Entanglement witnesses form an effective method to locally detect entanglement in the laboratory without having the prior knowledge of the full density matrix. However, separable states can be erroneously indicated as entangled in such detections in the presence of wrong measurements or loss in detectors. Measurement-device-independent entanglement witnesses (MDI-EWs) never detect fake entanglement even under wrong measurements and for a particular kind of lossy detectors. A crucial assumption in the case of faithful detection of entanglement employing MDI-EWs is that the preparation devices producing "quantum inputs" - which are inputs additional to the quantum state whose entanglement is to be detected - are perfect and there is no noise during their transmission. Here, we relax these assumptions and provide a general framework for studying the effect of noise on the quantum inputs, invoking uniform and non-uniform noise models. We derive sufficient conditions on the uniform noisy map for retaining the characteristic of MDI-EWs. We find that in the context of non-uniform and entangling noise, fake entanglement detection is possible even by MDI-EWs. We also investigate various paradigmatic models of local noise and find conditions of revealing entanglement in the class of Werner states.
We consider a possible detector-efficiency loophole in experiments that detect entanglement via the local measurement of witness operators. Here, only local properties of the detectors are known. We derive a general threshold for the detector efficiencies which guarantees that a negative expectation value of a witness is due to entanglement, rather than to erroneous detectors. This threshold depends on the local decomposition of the witness and its measured expectation value. For two-qubit witnesses we find the local operator decomposition that is optimal with respect to closing the loophole.
Detectors in the laboratory are often unlike their ideal theoretical cousins. They have non-ideal efficiencies, which may then lead to non-trivial implications. We show how it is possible to predict correct answers about whether a shared quantum state is entangled in spite of finite detector efficiencies, when the tool for entanglement detection is a nonlinear entanglement witness. We first consider the detection loophole for shared quantum states with nonpositive partial transpose. We subsequently find nonlinear witness operators for bound entangled states with positive partial transpose, and…
There always exists an entanglement witness for every entangled quantum state. Negativity of the expectation value of an entanglement witness operator guarantees entanglement of the corresponding state, given that the measurement devices involved are perfect, i.e., the performed measurements actually constitute the witness operator for the state under consideration. In a realistic situation, there are two possible ways of measurements to drive the process away from the ideal one. Firstly, wrong measurements may be performed, and secondly, while the measurement operators are implemented correct…
Testing quantum theory on macroscopic scales is a longstanding challenge that might help to revolutionise physics. For example, laboratory tests (such as those anticipated in nanomechanical or biological systems) may look to rule out macroscopic realism: the idea that the properties of macroscopic objects exist objectively and can be non-invasively measured. Such investigations are likely to suffer from i) stringent experimental requirements, ii) marginal statistical significance and iii) logical loopholes. We address all of these problems by refining two tests of macroscopic realism, or `quan…
By using the quantum Fisher information (QFI), we address the process of \textit{single}-parameter estimation in the presence of bosonic as well as fermionic environments and protection of information against the noise. In particular, the quantum interferometric power (IP) of the evolved state of the system is uncovered as an important lower bound for the QFIs of initially encoded parameters. Moreover, we unveil new witnesses of non-Markovianity, that can be used to detect efficiently the memory effects and backflow of information from the environment to the system. On the other hand, we also …
Recently, Yang et al. (Quantum Inf Process 18, 74, 2019) proposed a two-party quantum key agreement protocol over a collective noisy channel. They claimed that their quantum key agreement protocol can ensure both of the participants have equal influence on the final shared key. However, this study shows that the participant who announces the permutation operation can manipulate the final shared key by himself/herself without being detected by the other. To avoid this loophole, an improvement is proposed here.
