Unambiguous state discrimination of two mixed bipartite states via local operations and classical communications (LOCC) is studied and compared with the result of a scheme realized via global measurement. We show that the success probability of a global scheme for mixed-state discrimination can be achieved perfectly by the local scheme. In addition, we simulate this discrimination via a pair of pure entangled bipartite states. This simulation is perfect for local rather than global schemes due to the existence of entanglement and global coherence in the pure states. We also prove that LOCC protocol and the sequential state discrimination (SSD) can be interpreted in a unified view. We then hybridize the LOCC protocol with three protocols (SSD, reproducing and broadcasting) relying on classical communications. Such hybridizations extend the gaps between the optimal success probability of global and local schemes, which can be eliminated only for the SSD rather than the other two protocols.
Local distinguishability of bipartite unitary operations has recently received much attention. A nontrivial and interesting question concerning this subject is whether there is a sequential scheme for locally discriminating between two bipartite unitary operations, because a sequential scheme usually represents the most economic strategy for discrimination. An affirmative answer to this question was given in the literature, however with two limitations: (i) the unitary operations to be discriminated were limited to act on $d\otimes d$, i.e., a two-qudit system, and (ii) the inverses of the uni…
Based on our previous publication [U. Herzog and J. A. Bergou, Phys.Rev. A 71, 050301(R) (2005)] we investigate the optimum measurement for the unambiguous discrimination of two mixed quantum states that occur with given prior probabilities. Unambiguous discrimination of nonorthogonal states is possible in a probabilistic way, at the expense of a nonzero probability of inconclusive results, where the measurement fails. Along with a discussion of the general problem, we give an example illustrating our method of solution. We also provide general inequalities for the minimum achievable failure p…
We derive a general lower bound on the minimum-error probability for {\it ambiguous discrimination} between arbitrary $m$ mixed quantum states with given prior probabilities. When $m=2$, this bound is precisely the well-known Helstrom limit. Also, we give a general lower bound on the minimum-error probability for discriminating quantum operations. Then we further analyze how this lower bound is attainable for ambiguous discrimination of mixed quantum states by presenting necessary and sufficient conditions related to it. Furthermore, with a restricted condition, we work out a upper bound on th…
We derive a lower bound for the concurrence of mixed bipartite quantum states, valid in arbitrary dimensions. As a corollary, a weaker, purely algebraic estimate is found, which detects mixed entangled states with positive partial transpose.
We prove a lower bound for Schmidt numbers of bipartite mixed states. This lower bound can be applied easily to low rank bipartite mixed states. From this lower bound it is known that generic low rank bipartite mixed states have relatively high Schmidt numbers and thus entangled. We can compute Schmidt numbers exactly for some mixed states by this lower bound as shown in Examples. This lower bound can also be used effectively to determine that some mixed states cannot be convertible to other mixed states by local operations and classical communication. The results in this paper are proved by O…
We introduce algebraic sets in the complex projective spaces for the mixed states in bipartite quantum systems as their invariants under local unitary operations. The algebraic sets of the mixed state have to be the union of the linear subspaces if the mixed state is separable. Some examples are given and studied based on our criterion
We present a practical scheme for the decomposition of a bipartite mixed state into a sum of direct products of local density matrices, using the technique developed in Li and Qiao (Sci. Rep. 8: 1442, 2018). In the scheme, the correlation matrix which characterizes the bipartite entanglement is first decomposed into two matrices composed of the Bloch vectors of local states. Then we show that the symmetries of Bloch vectors are consistent with that of the correlation matrix, and the magnitudes of the local Bloch vectors are lower bounded by the correlation matrix. Concrete examples for the sep…
The teleportation channel associated with an arbitrary bipartite state denotes the map that represents the change suffered by a teleported state when the bipartite state is used instead of the ideal maximally entangled state for teleportation. This work presents and proves an explicit expression of the teleportation channel for the teleportation using Weyl's projective unitary representation of the space of 2n-tuples of numbers from Z/dZ for integers d>1, n>0, which has been known for n=1. This formula allows any correlation among the n bipartite mixed states, and an application shows the exis…
We examine a class of bipartite mixed states which we call X states and report several analytic results related to the occurrence of so-called entanglement sudden death (ESD) under time evolution in the presence of common types of environmental noise. Avoidance of sudden death by application of purely local operations is shown to be feasible in some cases.
