Given a finite number $N$ of copies of a qubit state we compute the maximum fidelity that can be attained using joint-measurement protocols for estimating its purity. We prove that in the asymptotic $N\to\infty$ limit, separable-measurement protocols can be as efficient as the optimal joint-measurement one if classical communication is used. This in turn shows that the optimal estimation of the entanglement of a two-qubit state can also be achieved asymptotically with fully separable measurements. The relationship between our global Bayesian approach and the quantum Cramer-Rao bound is also discussed.
Given a large number N of copies of a qubit state of which we wish to estimate its purity, we prove that separable-measurement protocols can be as efficient as the optimal joint-measurement one if classical communication is used. This shows that the optimal estimation of the entanglement of a two-qubit state can also be achieved asymptotically with fully separable measurements. Thus, quantum memories provide no advantage in this situation. The relationship between our global Bayesian approach and the quantum Cramer-Rao bound is discussed.
The relation between the symplectic and Lorentz groups is explored to investigate entanglement features in a two-mode bipartite Gaussian state. We verify that the correlation matrix of arbitrary Gaussian states can be associated to a hyperbolic space with a Minkowski metric, which is divided in two regions - separablelike and entangledlike, in equivalence to timelike and spacelike in special relativity. This correspondence naturally allows the definition of two insightful invariant squared distances measures - one related to the purity and another related to amount of entanglement. The second …
We present methods for evaluating the rate of change in quantities during quantum evolution due to coupling to the environment (dissipation hereafter). The protocol is based on repeating a given quantum circuit (or quantum operation) twice, thrice, and so on, and measuring an expectation value after each number of repetitions. We start by applying this method for measuring the rate of purity changes in quantum circuits. This provides direct information on the quality of the circuit. Furthermore, the presented scheme enables to distill the dissipative contribution in the changes of quantities s…
When building a parametric downconversion photon-pair source with spectrally separable photons, e.g. for making high-purity heralded single photons, two practical issues must be accounted for: the design of the experiment, and its characterization. To address experiment design, we study the impact on spectral separability of realistic (sech shaped and chirped) pump fields, realistic nonlinear crystals with fabrication imperfections, and undesirable PDC generation far from the central PMF peak coming from nonlinearity shaping methods. To address experiment characterization, we study the effect …
The Uhlmann-Jozsa fidelity (or, equivalently, the Bures distance) is a basic concept of quantum communication and quantum information, which however is very difficult to measure efficiently without recourse to quantum tomography. Here we propose a direct experimental method to estimate the fidelity between two unknown two-qubit mixed states via the measurement of the upper and lower bounds of the fidelity, which are referred to as the superfidelity and subfidelity, respectively. Our method enables a direct measurement of the first- and second-order overlaps between two arbitrary two-qubit stat…
Integrated photonics is a powerful contender in the race for a fault-tolerant quantum computer, claiming to be a platform capable of scaling to the necessary number of qubits. This necessitates the use of high-quality quantum states, which we create here using an all-around high-performing photon source on an integrated photonics platform. We use a photonic molecule architecture and broadband directional couplers to protect against fabrication tolerances and ensure reliable operation. As a result, we simultaneously measure a spectral purity of $99.1 \pm 0.1$ %, a pair generation rate of $4.4 \…
A natural measure in the space of density matrices describing N-dimensional quantum systems is proposed. We study the probability P that a quantum state chosen randomly with respect to the natural measure is not entangled (is separable). We find analytical lower and upper bounds for this quantity. Numerical calculations give P = 0.632 for N=4 and P=0.384 for N=6, and indicate that P decreases exponentially with N. Analysis of a conditional measure of separability under the condition of fixed purity shows a clear dualism between purity and separability: entanglement is typical for pure states, …
A scheme for measuring the purity of a quantum system with a finite number of levels is presented. The method makes use of two square root of SWAP gates and only hinges on measurements performed on a reference system, prepared in a certain pure state and coupled with the target system. Neither tomographic methods, with the complete reconstruction of the state, nor interferometric setups is needed.