Entanglement, the essential resource in quantum information processing, should be witnessed in many tasks such as quantum computing and quantum communication. The conventional entanglement witness method, relying on an idealized implementation of measurements, could wrongly conclude a separable state to be entangled due to imperfect detections. Inspired by the idea of a time-shift attack, we construct an attack on the conventional entanglement witness process and demonstrate that a separable state can be falsely identified to be entangled. To close such detection loopholes, based on a recently…
It is well-known that the violation of a local uncertainty relation can be used as an indicator for the presence of entanglement. Unfortunately, the practical use of these non-linear witnesses has been limited to few special cases in the past. However, new methods for computing uncertainty bounds became available. Here we report on an experimental implementation of uncertainty-based entanglement witnesses, benchmarked in a regime dominated by strong local noise. We combine the new computational method with a local noise tomography in order to design noise-adapted entanglement witnesses. This p…
We study the problem of witnessing entanglement among indistinguishable particles. For this purpose, we derive a set of equations which results in necessary and sufficient conditions for probing multipartite entanglement between arbitrary systems of Bosons or Fermions. The solution of these equations yields the construction of optimal entanglement witnesses for partial and full entanglement in discrete and continuous variable systems. Our approach unifies the verification of entanglement for distinguishable and indistinguishable particles. We provide general solutions for certain observables t…
We demonstrate that quantum incompatibility can always be detected by means of a state discrimination task with partial intermediate information. This is done by showing that only incompatible measurements allow for an efficient use of premeasurement information in order to improve the probability of guessing the correct state. Thus, the gap between the guessing probabilities with pre- and postmeasurement information is a witness of the incompatibility of a given collection of measurements. We prove that all linear incompatibility witnesses can be implemented as some state discrimination proto…
Efficient and reliable measurements of photonic indistinguishability are crucial to solidify claims of a quantum advantage in photonics. Existing indistinguishability witnesses may be vulnerable to implementation loopholes, showing the need for a measurement which depends on as few assumptions as possible. Here, we introduce a semi-device-independent witness of photonic indistinguishability and measure it on an integrated photonic processor, certifying three-photon indistinguishability in a way that is insensitive to implementation errors in our processor.
Given a quantum channel -- that is, a completely positive trace-preserving linear map -- as the only communication resource available between two parties, we consider the problem of characterizing the set of classical noisy channels that can be obtained from it by means of suitable classical-quantum encodings and quantum-classical decodings, respectively, on the sender's and the receiver's side. We consider various classes of linear witnesses and compute their optimum values in closed form for several classes of quantum channels. The witnesses that we consider here are formulated as communicat…
Quantum computational experiments exploiting Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices to demonstrate violation of a Bell inequality are proposed. They consist of running specified quantum algorithms on few-qubit computers. If such a device assures entanglement and performs single-shot measurements, the detection loophole is avoided. Four concise quantum circuits determining the expectation values of the relevant observables are used for a two-qubit system. It is possible to add an ancilla qubit to these circuits and eventually only measure the ancilla to obtain the relevant information.…
Entanglement in a quantum system can be demonstrated experimentally by performing the measurements prescribed by an appropriate entanglement witness. However, the unavoidable mismatch between the implementation of measurements in practical devices and their precise theoretical modelling generally results in the undesired possibility of false-positive entanglement detection. Such scenarios can be avoided by using the recently developed device-independent entanglement witnesses (DIEWs) for genuine multipartite entanglement. Similarly to Bell inequalities, DIEWs only assume that consistent measur…
Entanglement, while being critical in many quantum applications, is difficult to characterize experimentally. While entanglement witnesses based on the fidelity to the target entangled state are efficient detectors of entanglement, they in general underestimate the amount of entanglement due to errors during state preparation and measurement. Therefore, to detect entanglement more robustly in the presence of such control errors, we introduce a 'subspace' witness that detects a broader class of entangled states with strictly larger violation than the conventional state-fidelity witness at the c…
Entangled quantum states in high-dimensional space show many advantages compared with entangled states in two-dimensional space. The former enable quantum communication with higher channel capacity, enable more efficient quantum-information processing, and are more feasible for closing the detection loophole in Bell test experiments. Establishing high-dimensional entangled memories is essential for long-distance communication, but its experimental realization is lacking. We experimentally established high-dimensional entanglement in orbital angular momentum space between two atomic ensembles s…
In a recent paper, Bancal et al. put forward the concept of device-independent witnesses of genuine multipartite entanglement. These witnesses are capable of verifying genuine multipartite entanglement produced in a lab without resorting to any knowledge of the dimension of the state space or of the specific form of the measurement operators. As a by-product they found a three-party three-setting Bell inequality which enables to detect genuine tripartite entanglement in a noisy 3-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state for visibilities as low as 2/3 in a device-independent way. In this p…
The development of quantum technologies depends on investigating of the behavior of quantum systems in noisy environments, since complete isolation from its environment is impossible to achieve. In this paper we show that a wave-particle duality experiment performed in a system with an arbitrarily white noise level cannot be explained in classical terms, using hidden-variables models. In the light of our results, we analyze recent optical and NMR experiments and show that a loophole on non-locality is not fundamental.