We prove that all purifications of a non-factorable state (i.e., the state which cannot be expressed in a form $ρ_{AB}=ρ_A\otimesρ_B$) are entangled. We also show that for any bipartite state there exists a pair of measurements which are correlated on this state if and only if the state is non-factorable.
It is shown that for each mixed state there exists a Schmidt (super state vector) decomposition in terms of Hermitian operators. Its utilization for finding all twins is illustrated in full detail in the case of the two spin-one-half-particle states with maximally disordered subsystems (mixtures of Bell states).
The nonlocal properties of arbitrary dimensional bipartite quantum systems are investigated. A complete set of invariants under local unitary transformations is presented. These invariants give rise to both sufficient and necessary conditions for the equivalence of quantum states under local unitary transformations: two density matrices are locally equivalent if and only if all these invariants have equal values.
Given a bipartite quantum system represented by a tensor product of two Hilbert spaces, we give an elementary argument showing that if either component space is infinite-dimensional, then the set of nonseparable density operators is trace-norm dense in the set of all density operators (and the separable density operators nowhere dense). This result complements recent detailed investigations of separability, which show that when both component Hilbert spaces are finite-dimensional, there is a separable neighborhood (perhaps very small for large dimensions) of the maximally mixed state.
Quantum secret sharing is one of the most important and interesting quantum information processing task. In quantum secret sharing, information is split among several parties such that only one of them is able to recover the qubit exactly provided all the other parties agree to cooperate. To achieve this task, all the parties need to share entangled state. As far as my knowledge, all the previous quantum secret sharing protocol used either pure tripartite or pure bipartite entangled state. In this work we use for the first time bipartite two qubit mixed state (formed due to noisy environment) …
In this paper, we consider the problem of unambiguous discrimination between a set of mixed quantum states. We first divide the density matrix of each mixed state into two parts by the fact that it comes from ensemble of pure quantum states. The first part will not contribute anything to the discrimination, the second part has support space linearly independent to each other. Then the problem we consider can be reduced to a problem in which the strategy of set discrimination can be used in designing measurements to discriminate mixed states unambiguously. We find a necessary and sufficient con…
We prove a tight and close-to-optimal lower bound on the effectiveness of local quantum measurements (without classical communication) at discriminating any two bipartite quantum states. Our result implies, for example, that any two orthogonal quantum states of a $n_A\times n_B$ bipartite quantum system can be discriminated via local measurements with an error probability no larger than $\frac12 \left(1 - \frac{1}{c \min\{n_A, n_B\}} \right)$, where $1\leq c\leq 2\sqrt2$ is a universal constant, and our bound scales provably optimally with the local dimensions $n_A,n_B$. Mathematically, this i…
We present observable lower and upper bounds for the entanglement of formation (EOF) and quantum discord (QD), which facilitates estimates of EOF and QD for arbitrary experimental unknown states in finite-dimensional bipartite systems. These bounds can be easily obtained by a few experimental measurements on a twofold copy $\varrho\otimes\varrho$ of the mixed states. Based on our results, we use the experimental measurement data of the real experiment given by Schmid \textit{et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{101}, 260505 (2008)] to obtain the lower and upper bounds of EOF and QD for the experi…
We develop a concept of entanglement percolation for long-distance singlet generation in quantum networks with neighboring nodes connected by partially entangled bipartite mixed states. We give a necessary and sufficient condition on the class of mixed network states for the generation of singlets. States beyond this class are insufficient for entanglement percolation. We find that neighboring nodes are required to be connected by multiple partially entangled states and devise a rich variety of distillation protocols for the conversion of these states into singlets. These distillation protocol…
The Schmidt coefficients capture all entanglement properties of a pure bipartite state and therefore determine its usefulness for quantum information processing. While the quantification of the corresponding properties in mixed states is important both from a theoretical and a practical point of view, it is considerably more difficult, and methods beyond estimates for the concurrence are elusive. In particular this holds for a quantitative assessment of the most valuable resource, the maximum possible Schmidt number of an arbitrary mixed state. We derive a framework for lower bounding the appr…
The ability to teleport entanglement through maximally entangled mixed states as defined by concurrence and linear entropy is studied. We show how the teleported entanglement depends on the quality of the quantum channel used, as defined through its entanglement and mixedness, as well as the form of the target state to be teleported. We present new results based on the fidelity of the teleported state as well as an experimental set-up that is immediately implementable with currently available technology.
