How common is large-scale entanglement in nature? As a first step towards addressing this question, we study the robustness of multi-party entanglement under local decoherence, modeled by partially depolarizing channels acting independently on each subsystem. Surprisingly, we find that n-qubit GHZ entanglement can stand more than 55 % local depolarization in the limit of n going to infinity, and that GHZ states are more robust than other generic states of 3 and 4 qubits. We also study spin-squeezed states in the limit n going to infinity and find that they too can stand considerable local depolarization.
Using entanglement of assistance, we establish a general polygamy inequality of multi-party entanglement in arbitrary dimensional quantum systems. For multi-party closed quantum systems, we relate our result with the monogamy of entanglement to show that the entropy of entanglement is an universal entanglement measure that bounds both monogamy and polygamy of multi-party quantum entanglement.
We provide a sufficient condition for the monogamy inequality of multi-party quantum entanglement of arbitrary dimensions in terms of entanglement of formation. Based on the classical-classical-quantum(ccq) states whose quantum parts are obtained from the two-party reduced density matrices of a three-party quantum state, we show the additivity of the mutual information of the ccq states guarantees the monogamy inequality of the three-party pure state in terms of EoF. After illustrating the result with some examples, we generalize our result of three-party systems into any multi-party systems o…
We present a general method to find the upper and lower bounds on the generalized entanglement of formation for multi-party systems. The upper and lower bounds can be expressed in terms of the bi-partite entanglements of formation and/or entropies of various subsystems. The examples for tri- and four-party systems in the both pure states and mixed states are given. We also suggest a little modified definition of generalized entanglement of formation for multi-party systems if EPR pairs are thought of belonging to the set of maximally entangled states.
We propose a new type of polygamy inequality for multi-party quantum entanglement. We first consider the possible amount of bipartite entanglement distributed between a fixed party and any subset of the rest parties in a multi-party quantum system. By using the summation of these distributed entanglements, we provide an upper bound of the distributed entanglement between a party and the rest in multi-party quantum systems. We then show that this upper bound also plays as a lower bound of the usual polygamy inequality, therefore the strong polygamy of multi-party quantum entanglement. For the c…
We present upper and lower bounds to the relative entropy of entanglement of multi-party systems in terms of the bi-partite entanglements of formation and distillation and entropies of various subsystems. We point out implications of our results to the local reversible convertibility of multi-party pure states and discuss their physical basis in terms of deleting of information.
In this paper, we present a quantum secure multi-party summation protocol, which allows multiple mutually distrustful parties to securely compute the summation of their secret data. In the presented protocol, a semitrusted third party is introduced to help multiple parties to achieve this secure task. Besides, the entanglement swapping of $d$-level cat states and Bell states is employed to securely transmit message between each party and the semitrusted third party. At last, its security against some common attacks is analyzed, which shows that the presented protocol is secure in theory.
We establish a unified view to the polygamy of multi-party quantum entanglement in arbitrary dimensions. Using quantum Tsallis-$q$ entropy, we provide a one-parameter class of polygamy inequalities of multi-party quantum entanglement. This class of polygamy inequalities reduces to the known polygamy inequalities based on tangle and entanglement of assistance for a selective choice of the parameter $q$. We further provide one-parameter generalizations of various quantum correlations based on Tsallis-$q$ entropy. By investigating the properties of the generalized quantum correlations, we provide…
We analyze the security of the efficient two-party quantum private comparison protocol with decoy photons and two-photon entanglement. It is shown that the compromised third party (TP) can obtain the final comparison result without introducing any detectable errors in the standard semi-honest model. The attack strategy is discussed in detail and an improvement of this protocol is demonstrated. The idea of our attack might be instructive for the cryptanalysis of quantum cryptographic schemes.
We show that restricted shareability of multi-qubit entanglement can be fully characterized by unified-$(q,s)$ entropy. We provide a two-parameter class of bipartite entanglement measures, namely unified-$(q,s)$ entanglement with its analytic formula in two-qubit systems for $q\geq 1$, $0\leq s \leq1$ and $qs\leq3$. Using unified-$(q,s)$ entanglement, we establish a broad class of the monogamy inequalities of multi-qubit entanglement for $q\geq2$, $0\leq s \leq1$ and $qs\leq3$.
