It is not always possible to distinguish multipartite orthogonal states if only local operation and classical communication (LOCC) are allowed. We prove that we cannot distinguish the states of an unextendible product basis (UPB) by LOCC even when infinite resources (infinite-dimensional ancillas, infinite number of operations). Moreover we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the LOCC distinguishability of complete product bases.
An important problem in quantum information is to construct multiqubit unextendible product bases (UPBs). By using the unextendible orthogonal matrices, we construct a 7-qubit UPB of size 11. It solves an open problem in [Quantum Information Processing 19:185 (2020)]. Next, we graph-theoretically show that the UPB is locally indistinguishable in the bipartite systems of two qubits and five qubits, respectively. It turns out that the UPB corresponds to a complete graph with 11 vertices constructed by three sorts of nonisomorphic graphs. Taking the graphs as product vectors, we show that they ar…
We completely characterize the condition when a tile structure provides an unextendible product basis (UPB), and construct UPBs of different large sizes in $\mathbb{C}^m\otimes\mathbb{C}^n$ for any $n\geq m\geq 3$. This solves an open problem in [S. Halder et al., Phys. Rev. A 99, 062329 (2019)]. As an application, we show that our UPBs of size $(mn-4\lfloor\frac{m-1}{2}\rfloor)$ in $\mathbb{C}^m\otimes\mathbb{C}^n$ can be perfectly distinguished by local operations and classical communications assisted with a $\lceil\frac{m}{2}\rceil\otimes\lceil\frac{m}{2}\rceil$ maximally entangled state.
We study the local distinguishability of general multi-qubit states and show that local projective measurements and classical communication are as powerful as the most general local measurements and classical communication. Remarkably, this indicates that the local distinguishability of multi-qubit states can be decided efficiently. Another useful consequence is that a set of orthogonal $n$-qubit states is locally distinguishable only if the summation of their orthogonal Schmidt numbers is less than the total dimension $2^n$. When $n=2$ such a condition is also sufficient. Employing these resu…
We consider a general version of the phenomenon of more nonlocality with less entanglement, within the framework of the unambiguous (i.e., conclusive) quantum state discrimination problem under local quantum operations and classical communication. We show that although the phenomenon was obtained before for two qutrits, it can also be observed for two qubits, while still being at the single-copy level. We establish that the phenomenon is intrinsically connected to the concept of unextendible entangled bases, in the two-qubit case. In the process, we demonstrate a hierarchy of nonlocality among…
We generalize the notion of unextendible maximally entangled basis from bipartite systems to multipartite quantum systems. It is proved that there do not exist unextendible maximally entangled bases in three-qubit systems. Moreover,two types of unextendible maximally entangled bases are constructed in tripartite quantum systems and proved to be not mutually unbiased.
Unextendible product basis is an important object in quantum information theory and features a broad spectrum of applications, ranging bound entangled states, quantum nonlocality without entanglement, and Bell inequalities with no quantum violation. A generalized concept called uncompletable product basis also attracts much attention. In this paper, we find some unextendible product bases that are uncompletable product bases in every bipartition, which answers a 19 year-old open question proposed by DiVincenzo et al. [Commun. Math. Phys. 238, 379 (2003)]. As a consequence, we connect such unex…
Unextendible product bases have been shown to have many important uses in quantum information theory, particularly in the qubit case. However, very little is known about their mathematical structure beyond three qubits. We present several new results about qubit unextendible product bases, including a complete characterization of all four-qubit unextendible product bases, which we show there are exactly 1446 of. We also show that there exist p-qubit UPBs of almost all sizes less than $2^p$.
We systematically study the construction of mutually unbiased bases in $\mathbb{C}^{2}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{3}$, such that all the bases are unextendible maximally entangled ones. Necessary conditions of constructing a pair of mutually unbiased unextendible maximally entangled bases in $\mathbb{C}^{2}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{3}$ are derived. Explicit examples are presented.
In this paper, an unextendible product basis and exact-entanglement bases of three qubit is given, and the properties of entanglement for exact-entanglement bases are also discussed. In addition, the bound entangled mixed state is obtained from the exact-entanglement bases.