We give necessary conditions for the mixing problem in bipartite case, which are independent of eigenvalues and based on algebraic-geometric invariants of the bipartite states. One implication of our results is that for some special bipartite mixed states, only special mixed states in a measure zero set can be used to mix to get them. The results indicate for many physical problems on composite quantum systems the description based on majorization of eigenvalues is not sufficient
In this thesis we study the problem of unambiguously discriminating two mixed quantum states. We first present reduction theorems for optimal unambiguous discrimination of two generic density matrices. We show that this problem can be reduced to that of two density matrices that have the same rank $r$ in a 2$r$-dimensional Hilbert space. These reduction theorems also allow us to reduce USD problems to simpler ones for which the solution might be known. As an application, we consider the unambiguous comparison of $n$ linearly independent pure states with a simple symmetry. Moreover, lower bound…
We review the problem of discriminating entangled states from separable states for bipartite systems. We formally define what entangled states are, present some important criteria to detect entanglement, and show how they can be classified according to their capability to perform some precisely defined tasks.
For finite-dimensional bipartite quantum systems, we find the exact size of the largest balls, in spectral $l_p$ norms for $1 \le p \le \infty$, of separable (unentangled) matrices around the identity matrix. This implies a simple and intutively meaningful geometrical sufficient condition for separability of bipartite density matrices: that their purity $\tr ρ^2$ not be too large. Theoretical and experimental applications of these results include algorithmic problems such as computing whether or not a state is entangled, and practical ones such as obtaining information about the existence or n…
We provide a unifying framework for exact, probabilistic, and approximate conversions by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) between bipartite states. This framework allows us to formulate necessary and sufficient conditions for LOCC conversions from pure states to mixed states and it provides necessary conditions for LOCC conversions between mixed states. The central idea is the introduction of convex sets for exact, probabilistic, and approximate conversions, which are closed under LOCC operations and which are largely characterized by simple properties of pure states.
Quantum correlations in compound systems are of great importance, and they are fundamental resource for the development of quantum computation protocols and quantum information. In this work we construct bipartite pure coherent states using the $f$-deformed oscillator formalism and the Barut-Girardello deformation function. Also we construct the extension of these systems to mixed states using Werner like states. For the states constructed, we study the dependence of the entanglement and quantum discord upon the deformation and mixed parameters.
We investigate the asymptotic rates of entanglement transformations for bipartite mixed states by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We analyse the relations between the rates for different transitions and obtain simple lower and upper bound for these transitions. In a transition from one mixed state to another and back, the amount of irreversibility can be different for different target states. Thus in a natural way, we get the concept of "amount" of irreversibility in asymptotic manipulations of entanglement. We investigate the behaviour of these transformation rates for di…
In this paper, we treat an asymptotic hypothesis testing (or state discrimination with asymmetric treatment of errors) between an arbitrary fixed bipartite pure state and the completely mixed state by one-way LOCC, two-way LOCC, and separable POVMs. As a result, we derive single-letterized formulas for the Stein's lemma type of optimal error exponents under one-way LOCC, two-way LOCC and separable POVMs, the Chernoff bounds under one-way LOCC POVMs and separable POVMs, and the Hoeffding bounds under one-way LOCC POVMs in the whole region of a parameter and under separable POVMs on a restricted…
We define a negative entanglement measure for separable states which shows that how much entanglement one should compensate the unentangled state at least for changing it into an entangled state. For two-qubit systems and some special classes of states in higher-dimensional systems, the explicit formula and the lower bounds for the negative entanglement measure have been presented, and it always vanishes for bipartite separable pure states. The negative entanglement measure can be used as a useful quantity to describe the entanglement dynamics and the quantum phase transition. In the transvers…
A simple relation is introduced for concurrence to describe how much the entanglement of bipartite system is at least left if either (or both) subsystem undergoes an arbitrary physical process. This provides a lower bound for concurrence of mixed states (pure states are included) in contrast to the upper bound given by Konrad et al [Nature Physics \textbf{4}, 99 (2008)]. Our results are also suitable for a general high dimensional bipartite quantum systems.