We characterize the polygamy nature of quantum entanglement in multi-party systems in terms of $q$-expectation value for the full range of $q\geq 1$. By investigating some properties of generalized quantum correlations in terms of $q$-expectation value and Tsallis $q$-entropy, we establish a class of polygamy inequalities of multi-party quantum entanglement in arbitrary dimensions based on $q$-expected entanglement measure. As Tsallis $q$-entropy is reduced to von Neumann entropy, and $q$-expectation value becomes the ordinary expectation value when $q$ tends to $1$, our results encapsulate pr…
We present the generalization of the entanglement of formation for three-party systems in a pure state. For three qubit system we derive out its explicit and closed expression which is a linear combination of the binary entropy functions with various arguments, and these arguments are clearly determined in terms of the components of state vector of three qubits. As a reasonable measure of entanglement, the main behaviors and elementary properties of this generalized entanglement of formation are showed through discussing some important and interesting examples. Moreover, we propose how to exte…
We show that the polygamous nature of multi-party quantum correlations can be characterized in a {\em stronger} form based on Tsallis $q$-entropy and $q$-expectation value. By considering the amount of entanglement that can be distributed in multi-party systems, we establish a class of strong polygamy inequalities of multi-party entanglement in terms of Tsallis $q$-entropy and $q$-expectation for $q \geq 1$. Our new class of inequalities is in fact tighter than the usual polygamy inequalities of multi-party entanglement, and the tightness is explicitly illustrated by an example. Moreover, our …
We consider the transformation of multisystem entangled states by local quantum operations and classical communication. We show that, for any reversible transformation, the relative entropy of entanglement for two parties must remain constant. This shows, for example, that it is not possible to convert 2N three party GHZ states into 3N singlets, even in an asymptotic sense. Thus there is true three-party non-locality (i.e., not all three-party entanglement is equivalent to two-party entanglement). Our results also allow us to make {\em quantitative} statements about concentrating multi-particl…
We present the modified relative entropy of entanglement for multi-party systems by a given relative density matrix which is spanned by a linear combination of the direct products of so-called basis of relative density matrices and reduced density matrices for every party. For three qubit system in a pure state we derive out the explicit and closed expression of our relative density matrix which is a function of the components of the state vector of three qubits. Through computing the modified relative entropy of entanglement of some important and interesting examples, we display the main beha…
An experimental feasible scheme is proposed to generate Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) type of maximal entanglement. Distinguishing from the previous schemes, this entanglement can be chosen between either atomic ensembles (stationary qubit) or individual photons (flying qubit), according to the difference applications we desire for it. The physical requirements of the scheme are moderate and well fit the present experimental techinque.
We propose the square of convex-roof extended negativity(SCREN) as a powerful candidate to characterize strong monogamy of multi-party quantum entanglement. We first provide a strong monogamy inequality of multi-party entanglement using SCREN, and show that the tangle-based multi-qubit strong monogamy inequality can be rephrased by SCREN. We further show that SCREN strong monogamy inequality is still true for the counterexamples that violate tangle-based strong monogamy inequality in higher-dimensional quantum systems rather than qubits. We also analytically show that SCREN strong monogamy ine…
We provide an evidence for the validity of strong monogamy inequality of multi-party quantum entanglement using square of convex-roof extended negativity(SCREN). We first consider a large class of multi-qudit mixed state that are in a partially coherent superposition of a generalized W-class state and the vacuum, and provide some useful properties about this class of states. We show that monogamy inequality of multi-qudit entanglement in terms of SCREN holds for this class of states. We further show that SCREN strong monogamy inequality of multi-qudit entanglement also holds for this class of …
Security of the three-party quantum secret sharing (QSS) schemes based on entanglement and a collective eavesdropping check is analyzed in the case of considerable quantum channel losses. An opaque attack scheme is presented for the dishonest agent to eavesdrop the message obtained by the other agent freely, which reveals that these QSS schemes are insecure for transmission efficiencies lower than 50%, especially when they are used to share an unknown quantum state. Finally, we present a general way to improve the security of QSS schemes for sharing not only a private key but also an unknown q…
We provide a graphical description of the entanglement of pure-state multiparty systems based on an analogy between a bipartite purity analysis and the centroid of a collection of point masses. This description applies to quantum systems with $N$ parties, each with an arbitrary number of (discrete) states. The case of $N$ qubits is highlighted for simplicity. This geometric description illustrates some of the restrictions in the form of inequalities that apply to entanglement in multiparty systems.