We study unextendible maximally entangled basis in arbitrary bipartite spaces. A systematic way of constructing a set of $d^{2}$ orthonormal maximally entangled states in $\mathbb{C}^{d}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{d'}(\frac{d'}{2}<d<d')$ is provided. The complementary space of the set of these $d^{2}$ orthonormal maximally entangled states contains no maximally entangled states that are orthogonal to all of them. Furthermore, we investigate mutually unbiased bases in which all the bases are unextendible maximally entangled ones. We present two unextendible maximally entangled bases in $\mathbb{C}^{2…
We investigate the problem of constructing unextendible product bases in the qubit case - that is, when each local dimension equals 2. The cardinality of the smallest unextendible product basis is known in all qubit cases except when the number of parties is a multiple of 4 greater than 4 itself. We construct small unextendible product bases in all of the remaining open cases, and we use graph theory techniques to produce a computer-assisted proof that our constructions are indeed the smallest possible.
Unextendible sets of Mutually Unbiased Bases (MUBs) are examined from the point of view of complementary subalgebras. We show, that the linear span of less than $d+1$ factors of $M_d \otimes M_d$ does not contain pure states, and therefore some complementary decompositions give rise to undextendable sets of MUBs. We provide some new complementary decompositions, and thus prove strong unextendibility of some set of MUBs.
It is known that the $n$-qubit system has no unextendible product bases (UPBs) of cardinality $2^n-1$, $2^n-2$ and $2^n-3$. On the other hand the $n$-qubit UPBs of cardinality $2^n-4$ exist for all $n\ge3$. We prove that they do not exist for cardinality $2^n-5$.
The construction of multipartite unextendible product bases (UPBs) is a basic problem in quantum information. We respectively construct two families of $2\times2\times4$ and $2\times2\times2\times4$ UPBs of size eight by using the existing four-qubit and five-qubit UPBs. As an application, we construct novel families of multipartite positive-partial-transpose entangled states, as well as their entanglement properties in terms of the geometric measure of entanglement.
Unextendible product bases (UPBs) play a key role in the study of quantum entanglement and nonlocality. A famous open question is whether there exist genuinely unextendible product bases (GUPBs), namely multipartite product bases that are unextendible with respect to every possible bipartition. Here we shed light on this question by providing a characterization of UPBs and GUPBs in terms of orthogonality graphs. Building on this connection, we develop a method for constructing UPBs in low dimensions, and we derive a lower bound on the size of any GUPB, significantly improving over the state of…
We introduce the notion of the unextendible maximally entangled basis (UMEB), a set of orthonormal maximally entangled states in d \times d consisting of fewer that d^2 vectors which have no additional maximally entangled vectors orthogonal to all of them. We prove that UMEBs don't not exist for d=2 and give an explicit constructions for a 6-member UMEB with d=3 and a 12-member UMEB with d=4.
A long-standing open question asks for the minimum number of vectors needed to form an unextendible product basis in a given bipartite or multipartite Hilbert space. A partial solution was found by Alon and Lovasz in 2001, but since then only a few other cases have been solved. We solve all remaining bipartite cases, as well as a large family of multipartite cases.
We study mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) in which all the bases are unextendible maximally entangled ones. We first present a necessary and sufficient condition of constructing a pair of MUBs in $C^2 \otimes C^4$. Based on this condition, an analytical and necessary condition for constructing MUBs is given. Moreover we illustrate our approach by some detailed examples in $C^2 \otimes C^4$. The results are generalized to $C^2 \otimes C^d$ $(d\geq 3)$ and a concrete example in $C^2 \otimes C^8$ is given.
We consider the unextendible product bases (UPBs) of fixed cardinality $m$ in quantum systems of $n$ qubits. These UPBs are divided into finitely many equivalence classes with respect to an equivalence relation introduced by N. Johnston. There is a natural partial order `$\leq$' on the set of these equivalence classes for fixed $m$, and we use this partial order to study the topological closure of an equivalence class of UPBs. In the case of four qubits, for $m=8,9,10$, we construct explicitly the Hasse diagram of this partial order.