The degree to which a pure quantum state is entangled can be characterized by the distance or angle to the nearest unentangled state. This geometric measure of entanglement, already present in a number of settings (see Shimony 1995 and Barnum and Linden 2001), is explored for bipartite and multipartite pure and mixed states. The measure is determined analytically for arbitrary two-qubit mixed states and for generalized Werner and isotropic states, and is also applied to certain multipartite mixed states. In particular, a detailed analysis is given for arbitrary mixtures of three-qubit GHZ, W a…
The problem of discriminating with minimum error between two mixed quantum states is reviewed, with emphasize on the detection operators necessary for performing the measurement. An analytical result is derived for the minimum probability of errors in deciding whether the state of a quantum system is either a given pure state or a uniform statistical mixture of any number of mutually orthogonal states. The result is applied to two-qubit states, and the minimum error probabilities achievable by collective and local measurements on the qubits are compared.
Our previous work about algebraic-geometric invariants of the mixed states are extended and a stronger separability criterion is given. We also show that the Schmidt number of pure states in bipartite quantum systems, a classical concept, is actually an algebraic-geometric invariant.
From the consideration of measuring bipartite mixed states by separable pure states, we introduce algebraic sets in complex projective spaces for bipartite mixed states as the degenerating locus of the measurement. These algebraic sets are independent of the eigenvalues and only measure the "position" of eigenvectors of bipartite mixed states. They are nonlocal invariants ie., remaining invariant after local unitary transformations. The algebraic sets have to be the sum of the linear subspaces if the mixed states are separable, and thus we give a "eigenvalue-free" criterion of separability.Bas…
We investigate the discrimination of pure-mixed (quantum filtering) and mixed-mixed states and compare their optimal success probability with the one for discriminating other pairs of pure states superposed by the vectors included in the mixed states. We prove that under the equal-fidelity condition, the pure-pure state discrimination scheme is superior to the pure-mixed (mixed-mixed) one. With respect to quantum filtering, the coherence exists only in one pure state and is detrimental to the state discrimination for lower dimensional systems; while it is the opposite for the mixed-mixed case …
In terms of the analysis of fixed point subgroup and tensor decomposability of certain matrices, we study the equivalence of of quantum bipartite mixed states under local unitary transformations. For non-degenerate case an operational criterion for the equivalence of two such mixed bipartite states under local unitary transformations is presented.
We present theory and experiment for the task of discriminating two nonorthogonal states, given multiple copies. We implement several local measurement schemes, on both pure states and states mixed by depolarizing noise. We find that schemes which are optimal (or have optimal scaling) without noise perform worse with noise than simply repeating the optimal single-copy measurement. Applying optimal control theory, we derive the globally optimal local measurement strategy, which outperforms all other local schemes, and experimentally implement it for various levels of noise.
We investigate the average entropy of a subsystem within a global unitary orbit of a given mixed bipartite state in the finite-dimensional space. Without working out the closed-form expression of such average entropy for the mixed state case, we provide an analytical lower bound for this average entropy. In deriving this analytical lower bound, we get some useful by-products of independent interest. We also apply these results to estimate average correlation along a global unitary orbit of a given mixed bipartite state. When the notion of von Neumann entropy is replaced by linear entropy, the …
Mixed states of a quantum system, represented by density operators, can be decomposed as a statistical mixture of pure states in a number of ways where each decomposition can be viewed as a different preparation recipe. However the fact that the density matrix contains full information about the ensemble makes it impossible to estimate the preparation basis for the quantum system. Here we present a measurement scheme to (seemingly) improve the performance of unsharp measurements. We argue that in some situations this scheme is capable of providing statistics from a single copy of the quantum s…
In this paper, we use Bell inequality and nonlocality to study the bipartite correlation in an exactly soluble two-dimensional mixed spin system. Bell inequality turns out to be a valuable detector for phase transitions in this model. It can detect not only the quantum phase transition, but also the thermal phase transitions, of the system. The property of bipartite correlation in the system is also analyzed. In the quantum anti-ferromagnetic phase, the Bell inequality is violated thus nonlocality is present. It is interesting that the nonlocality is enhanced by thermal fluctuation, and simila…
We investigate the equivalence of bipartite quantum mixed states under local unitary transformations by introducing representation classes from a geometrical approach. It is shown that two bipartite mixed states are equivalent under local unitary transformations if and only if they have the same representation class. Detailed examples are given on calculating representation classes.