Recently, Liu W et al. proposed a two-party quantum private comparison (QPC) protocol using entanglement swapping of Bell entangled state (Commun. Theor. Phys. 57(2012)583-588). Subsequently, Liu W J et al. pointed out that in Liu W et al.'s protocol, the TP can extract the two users' secret inputs without being detected by launching the Bell-basis measurement attack, and suggested the corresponding improvement to mend this loophole (Commun. Theor. Phys. 62(2014)210-214). In this paper, we first point out the information leakage problem toward TP existing in both of the above two protocols, an…
We propose a quantum secret sharing protocol between multi-party ($m$ members in group 1) and multi-party ($n$ members in group 2) using a sequence of single photons. These single photons are used directly to encode classical information in a quantum secret sharing process. In this protocol, all members in group 1 directly encode their respective keys on the states of single photons via unitary operations, then the last one (the $m^{th}$ member of group 1) sends $1/n$ of the resulting qubits to each of group 2. Thus the secret message shared by all members of group 1 is shared by all members o…
First, we show how the quantum circuits for generating and measuring multi-party entanglement of qubits can be translated to continuous quantum variables. We derive sufficient inseparability criteria for $N$-party continuous-variable states and discuss their applicability. Then, we consider a family of multipartite entangled states (multi-party multi-mode states with one mode per party) described by continuous quantum variables and analyze their properties. These states can be efficiently generated using squeezed light and linear optics.
In this paper, a novel multi-party quantum private comparison (MQPC) protocol with a semi-honest third party (TP) is proposed based on the entanglement swapping of d-level cat states and d-level Bell states. Here, TP is allowed to misbehave on his own but will not conspire with any party. In our protocol, n parties employ unitary operations to encode their private secrets and can compare the equality of their private secrets within one time execution of the protocol. Our protocol can withstand both the outside attacks and the participant attacks on the condition that none of the QKD methods is…
In this paper, a multi-party quantum private comparison (MQPC) scheme is suggested based on entanglement swapping of Bell entangled states within d-level quantum system, which can accomplish the equality comparison of secret binary sequences from n users via one execution of scheme. Detailed security analysis shows that both the outside attack and the participant attack are ineffective. The suggested scheme needn't establish a private key among n users beforehand through the quantum key distribution (QKD) method to encrypt the secret binary sequences. Compared with previous MQPC scheme based o…
The existence of correlations between the parts of a quantum system on the one hand, and entanglement between them on the other, are different properties. Yet, one intuitively would identify strong $N$-party correlations with $N$-party entanglement in an $N$-partite quantum state. If the local systems are qubits, this intuition is confirmed: The state with the strongest $N$-party correlations is the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, which does have genuine multipartite entanglement. However, for high-dimensional local systems the state with strongest $N$-party correlations may be a tens…
In this paper, a three-party secure semiquantum summation protocol, which can calculate the modulo 2 addition of the private bits from one quantum participant and two classical participants, is constructed by only using single qubits as the initial quantum resource. This protocol needs none of quantum entanglement swapping, the unitary operation or a pre-shared private key. This protocol only requires the quantum participant to perform the Z basis measurements, the X basis measurements and the Bell basis measurements. Compared with the existing only semiquantum summation protocol (Int J Theor …
We show that not all 4-party pure states are GHZ reducible (i.e., can be generated reversibly from a combination of 2-, 3- and 4-party maximally entangled states by local quantum operations and classical communication asymptotically) through an example, we also present some properties of the relative entropy of entanglement for those 3-party pure states that are GHZ reducible, and then we relate these properties to the additivity of the relative entropy of entanglement.
We show that a singlet of many multi-level quantum systems arises naturally as the ground state of a physically-motivated Hamiltonian. The Hamiltonian simply exchanges the states of nearest-neighbours in some network of qudits (d-level systems); the results are independent of the strength of the couplings or the network's topology. We show that local measurements on some of these qudits project the unmeasured qudits onto a smaller singlet, regardless of the choice of measurement basis at each measurement. It follows that the entanglement is highly persistent, and that through local measurement…
A necessary and sufficient condition for characterization and quantification of entanglement of any bipartite Gaussian state belonging to a special symmetry class is given in terms of classicality measures of one-party states. For Gaussian states whose local covariance matrices have equal determinants it is shown that separability of a two-party state and classicality of one party state are completely equivalent to each other under a nonlocal operation, allowing entanglement features to be understood in terms of any available classicality measure.