We provide a construction of sets of (d/2+1) mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) in dimensions d=4,8 using maximal commuting classes of Pauli operators. We show that these incomplete sets cannot be extended further using the operators of the Pauli group. However, specific examples of sets of MUBs obtained using our construction are shown to be strongly unextendible; that is, there does not exist another vector that is unbiased with respect to the elements in the set. We conjecture the existence of such unextendible sets in higher dimensions (d=2^{n}, n>3) as well. Furthermore, we note an interestin…
The construction of unextendible maximally entangled bases is tightly related to quantum information processing like local state discrimination. We put forward two constructions of UMEBs in $\mathbb {C}^{pd}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{qd}$($p\leq q$) based on the constructions of UMEBs in $\mathbb {C}^{d}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{d}$ and in $\mathbb {C}^{p}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{q}$, which generalizes the results in [Phys. Rev. A. 94, 052302 (2016)] by two approaches. Two different 48-member UMEBs in $\mathbb {C}^{6}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{9}$ have been constructed in detail.
We report new results and generalizations of our work on unextendible product bases (UPB), uncompletable product bases and bound entanglement. We present a new construction for bound entangled states based on product bases which are only completable in a locally extended Hilbert space. We introduce a very useful representation of a product basis, an orthogonality graph. Using this representation we give a complete characterization of unextendible product bases for two qutrits. We present several generalizations of UPBs to arbitrary high dimensions and multipartite systems. We present a suffici…
We investigate the unextendible maximally entangled bases in $\mathbb{C}^{d}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{d}$ and present a $30$-number UMEB construction in $\mathbb{C}^{6}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{6}$. For higher dimensional case, we show that for a given $N$-number UMEB in $\mathbb{C}^{d}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{d}$, there is a $\widetilde{N}$-number, $\widetilde{N}=(qd)^2-(d^2-N)$, UMEB in $\mathbb{C}^{qd}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{qd}$ for any $q\in\mathbb{N}$. As an example, for $\mathbb{C}^{12n}\bigotimes\mathbb{C}^{12n}$ systems, we show that there are at least two sets of UMEBs which are not equivalent.
Unextendible product bases (UPBs) provide a versatile tool with various applications across different areas of quantum information theory. Their comprehensive characterization is thus of great importance and has been a subject of vital interest for over two decades now. An open question asks about the existence of UPBs, which are genuinely unextendible, i.e., they are not extendible even with biproduct vectors. In other words, the problem is to verify whether there exist genuinely entangled subspaces (GESs), subspaces composed solely of genuinely multiparty entangled states, complementary to U…
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 the states in an unextendible product basis (UPB) cannot be distinguished perfectly when the parties are restricted to local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Previous discussions of such bases have left open the following question: What entanglement resources are necessary and/or sufficient for this task to be possible with LOCC? In this paper, I present protocols which use entanglement more efficiently than teleportation to distinguish certain classes of UPB's. The ideas underlying my approach to this problem offer rather general insight into why entanglement is…
We consider questions posed in a recent paper of Mandayam, Bandyopadhyay, Grassl and Wootters [10] on the nature of "unextendible mutually unbiased bases." We describe a conceptual framework to study these questions, using a connection proved by the author in [19] between the set of nonidentity generalized Pauli operators on the Hilbert space of $N$ $d$-level quantum systems, $d$ a prime, and the geometry of non-degenerate alternating bilinear forms of rank $N$ over finite fields $\mathbb{F}_d$. We then supply alternative and short proofs of results obtained in [10], as well as new general bou…
We study unextendible maximally entangled bases (UMEBs) in \(\mathbb {C}^{d}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{d^{\prime}}\) ($d<d'$). An operational method to construct UMEBs containing $d(d^{\prime}-1)$ maximally entangled vectors is established, and two UMEBs in \(\mathbb {C}^{5}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{6}\) and \(\mathbb {C}^{5}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{12}\) are given as examples. Furthermore, a systematic way of constructing UMEBs containing $d(d^{\prime}-r)$ maximally entangled vectors in \(\mathbb {C}^{d}\otimes \mathbb {C}^{d^{\prime}}\) is presented for $r=1,2,\cdots, d-1$. Correspondingly, two UMEBs in \(…