A quantum random-number generator (QRNG) can theoretically generate unpredictable random numbers with perfect devices and is an ideal and secure source of random numbers for cryptography. However, the practical implementations always contain imperfections, which will greatly influence the randomness of the final output and even open loopholes to eavesdroppers. Recently, Thewes et al. experimentally demonstrated a continuous-variable eavesdropping attack, based on heterodyne detection, on a trusted continuous-variable QRNG in Phys. Rev. A 100, 052318 (2019), yet like in many other practical con…
Computing localizable entanglement for noisy many-particle quantum states is difficult due to the optimization over all possible sets of local projection measurements. Therefore, it is crucial to develop lower bounds, which can provide useful information about the behaviour of localizable entanglement, and which can be determined by measuring a limited number of operators, or by performing least number of measurements on the state, preferably without performing a full state tomography. In this paper, we adopt two different yet related approaches to obtain a witness-based, and a measurement-bas…
Entangled quantum states, such as N00N states, are of major importance for quantum technologies due to their quantum-enhanced performance. At the same time, their quantum correlations are relatively vulnerable when they are subjected to imperfections. Therefore, it is crucial to determine under which circumstances their distinct quantum features can be exploited. In this paper, we study the entanglement property of noisy N00N states. This class of states is a generalization of N00N states including various attenuation effects, such as mixing, constant or fluctuating losses, and dephasing. To v…
A Multipartite entangled state has many different kinds of entanglement specified by the number of partitions. The most essential example of multipartite entanglement is the entanglement of multi-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state in white noise. We explicitly construct the entanglement witnesses for these states with stabilizer generators of the GHZ states. For a $N$ qubit GHZ state in white noise, we demonstrate the necessary and sufficient criterion of separability when it is divided into $k$ parties with $N\leq 2k-1$ for arbitrary $N$ and $k$. The criterion covers more than a ha…
Ensuring the correct functioning of quantum error correction (QEC) circuits is crucial to achieve fault tolerance in realistic quantum processors subjected to noise. The first checkpoint for a fully operational QEC circuit is to create genuine multipartite entanglement across all subsystems of physical qubits. We introduce a conditional witnessing technique to certify genuine multipartite entanglement (GME) that is efficient in the number of subsystems and, importantly, robust against experimental noise and imperfections. Specifically, we prove that the detection of entanglement in a linear nu…
A major outstanding problem for many quantum clock synchronization protocols is the hidden assumption of the availability of synchronized clocks within the protocol. In general, quantum operations between two parties do not have consistent phase definitions of quantum states, which introduce an unknown systematic phase error. We show that despite prior arguments to the contrary, it is possible to remove this unknown phase via entanglement purification. This closes the loophole for entanglement based quantum clock synchronization protocols, which are most compatible with current photon based lo…
The verification of quantum entanglement under the influence of realistic noise and decoherence is crucial for the development of quantum technologies. Unfortunately, a full entanglement characterization is generally not possible with most entanglement criteria such as entanglement witnesses or the partial transposition criterion. In particular, so called bound entanglement cannot be certified via the partial transposition criterion. Here we present the full entanglement verification of dephased qubit and qutrit Werner states via entanglement quasiprobabilities. Remarkably, we are able to reve…
In this paper, we employ theoretical and experimental efforts and realize a proof-of-principle verification of device-independent QKD based on the photonic setup. On the theoretical side, we enhance the loss tolerance for real device imperfections by combining different approaches, namely, random post-selection, noisy preprocessing, and developed numerical methods to estimate the key rate via the von Neumann entropy. On the experimental side, we develop a high-quality polarization-entangled photon source achieving a state-of-the-art (heralded) detection efficiency about 87.5%. This efficiency …
We introduce a new method to reconstruct unknown quantum states out of incomplete and noisy information. The method is a linear convex optimization problem, therefore with a unique minimum, which can be efficiently solved with Semidefinite Programs. Numerical simulations indicate that the estimated state does not overestimate purity, and neither the expectation value of optimal entanglement witnesses. The convergence properties of the method are similar to compressed sensing approaches, in the sense that, in order to reconstruct low rank states, it needs just a fraction of the effort correspon…