This paper describes the dynamics of a quantum two-level system (qubit) under the influence of an environment modeled by an ensemble of random matrices. In distinction to earlier work, we consider here separable couplings and focus on a regime where the decoherence time is of the same order of magnitude than the environmental Heisenberg time. We derive an analytical expression in the linear response approximation, and study its accuracy by comparison with numerical simulations. We discuss a series of unusual properties, such as purity oscillations, strong signatures of spectral correlations (i…
After introducing the partially separable concept, we proved the equivalence between the partial separability of a given $m$-partite subsystem with $m$ qubits and the purity of states of this $m$-partite subsystem for a pure state in multipartite systems with arbitrary finite $n(>m)$ qubits. Furthermore, we give out the operational realizations (corollaries) of our theorem, which are the sufficient and necessary criterions of partial separability of states and can be used to classification of states. Our results are helpful to understand and describe quantum entanglement in multipartite system…
In this paper, we investigate the possibility of measuring the purity of a quantum state (and the overlap between two quantum states) within a minimal model where the measurement device is minimally composed. The minimality is based on the assumptions that (i) we use a yes-no measurement on a single system to determine the single value of the purity in order not to extract other redundant information, and (ii) we use neither ancilla nor random measurement. We show that the measurability of the purity within this model critically depends on the parity of dimension of the quantum system: the pur…
The SU(2) and SU(3) Lie algebras lend themselves naturally to studies of two- and three-well Bose-Einstein condensates, with the group operators being expressed in terms of bosonic annihilation and creation operators at each site. The success of these representations has led to the purities associated with these algebras to be promoted as a measure of entanglement between the atomic modes in each well. In this report, we show that these purities do not provide an unambiguous measure, but instead give results which depend on the quantum statistical states of each atomic mode. Using the example …
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…
Doubts regarding the completeness of quantum mechanics as raised by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen(EPR) have predominantly been resolved by resorting to a measurement of correlations between entangled photons which clearly demonstrate violation of Bell's inequality. This article is an attempt to reconcile incompatibility of hidden variable theories with reality by demonstrating experimentally a violation of Bell's inequality in locally correlated systems whose two degrees of freedom, the spin and orbital angular momentum, are maximally correlated. To this end we propose and demonstrate a linear,…
Absolute separable states is a kind of separable state that remain separable under the action of any global unitary transformation. These states may or may not have quantum correlation and these correlations can be measured by quantum discord. We find that the absolute separable states are useful in quantum computation even if it contains infinitesimal quantum correlation in it. Thus to search for the class of two-qubit absolute separable states with zero discord, we have derived an upper bound for $Tr(\varrho^{2})$, where $\varrho$ denoting all zero discord states. In general, the upper bound…
The evolution of two qubits coupled by a general nonlocal interaction is studied in two distinct regimes. In the first regime the purity of the individual qubits is interchanged through the entanglement shared by the two. We illustrate how this can be a mechanism for decoherence. In the second regime, the interaction entangles two initially pure qubits. The dynamical maps for the reduced unitary evolution of both initially simply separable and not-simply-separable states are found. We outline a protocol for optimizing the entanglement generation subject to constraints.