Special unextendible entangled basis of "type $k$" (SUEBk), a set of incomplete orthonormal special entangled states of "type $k$" whose complementary space has no special entangled state of "type $k$". This concept can be seem as a generalization of the unextendible product basis (UPB) introduced by Bennett et al. in [ Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{82}, 5385(1999) ] and the unextendible maximally entangled basis (UMEB) introduced by Bravyi and Smolin in [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{84}, 042306(2011)]. We present an efficient method to construct sets of SUEBk. The main strategy here is to decompose the wh…
An unextendible product basis (UPB) for a multipartite quantum system is an incomplete orthogonal product basis whose complementary subspace contains no product state. We give examples of UPBs, and show that the uniform mixed state over the subspace complementary to any UPB is a bound entangled state. We exhibit a tripartite 2x2x2 UPB whose complementary mixed state has tripartite entanglement but no bipartite entanglement, i.e. all three corresponding 2x4 bipartite mixed states are unentangled. We show that members of a UPB are not perfectly distinguishable by local POVMs and classical commun…
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…
Mutual convertibility of bound entangled states under local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC) is studied. We focus on states associated with unextendible product bases (UPB) in a system of three qubits. A complete classification of such UPBs is suggested. We prove that for any pair of UPBs $S$ and $T$ the associated bound entangled states $ρ_S$ and $ρ_T$ can not be converted to each other by LOCC, unless $S$ and $T$ coincide up to local unitaries. More specifically, there exists a finite precision $ε>0$ such that for any LOCC protocol mapping $ρ_S$ into a probabilistic ense…
Unextendible product bases (UPBs) are interesting mathematical objects arising in composite Hilbert spaces that have found various applications in quantum information theory, for instance in a construction of bound entangled states or Bell inequalities without quantum violation. They are closely related to another important notion, completely entangled subspaces (CESs), which are those that do not contain any fully separable pure state. Among CESs one finds a class of subspaces in which all vectors are not only entangled, but are genuinely entangled. Here we explore the connection between UPBs…
The strength of classical correlations is subject to certain constraints, commonly known as Bell inequalities. Violation of these inequalities is the manifestation of nonlocality---displayed, in particular, by quantum mechanics, meaning that quantum mechanics can outperform classical physics at tasks associated with such Bell inequalities. Interestingly, however, there exist situations in which this is not the case. We associate an intriguing class of bound entangled states, constructed from unextendable product bases (UPBs) with a wide family of tasks, for which (i) quantum correlations do no…
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…
An unextendible product basis (UPB) is a set of orthogonal product states which span a subspace of a given Hilbert space while the complementary subspace contains no product state. These product bases are useful to produce bound entangled (BE) states. In this work we consider reducible and irreducible UPBs of maximum size, which can produce BE states of minimum rank. From a reducible UPB, it is possible to eliminate one or more states locally, keeping the post-measurement states orthogonal. On the other hand, for an irreducible UPB, the above is not possible. Particularly, the UPBs of the pres…
Any set of states which cannot be perfectly distinguished by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) alone, can always be locally distinguished using quantum teleportation with enough entanglement resource. However, in quantum information theory, entanglement is a very valuable resource, so it leaves the following open question: how to accomplish this task more efficiently than teleportation, that is, design the local discrimination protocol using less entanglement resource. In this paper, we first present two protocols to locally distinguish a set of unextendible product bases (UP…