The long-standing problem of nearly perfect photosynthetic yield in some types of bacteria and nearly all kinds of plants despite the interaction with a hot and noisy environment has witnessed quantum optical explanations in the last decade or so. Typically in these explanations, photosynthetic reaction centers are modeled as five-level quantum heat engines where the generation of Fano-type interference due to the coupling of discrete state transitions with a common Markovian reservoir is held responsible for the enhancement of the photosynthetic efficiency. In this work, we go beyond the Born…
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）
Most quantum systems that are used for generating entanglement and for practical applications are not isolated from the environment, and are hence susceptible to noise. Entanglement in more than one degree of freedom between two systems, known as hyperentanglement, is known to have certain advantages, including robustness against noise over conventional entangled states. Quantum illumination, imaging and communication schemes that involve sending one photon from a pair of entangled photons and retaining the other photon usually involve exposing only the signal photon to environmental noise. Th…
Generalized quantum discord $(D_q)$, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering $(S)$, entanglement $(E)$, and Bell nonlocality ($N$), are logically distinct quantifiers of quantum correlations. All these measures capture nonclassical aspects of quantum states and play some role as resources in quantum information processing. In this work, we look for the hierarchy satisfied by these quantum correlation witnesses for a class of two-qubit states. We show that $N \triangleright S\triangleright E\triangleright D_q$, meaning that nonlocality implies steering, which in turn implies entanglement, which then i…
A highly anticipated application for quantum computers is as a universal simulator of quantum many-body systems, as was conjectured by Richard Feynman in the 1980s. The last decade has witnessed the growing success of quantum computing for simulating static properties of quantum systems, i.e., the ground state energy of small molecules. However, it remains a challenge to simulate quantum many-body dynamics on current-to-near-future noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers. Here, we demonstrate successful simulation of nontrivial quantum dynamics on IBM's Q16 Melbourne quantum processor and R…
The last decade has witnessed remarkable progress in the development of quantum technologies. Although fault-tolerant devices likely remain years away, the noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices of today may be leveraged for other purposes. Leading candidates are variational quantum algorithms (VQAs), which have been developed for applications including chemistry, optimization, and machine learning, but whose implementations on quantum devices have yet to demonstrate improvements over classical capabilities. In this Perspective, we propose a variety of ways that the performance of VQAs could…
We give a capacity formula for the classical communication over a noisy quantum channel, when local operations and global permutations allowed in the encoding and bipartite states preshared between the sender and the receiver. The two endpoints of this formula are the Holevo capacity (without entanglement assistance) and the entanglement-assisted capacity (with unlimited entanglement assistance). What's more, we show that the capacity satisfies the strong converse property and thus the formula serves as a sharp dividing line between achievable and unachievable rates of communication. We prove …
Quantum information processing exploits non-local functionality that has led to significant breakthroughs in the successful deployment of quantum mechanical protocols. In this regard, we address the dynamics of entanglement and coherence for three non-interacting qubits initially prepared as maximally entangled GHZ-like state coupled with independent classical environments. Two different Gaussian noises in pure and mixed noisy situations, namely, pure power-law noise, pure fractional Gaussian noise, power-law noise maximized and fractional Gaussian noise maximized cases are assumed to characte…
The last decade has witnessed the remarkable progress in our understanding of thermalization in isolated quantum systems. Combining the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis with quantum measurement theory, we extend the framework of quantum thermalization to open many-body systems. A generic many-body system subject to continuous observation is shown to thermalize at a single trajectory level. We show that the nonunitary nature of quantum measurement causes several unique thermalization mechanisms that are unseen in isolated systems. We present numerical evidence for our findings by applying o…