The problem of of how many entangled or, respectively, separable states there are in the set of all quantum states is investigated. We study to what extent the choice of a measure in the space of density matrices describing N--dimensional quantum systems affects the results obtained. We demonstrate that the link between the purity of the mixed states and the probability of entanglement is not sensitive to the measure chosen. Since the criterion of partial transposition is not sufficient to distinguish all separable states for N > 6, we develop an efficient algorithm to calculate numerically th…
We consider a class of entangled states of a quantum system (S) and a second system (A) where pure states of the former are correlated with mixed states of the latter, and work out the entanglement measure with reference to the nearest separable state. Such `pure-mixed' entanglement is expected when the system S interacts with a macroscopic measuring apparatus in a quantum measurement, where the quantum correlation is destroyed in the process of environment-induced decoherence whereafter only the classical correlation between S and A remains, the latter being large compared to the former. We p…
In this paper we give a new way to quantify the folklore notion that quantum measurements bring a disturbance to the system being measured. We consider two observers who initially assign identical mixed-state density operators to a two-state quantum system. The question we address is to what extent one observer can, by measurement, increase the purity of his density operator without affecting the purity of the other observer's. If there were no restrictions on the first observer's measurements, then he could carry this out trivially by measuring the initial density operator's eigenbasis. If, h…
We propose a scheme for measuring the squeezing, purity, and entanglement of Gaussian states of light that does not require homodyne detection. The suggested setup only needs beam splitters and single-photon detectors. Two-mode entanglement can be detected from coincidences between photodetectors placed on the two beams.
We study the short-time evolution of the bipartite entanglement in quantum lattice systems with local interactions in terms of the purity of the reduced density matrix. A lower bound for the purity is derived in terms of the eigenvalue spread of the interaction Hamiltonian between the partitions. Starting from an initially separable state the purity decreases as $1 - (t/τ)^2$, i.e. quadratically in time, with a characteristic time scale $τ$ that is inversly proportional to the boundary size of the subsystem, i.e., as an area-law. For larger times an exponential lower bound is derived correspon…
We demonstrate that the presence of entanglement in macroscopic bodies (e.g. solids) in thermodynamical equilibrium could be revealed by measuring heat-capacity. The idea is that if the system were in a separable state, then for certain Hamiltonians heat capacity would not tend asymptotically to zero as the temperature approaches absolute zero. Since this would contradict the third law of thermodynamics, one concludes that the system must contain entanglement. The separable bounds are obtained by minimization of the heat capacity over separable states and using its universal low-temperature be…
Following the evolution of an open quantum system requires full knowledge of its dynamics. In this paper we consider open quantum systems for which the Hamiltonian is ``uncertain''. In particular, we treat in detail a simple system similar to that considered by Mabuchi [Quant. Semiclass. Opt. 8, 1103 (1996)]: a radiatively damped atom driven by an unknown Rabi frequency $Ω$ (as would occur for an atom at an unknown point in a standing light wave). By measuring the environment of the system, knowledge about the system state, and about the uncertain dynamical parameter, can be acquired. We find …
Quantum phase estimation protocols can provide a measuring method of phase shift with precision superior to standard quantum limit (SQL) due to the application of a nonclassical state of light. A squeezed vacuum state, whose variance in one quadrature is lower than the corresponding SQL, has been pointed out a sensitive resource for quantum phase estimation and the estimation accuracy is directly influenced by the properties of the squeezed state. Here we detailedly analyze the influence of the purity and squeezing level of the squeezed state on the accuracy of quantum phase estimation. The ma…
The ability to manipulate and measure the time-frequency structure of quantum light is useful for information processing and metrology. Measuring this structure is also important when developing quantum light sources with high modal purity that can interfere with other independent sources. Here, we present and experimentally demonstrate a scheme based on intensity interferometry to measure the joint spectral mode of photon pairs produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. We observe correlations in the spectral phase of the photons due to chirp in the pump. We show that our scheme can …
We put forward and demonstrate experimentally a {\it quantum-inspired} protocol that allows to quantify the degree of similarity between two spatial shapes embedded in two optical beams without the need to measure the amplitude and phase across each beam. Instead the sought-after information can be retrieved measuring the degree of polarization of the combined optical beam, a measurement that is much easier to implement experimentally. The protocol makes use of non-separable optical beams, whose main trait is that different degrees of freedom (polarization and spatial shape here) can not be de…
We describe an efficient DQC1-algorithm to quantify the amount of Geometric Quantum Discord present in the output state of a DQC1 computation. DQC1 is a model of computation that utilizes separable states to solve a problem with no known efficient classical algorithm and is known to contain quantum correlations as measured by the discord. For the general case of a (1+n)-qubit DQC1-state we provide an analytical expression for the Geometric Quantum Discord and find that its typical (and maximum) value decreases exponentially with n. This is in contrast to the standard Quantum Discord whose valu…
We introduce algebriac sets in the products of complex projective spaces for multipartite mixed states, which are independent of their eigenvalues and only measure the "position" of their eigenvectors, as their non-local invariants (ie. remaining invariant after local untary transformations). These invariants are naturally arised from the physical consideration of checking multipartite mixed states by measuring them with multipartite separable pure states. The algebraic sets have to be the sum of linear subspaces if the multipartite mixed state is separable, and thus we give a new separability…
Recently, Meyer and Wallach [D.A. Meyer and N.R. Wallach (2002), J. of Math. Phys., 43, pp. 4273] proposed a measure of multi-qubit entanglement that is a function on pure states. We find that this function can be interpreted as a physical quantity related to the average purity of the constituent qubits and show how it can be observed in an efficient manner without the need for full quantum state tomography. A possible realization is described for measuring the entanglement of a chain of atomic qubits trapped in a 3D optical lattice.
