is also mentioned.
Motivated by the desire to better understand the class of quantum operations on bipartite systems that preserve positivity of partial transpose (PPT operations) and its relation to the class LOCC (local operations and classical communication), we present some results on deterministic bipartite pure state transformations by PPT operations. Restricting our attention to the case where we start with a rank K maximally entangled state, we give a necessary condition for transforming it into a given pure state, which we show is also sufficient when K is two and the final state has Schmidt rank three.…
In bipartite quantum systems of dimension 3x3 entangled states that are positive under partial transposition (PPT) can be constructed with the use of unextendible product bases (UPB). As discussed in a previous publication all the lowest rank entangled PPT states of this system seem to be equivalent, under special linear product transformations, to states that are constructed in this way. Here we consider a possible generalization of the UPB constuction to low-rank entangled PPT states in higher dimensions. The idea is to give up the condition of orthogonality of the product vectors, while kee…
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…
In quantum information theory, it is a fundamental problem to construct multipartite unextendible product bases (UPBs). We show that there exist two families UPBs in Hilbert space $\mathbb{C}^2\otimes\mathbb{C}^2\otimes\mathbb{C}^2\otimes\mathbb{C}^2\otimes\mathbb{C}^2\otimes\mathbb{C}^4$ by merging two different systems of an existing $7$-qubit UPB of size $11$. Moreover, a new family of $7$-qubit positive-partial-transpose (PPT) entangled states of rank $2^7-11$ is constructed. We analytically derive a geometric measure of entanglement of a special PPT entangled states. Also an upper bound a…
It is known that he bipartite quantum states, with rank strictly smaller than the maximum of the ranks of its two reduced states, are distillable by local operations and classical communication. Our first main result is that this is also true for NPT states with rank equal to this maximum. (A state is PPT if the partial transpose of its density matrix is positive semidefinite, and otherwise it is NPT.) This was conjectured first in 1999 in the special case when the two local ranks are equal. Our second main result provides a complete solution of the separability problem for bipartite states of…
The 4-qubit unextendible product basis (UPB) has been recently studied by [Johnston, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 47 (2014) 424034]. From this result we show that there is only one UPB of size $6$ and six UPBs of size $9$ in $\cH=\bbC^2\ox\bbC^2\ox\bbC^4$, three UPBs of size $9$ in $\cK=\bbC^4\ox\bbC^4$, and no UPB of size $7$ in $\cH$ and $\cK$. Furthermore we construct a 4-qubit positive-partial-transpose (PPT) entangled state $\r$ of rank seven, and show that it is also a PPT entangled state in $\cH$ and $\cK$, respectively. We analytically derive the geometric measure of entanglement of a spec…
Entanglement distillation, an essential quantum information processing task, refers to the conversion from multiple copies of noisy entangled states to a smaller number of highly entangled states. In this work, we study the non-asymptotic fundamental limits for entanglement distillation. We investigate the optimal tradeoff between the distillation rate, the number of prepared states, and the error tolerance. First, we derive the one-shot distillable entanglement under completely positive partial transpose preserving operations as a semidefinite program and demonstrate an exact characterization…
Let E' denote the set of non-normalized two-qutrit entangled states of rank four having positive partial transpose (PPT). We show that the set of SLOCC equivalence classes of states in E', equipped with the quotient topology, is homeomorphic to the quotient R/A_5 of the open rectangular box R in the Euclidean space R^4 by an action of the alternating group A_5. We construct an explicit map omega: Omega -> E', where Omega is the open positive orthant in R^4, whose image meets every SLOCC equivalence class E containeed in E'. Although the intersection of the image of omega and E is not necessari…
We consider the problem of existence of bound entangled states with non-positive partial transpose (NPT). As one knows, existence of such states would in particular imply nonadditivity of distillable entanglement. Moreover it would rule out a simple mathematical description of the set of distillable states. Distillability is equivalent to so called n-copy distillability for some n. We consider a particular state, known to be 1-copy nondistillable, which is supposed to be bound entangled. We study the problem of its two-copy distillability, which boils down to show that maximal overlap of some …
Entangled states with a positive partial transpose (PPTES) have interest both in quantum information and in the theory of positive maps. In $3\otimes 3$ there is a conjecture by Sanpera, Bruß and Lewenstein [PRA, 63, 050301] that all PPTES have Schmidt number two (or equivalently that every 2-positive map between $3\times 3$ matrices is decomposable). In order to prove or disprove the conjecture it is sufficient to look at edge PPTES. Here the rank m of the PPTES and the rank n of its partial transpose seem to play an important role. Until recently all known examples of edge PPTES had ranks (4…
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 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 (…
Can vectors with low Schmidt rank form mutually unbiased bases? Can vectors with high Schmidt rank form positive under partial transpose states? In this work, we address these questions by presenting several new results related to Schmidt rank constraints and their compatibility with other properties. We provide an upper bound on the number of mutually unbiased bases of $\mathbb{C}^m\otimes\mathbb{C}^n$ $(m\leq n)$ formed by vectors with low Schmidt rank. In particular, the number of mutually unbiased product bases of $\mathbb{C}^m\otimes\mathbb{C}^n$ cannot exceed $m+1$, which solves a conjec…
Entanglement witnesses (EWs) are a fundamental tool for the detection of entanglement. We study the inertias of EWs, i.e., the triplet of the numbers of negative, zero, and positive eigenvalues respectively. We focus on the EWs constructed by the partial transposition of states with non-positive partial transposes. We provide a method to generate more inertias from a given inertia by the relevance between inertias. Based on that we exhaust all the inertias for EWs in each qubit-qudit system. We apply our results to propose a separability criterion in terms of the rank of the partial transpose …
Numerous work had been done to quantify the entanglement of a two-qubit quantum state, but it can be seen that previous works were based on joint measurements on two copies or more than two copies of a quantum state under consideration. In this work, we show that a single copy and two measurements are enough to estimate the entanglement quantifier like entanglement negativity and concurrence. To achieve our aim, we establish a relationship between the entanglement negativity and the minimum eigenvalue of structural physical approximation of partial transpose of an arbitrary two-qubit state. Th…
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 report here on the results of numerical searches for PPT states with specified ranks for density matrices and their partial transpose. The study includes several bipartite quantum systems of low dimensions. For a series of ranks extremal PPT states are found. The results are listed in tables and charted in diagrams. Comparison of the results for systems of different dimensions reveal several regularities. We discuss lower and upper bounds on the ranks of extremal PPT states.