We discuss the use of the Gilbert algorithm to tailor entanglement witnesses for unextendibleproduct basis bound entangled states (UPB BE states). The method relies on the fact that an optimalentanglement witness is given by a plane perpendicular to a line between the reference state, entanglementof which is to be witnessed, and its closest separable state (CSS). The Gilbert algorithm finds anapproximation of CSS. In this article, we investigate if this approximation can be good enough toyield a valid entanglement witness. We compare witnesses found with Gilbert algorithm and those givenby Ban…
We show that there are six inequivalent $4\times4$ unextendible product bases (UPBs) of size eight, when we consider only 4-qubit product vectors. We apply our results to construct Positive-Partial-Transpose entangled states of rank nine. They are at the same 4-qubit, $2\times2\times4$ and $4\times4$ states, and their ranges have product vectors. One of the six UPBs turns out to be orthogonal to an almost genuinely entangled space, in the sense that the latter does not contain $4\times4$ product vector in any bipartition of 4-qubit systems. We also show that the multipartite UPB orthogonal to …
We investigate the relation between unextendible product bases (UPB) and Bell inequalities found recently in [R. Augusiak et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 070401 (2011)]. We first review the procedure introduced there that associates to any set of mutually orthogonal product vectors in a many-qubit Hilbert space a Bell inequality. We then show that if a set of mutually orthogonal product vectors can be completed to a full basis, then the associated Bell inequality is trivial, in the sense of not being violated by any nonsignalling correlations. This implies that the relevant Bell inequalities tha…
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…
A set of multipartite orthogonal product states is locally irreducible, if it is not possible to eliminate one or more states from the set by orthogonality-preserving local measurements. An effective way to prove that a set is locally irreducible is to show that only trivial orthogonality-preserving local measurement can be performed to this set. In general, it is difficult to show that such an orthogonality-preserving local measurement must be trivial. In this work, we develop two basic techniques to deal with this problem. Using these techniques, we successfully show the existence of unexten…
Let H[N] denote the tensor product of n finite dimensional Hilbert spaces H(r). A state |phi> of H[N] is separable if |phi> is the tensor product of states in the respective product spaces. An orthogonal unextendible product basis is a finite set B of separable orthonormal states |phi(k)> such that the non-empty space B9perp), the set of vectors orthogonal to B, contains no separable projection. Examples of orthogonal UPB sets were first constructed by Bennett et al [1] and other examples appear, for example, in [2] and [3]. If F denotes the set of convex combinations of the projections |phi(k…
A set of multipartite orthogonal product states is strongly nonlocal if it is locally irreducible in every bipartition, which shows the phenomenon of strong quantum nonlocality without entanglement. It is known that unextendible product bases (UPBs) can show the phenomenon of quantum nonlocality without entanglement. Thus it is interesting to investigate the strong quantum nonlocality for UPBs. Most of the UPBs with the minimum size cannot demonstrate strong quantum nonlocality. In this paper, we construct a series of UPBs with different large sizes in $d_A\otimes d_B\otimes d_C$ and $d_A\otim…
Efficient discrimination schemes for unextendible product bases with strong quantum nonlocality
School of Mathematics and Science, Hebei GEO University（河北地质大学数理学院）；Hebei Province Key Laboratory of Intelligent Sensing and Data Processing for Geo-environment, Hebei GEO University（河北省Geo环境智能感知与数据处理重点实验室）
We discuss the subject of Unextendible Product Bases with the orthogonality condition dropped and we prove that the lowest rank non-separable positive-partial-transpose states, i.e. states of rank 4 in 3 x 3 systems are always locally equivalent to a projection onto the orthogonal complement of a linear subspace spanned by an orthogonal Unextendible Product Basis. The product vectors in the kernels of the states belong to a non-zero measure subset of all general Unextendible Product Bases, nevertheless they can always be locally transformed to the orthogonal form. This fully confirms the surpr…
We provide a necessary condition that a quantum measurement can be implemented by the class of protocols known as Local Operations and Classical Communication, or LOCC, including when an error is allowed but must vanish in the limit of an infinite number of rounds, a case referred to as asymptotic LOCC. Our condition unifies, extends, and provides an intuitive, geometric justification for previous results on asymptotic LOCC. We use our condition to answer a variety of long-standing, unsolved problems, including for distinguishability of certain sets of states by LOCC. These include various cla…