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…
Controllable arrays of ions and ultra-cold atoms can simulate complex many-body phenomena and may provide insights into unsolved problems in modern science. To this end, experimentally feasible protocols for quantifying the buildup of quantum correlations and coherence are needed, as performing full state tomography does not scale favorably with the number of particles. Here we develop and experimentally demonstrate such a protocol, which uses time reversal of the many-body dynamics to measure out-of-time-order correlation functions (OTOCs) in a long-range Ising spin quantum simulator with mor…
Entanglement is one of the most intriguing features of quantum mechanics. It describes non-local correlations between quantum objects, and is at the heart of quantum information sciences. Entanglement is rapidly gaining prominence in diverse fields ranging from condensed matter to quantum gravity. Despite this generality, measuring entanglement remains challenging. This is especially true in systems of interacting delocalized particles, for which a direct experimental measurement of spatial entanglement has been elusive. Here, we measure entanglement in such a system of itinerant particles usi…
This study is aimed at investigating the feasibility of generating quantum entanglement between macroscopic mechanical mirrors in optomechanical systems while under continuous measurement and feedback control. We carefully derive a covariance matrix for mechanical mirrors in a steady state, employing the Kalman filtering problem with an assumed dominant cavity photon dissipation, such that the common and differential modes of the mirrors are squeezed by the action of measuring the output light beams. We demonstrate that entanglement between the mechanical mirrors is generated when the states o…
In standard optical tomographic methods, the off-diagonal elements of a density matrix $ρ$ are measured indirectly. Thus, the reconstruction of $ρ$, even if it is based on linear inversion, typically magnifies small errors in the experimental data. Recently, an optimal tomography [Phys. Rev. A 90, 062123 (2014)] has been proposed theoretically to measure one-by-one all the elements of $ρ$. Thus, the relative errors in the reconstructed state can be the same as those in the experimental data. We implemented this method for two-qubit polarization states performing both local and global measureme…
Entanglement, a critical resource for quantum information processing, needs to be witnessed in many practical scenarios. Theoretically, witnessing entanglement is by measuring a special Hermitian observable, called entanglement witness (EW), which has non-negative expected outcomes for all separable states but can have negative expectations for certain entangled states. In practice, an EW implementation may suffer from two problems. The first one is \emph{reliability}. Due to unreliable realization devices, a separable state could be falsely identified as an entangled one. The second problem r…
In this paper we develop an approach for detecting entanglement, which is based on measuring quantum correlations and constructing a correlation matrix. The correlation matrix is then used for defining a family of parameters, named Correlation Minor Norms, which allow one to detect entanglement. This approach generalizes the computable cross-norm or realignment (CCNR) criterion, and moreover requires measuring a state-independent set of operators. Furthermore, we illustrate a scheme which yields for each Correlation Minor Norm a separable state that maximizes it. The proposed entanglement dete…