In this paper, we consider a system of homogeneous algebraic equations in complex variables and their conjugates, which arise naturally from the range criterion for separability of PPT states. We examine systematically these equations to get sufficient conditions for the existence of nontrivial solutions. This gives us possible upper bounds of ranks of PPT entangled edge states and their partial transposes. We will focus on the multi-partite cases which are much more delicate than the bi-partite cases. We use the notion of permanents of matrices as well as techniques from algebraic geometry th…
It is known that beyond $2 \otimes 2$ and $2 \otimes 3$ dimensional quantum systems, Peres-Hordecki criterion is no longer sufficient as an entanglement detection criterion as there are entangled states with both positive and negative partial transpose (PPT and NPT). Further, it is also true that all PPT entangled states are bound entangled states. However, in the class of NPT states, there can exist bound entangled states as well as free entangled states. All free/useful/distillable entanglement is a part of the class of NPT entangled states. In this article, we ask the question that given an…
We study the general representations of positive partial transpose (PPT) states in ${\cal C}^K \otimes {\cal C}^M \otimes {\cal C}^N$. For the PPT states with rank-$N$ a canonical form is obtained, from which a sufficient separability condition is presented.
Quantifying mixed-state entanglement via partial transpose and realignment moments
Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）；Technology Innovation Institute（技术创新研究所）
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 determination of genuine entanglement is a central problem in quantum information processing. We investigate the tripartite state as the tensor product of two bipartite entangled states by merging two systems. We show that the tripartite state is a genuinely entangled state when the range of both bipartite states are entanglement-breaking subspaces. We further investigate the tripartite state when one of the two bipartite states has rank two. Our results provide the latest progress on a conjecture proposed in the paper [Yi Shen $\textit{et al}$, J. Phys. A 53, 125302 (2020)]. We apply our …
In this paper, a class of indecomposable positive finite rank elementary operators of order $(n,n)$ are constructed. This allows us to give a simple necessary and sufficient criterion for separability of pure states in bipartite systems of any dimension in terms of positive elementary operators of order $(2,2)$ and get some new mixed entangled states that can not be detected by the positive partial transpose (PPT) criterion and the realignment criterion.
It is known how to construct, in a bipartite quantum system, a unique low rank entangled mixed state with positive partial transpose (a PPT state) from an unextendible product basis (a UPB), defined as an unextendible set of orthogonal product vectors. We point out that a state constructed in this way belongs to a continuous family of entangled PPT states of the same rank, all related by non-singular product transformations, unitary or non-unitary. The characteristic property of a state $ρ$ in such a family is that its kernel $\Kerρ$ has a generalized UPB, a basis of product vectors, not neces…
It is known that some two qutrit entangled states of rank 4 with positive partial transpose [PPT] can be built from the unextendible product bases [UPB]. We show that this fact is indeed universal, namely all such states can be constructed from UPB. We also classify the 5-dimensional subspaces of two qutrits which contain only finitely many product states (up to scalar multiple), and in particular those spanned by a UPB.
The entanglement properties of random pure states are relevant to a variety of problems ranging from chaotic quantum dynamics to black hole physics. The averaged bipartite entanglement entropy of such states admits a volume law and upon increasing the subregion size follows the Page curve. In this paper, we generalize this setup to random mixed states by coupling the system to a bath and use the partial transpose to study their entanglement properties. We develop a diagrammatic method to incorporate partial transpose within random matrix theory and formulate a perturbation theory in $1/L$, the…
The discovery of entangled quantum states from which one cannot distill pure entanglement constitutes a fundamental recent advance in the field of quantum information. Such bipartite bound-entangled (BE) quantum states \emph{could} fall into two distinct categories: (1) Inseparable states with positive partial transposition (PPT), and (2) States with negative partial transposition (NPT). While the existence of PPT BE states has been confirmed, \emph{only one} class of \emph{conjectured} NPT BE states has been discovered so far. We provide explicit constructions of a variety of multi-copy undis…