The stabiliser formalism allows the efficient description of a sizeable class of pure as well as mixed quantum states of N-qubit systems. That same formalism has important applications in the field of quantum error correcting codes, where mixed stabiliser states correspond to projectors on subspaces associated with stabiliser codes. Here, we derive efficient reduction procedures to obtain various useful normal forms for stabiliser states. We explicitly prove that these procedures will always converge to the correct result and that these procedures are efficient in that they only require a poly…
Entanglement speeds up evolution of a pure bipartite spin state, in line with the time energy uncertainty. However if the state is mixed this is not necessarily the case. We provide a counter example and point to other factors affecting evolution in mixed states, including classical correlations and entropy.
A review is given on the thermodynamical structure of bipartite entanglement. By comparing it to the axiomatic formulation of thermodynamics presented by Giles it is shown that for finite dimensional systems the two theories are formally inequivalent. The same approach is used to demonstrate the full equivalence in the asymptotic limit for pure quantum states. For mixed states a different method for obtaining the second law is described applied to two different classes of operations, PPT-preserving and asymptotically non-entangling operations.
Based on a proposed coherence measure, we show that the local coherence of a bipartite quantum pure state (coherence of its reduced density matrix) is exactly the same as the minimal average co- herence with all potential pure-state realizations under consideration. In particular, it is shown that bipartite concurrence of pure states just captures the maximal difference between local coherence and the average coherence of one subsystem induced by local operations on the other subsystem with the assistance of classical communications, which provides an alternative operational meaning for bipart…
We consider the maximum bipartite entanglement that can be distilled from a single copy of a multipartite mixed entangled state, where we focus mostly on $d\times d\times n$-dimensional tripartite mixed states. We show that this {\em assisted entanglement}, when measured in terms of the generalized concurrence (named G-concurrence) is (tightly) bounded by an entanglement monotone, which we call the G-concurrence of assistance. The G-concurrence is one of the possible generalizations of the concurrence to higher dimensions, and for pure bipartite states it measures the {\em geometric mean} of t…
We study the discrimination of N mixed quantum states in an optimal measurement that maximizes the probability of correct results while the probability of inconclusive results is fixed at a given value. After considering the discrimination of N states in a d-dimensional Hilbert space, we focus on the discrimination of qubit states. We develop a method to determine an optimal measurement for discriminating arbitrary qubit states, taking into account that often the optimal measurement is not unique and the maximum probability of correct results can be achieved by several different measurements. …
We discuss the problem of characterizing upper bounds on entanglement in a bipartite quantum system when only the reduced density matrices (marginals) are known. In particular, starting from the known two-qubit case, we propose a family of candidates for maximally entangled mixed states with respect to fixed marginals for two qudits. Interestingly, it turns out such states are always quasidistillable. Moreover, they are extremal in the convex set of two qudit states with fixed marginals. Our observations are supported by numerical analysis.
We demonstrate an optical receiver that achieves the quantum Chernoff bound for discriminating coherent states from thermal states in the multi-copy scenario. In contrast, we find that repeated use of the receiver approaching the Helstrom bound for single-copy measurement is sub-optimal in this multi-copy case. Furthermore, for a large class of multi-copy discrimination tasks between a pure and a mixed state, we prove that any Helstrom-bound achieving single-copy receiver is suboptimal by a factor of at least two in error-probability exponent compared to the multi-copy quantum Chernoff bound. …
We propose an entanglement measure for two qudits based on the covariances of a set of generators of the su(N) algebra. In particular, we represent this measure in terms of the mutually unbiased projectors for N prime. For pure states this measure quantify entanglement, we obtain an explicit expression which relates it to the concurrence hierarchy, specifically the I-concurrence and the 3-concurrence. For mixed states we propose a separability criterion.
We quantify the usefulness of a bipartite quantum state in the ancilla-assisted channel discrimination of arbitrary quantum channels, formally defining a worst-case-scenario channel discrimination power for bipartite quantum states. We show that such a quantifier is deeply connected with the operator Schmidt decomposition of the state. We compute the channel discrimination power exactly for pure states, and provide upper and lower bounds for general mixed states. We show that highly entangled states can outperform any state that passes the realignment criterion for separability. Furthermore, w…