We present a way to teleport multi-qubit quantum information from a sender to a distant receiver via the control of many agents in a network. We show that the original state of each qubit can be restored by the receiver as long as all the agents collaborate. However, even if one agent does not cooperate, the receiver can not fully recover the original state of each qubit. The method operates essentially through entangling quantum information during teleportation, in such a way that the required auxiliary qubit resources, local operation, and classical communication are considerably reduced for…
The concept of entanglement splitting is introduced by asking whether it is possible for a party possessing half of a pure bipartite quantum state to transfer some of his entanglement with the other party to a third party. We describe the unitary local transformation for symmetric and isotropic splitting of a singlet into two branches that leads to the highest entanglement of the output. The capacity of the resulting quantum channels is discussed. Using the same transformation for less than maximally entangled pure states, the entanglement of the resulting states is found. We discuss whether t…
The geometric measure of entanglement of a pure quantum state is defined to be its distance to the space of product (seperable) states. Given an $n$-partite system composed of subsystems of dimensions $d_1,\ldots, d_n$, an upper bound for maximally allowable entanglement is derived in terms of geometric measure of entanglement. This upper bound is characterized exclusively by the dimensions $d_1,\ldots, d_n$ of composite subsystems. Numerous examples demonstrate that the upper bound appears to be reasonably tight.
We study the effects of quantum entanglement on the performance of two classical zero-error communication tasks among multiple parties. Both tasks are generalizations of the two-party zero-error channel-coding problem, where a sender and a receiver want to perfectly communicate messages through a one-way classical noisy channel. If the two parties are allowed to share entanglement, there are several positive results that show the existence of channels for which they can communicate strictly more than what they could do with classical resources. In the first task, one sender wants to communicat…
The decay of ortho-positronium into three photons produces a physical realization of a pure state with three-party entanglement. Its quantum correlations are analyzed using recent results on quantum information theory, looking for the final state which has the maximal amount of GHZ-like correlations. This state allows for a statistical dismissal of local realism stronger than the one obtained using any entangled state of two spin one-half particles.
We introduce a new measure for the genuinely N-partite (all-party) entanglement of N-qubit states using the trace distance metric, and find an algebraic formula for the GHZ-diagonal states. We then use this formula to show how the all-party entanglement of experimentally produced GHZ states of an arbitrary number of qubits may be bounded with only four measurements.
Nielsen characterized in full those 2-party quantum protocols of local operations and classical communication that transform, with probability one, a pure global initial state into a pure global final state. The present work considers the generalization of Nielsen's characterization to n-party protocols. It presents a sweeping generalization of the only if part of Nielsen's result. The result presented here pertains also to protocols that do not generate a final state for sure, it considers arbitrary mixed initial states instead of pure states and n-party protocols for an arbitrary n. In this …
In this article we obtain new results for the task of converting a \textit{single} $N$-qubit W-class state (of the form $\sqrt{x_0}\ket{00...0}+\sqrt{x_1}\ket{10...0}+...+\sqrt{x_N}\ket{00...1}$) into maximum entanglement shared between two random parties. Previous studies in random distillation have not considered how the particular choice of target pairs affects the transformation, and here we develop a strategy for distilling into \textit{general} configurations of target pairs. We completely solve the problem of determining the optimal distillation probability for all three qubit configura…
We consider an arbitrary d_{1}\otimes d_{2}\otimes ... \otimes d_{N} composite quantum system and find necessary conditions for general m-party subsystem states to be the reduced states of a common N-party state. These conditions will lead to various monogamy inequalities for bipartite quantum entanglement and partial disorder in multipartite states. Our results are tightly connected with the measures of multipartite entanglement.
We investigate the entanglement within a system undergoing a random, local process. We find that there is initially a phase of very fast generation and spread of entanglement. At the end of this phase the entanglement is typically maximal. In previous work we proved that the maximal entanglement is reached to a fixed arbitrary accuracy within $O(N^3)$ steps, where $N$ is the total number of qubits. Here we provide a detailed and more pedagogical proof. We demonstrate that one can use the so-called stabilizer gates to simulate this process efficiently on a classical computer. Furthermore, we di…
In quantum teleportation, an unknown quantum state is transmitted from one party to another using only local operations and classical communication, at the cost of shared entanglement. Is it possible similarly, using an $N$ party entangled state, to have the state retrievable by {\it any} of the $N-1$ possible receivers? If the receivers cooperate, and share a suitable state, this can be done reliably. The $N$ party GHZ is one such state; I derive a large class of such states, and show that they are in general not equivalent to the GHZ. I also briefly discuss the problem where the parties do n…
To construct a quantum network with many end users, it is critical to have a cost-efficient way to distribute entanglement over different network ends. We demonstrate an entanglement access network, where the expensive resource, the entangled photon source at the telecom wavelength and the core communication channel, is shared by many end users. Using this cost-efficient entanglement access network, we report experimental demonstration of a secure multiparty computation protocol, the privacy-preserving secure sum problem, based on the network quantum cryptography.
For a tripartite pure state superposed by two individual states, the bipartitely shared entanglement can always be achieved by local measurements of the third party. Consider the different aims of the third party, i.e. maximizing or minimizing the bipartitely shared entanglement, we find bounds on both the possible bipartitely shared entanglement of the superposition state in terms of the corresponding entanglement of the two states being superposed. In particular, by choosing the concurrence as bipartite entanglement measure, we obtain calculable bounds for tripartite $(2\otimes 2\otimes n)$ …
We show that all multi-partite pure states can, under local operations, be transformed into bi-partite pairwise entangled states in a "lossless fashion": An arbitrary distinguished party will keep pairwise entanglement with all other parties after the asymptotic protocol - decorrelating all other parties from each other - in a way that the degree of entanglement of this party with respect to the rest will remain entirely unchanged. The set of possible entanglement distributions of bi-partite pairs is also classified. Finally, we point out several applications of this protocol as a useful primi…
We consider the problem of deciding if a given three-party entangled pure state can be converted, with a non-zero success probability, into a given two-party pure state through local quantum operations and classical communication. We show that this question is equivalent to the well-known computational problem of deciding if a multivariate polynomial is identically zero. Efficient randomized algorithms developed to study the latter can thus be applied to the question of tripartite to bipartite entanglement transformations.
Utilizing the advantage of quantum entanglement swapping, a multi-party quantum key agreement protocol with authentication is proposed. In this protocol, a semi-trusted third party is introduced, who prepares Bell states, and sends one particle to multiple participants respectively. After that the participants can share a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state by entanglement swapping. Finally, these participants measure the particles in their hands and obtain an agreement key. Here, classical hash function and Hadamard operation are utilized to authenticate the identity of participants. The correl…
We investigate the concentration of multi-party entanglement by focusing on simple family of three-partite pure states, superpositions of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states and singlets. Despite the simplicity of the states, we show that they cannot be reversibly concentrated by the standard entanglement concentration procedure, to which they seem ideally suited. Our results cast doubt on the idea that for each N there might be a finite set of N-party states into which any pure state can be reversibly transformed. We further relate our results to the concept of locking of entanglement of forma…
Entanglement between three or more parties exhibits a realm of properties unknown to two-party states. Bipartite states are easily classified using the Schmidt decomposition. The Schmidt coefficients of a bipartite pure state encompass all the non-local properties of the state and can be "seen" by looking at one party's density matrix only. Pure states of three and more parties however lack such a simple form. They have more invariants under local unitary transformations than any one party can "see" on their sub-system. These "hidden non-localities" will allow us to exhibit a class of multipar…
W-States have achieved the status of the standard fully symmetric entangled states, for many entanglement application purposes. Z-States are a generalization of W-States that display an elegant algebra, enabling short paths to desired results. This paper describes Z-States algebra starting from neat definitions and laying down explicitly some fundamental theorems on composition and distillation, needed for applications. These theorems are synthesized into a generic tunable Entanglement-Distillation Protocol. Applications are readily developed based upon the tunable protocol. A few examples are…
Unlike classical correlation, quantum entanglement cannot be freely shared among many parties. This restricted shareability of entanglement among multi-party systems is known as monogamy of entanglement, which is one of the most fundamental properties of entanglement. Here, we summarize recent theoretical progress in the field of monogamy of entanglement. We firstly review the standard CKW-type monogamy inequalities in terms of various entanglement measures. In particular, the squashed entanglement and one-way distillable entanglement are monogamous for arbitrary dimensional systems. We then i…
We present a multi-party quantum clock synchronization protocol that utilizes shared prior entanglement and broadcast of classical information to synchronize spatially separated clocks. Notably, it is necessary only for any one party to publish classical information. Consequently, the efficacy of the method is independent of the relative location of the parties. The suggested protocol is robust and does not require precise sequencing of procedural steps.
