We study the properties of the discrete Wigner distribution for two qubits introduced by Wotters. In particular, we analyze the entanglement properties within the Wigner distribution picture by considering the negativity of the Wigner function (WF) and the correlations of the marginal distribution. We show that a state is entangled if at least one among the values assumed by the corresponding discrete WF is smaller than a certain critical (negative) value. Then, based on the Partial Transposition criterion, we establish the relation between the separability of a density matrix and the non-negativity of the WF's relevant both to such a density matrix and to the partially transposed thereof.
Finally, we derive a simple inequality --involving the covariance-matrix elements of a given WF-- which appears to provide a separability criterion stronger than the one based on the Local Uncertainty Relations.
We study the behaviour of the Negativity of Wigner Function (NWF) as a measure of entanglement in non-Gaussian states under quantum polarisation converter devices. We analyze comparatively this quantity with other measures of entanglement in a system prepared in a superposition of two-mode coherent states. We show that the (WF) can be identified as a quantifier of non-Gaussian entanglement.
We establish the relation of the spin tomogram to the Wigner function on a discrete phase space of qubits. We use the quantizers and dequantizers of the spin tomographic star-product scheme for qubits to derive the expression for the kernel connecting Wigner symbols on the discrete phase space with the tomographic symbols.
We further elaborate on a phase-space picture for a system of $N$ qubits and explore the structures compatible with the notion of unbiasedness. These consist of bundles of discrete curves satisfying certain additional properties and different entanglement properties. We discuss the construction of discrete covariant Wigner functions for these bundles and provide several illuminating examples.
We show that qubit stabilizer states can be represented by non-negative quasi-probability distributions associated with a Wigner-Weyl-Moyal formalism where Clifford gates are positive state-independent maps. This is accomplished by generalizing the Wigner-Weyl-Moyal formalism to three generators instead of two---producing an exterior, or Grassmann, algebra---which results in Clifford group gates for qubits that act as a permutation on the finite Weyl phase space points naturally associated with stabilizer states. As a result, a non-negative probability distribution can be associated with each …
We describe a scheme of quantum computation with magic states on qubits for which contextuality is a necessary resource possessed by the magic states. More generally, we establish contextuality as a necessary resource for all schemes of quantum computation with magic states on qubits that satisfy three simple postulates. Furthermore, we identify stringent consistency conditions on such computational schemes, revealing the general structure by which negativity of Wigner functions, hardness of classical simulation of the computation, and contextuality are connected.
In this paper, we use the Weisskopf-Wigner theory to study the entanglement in the state of the free-space radiation field produced from vacuum due to atomic decay. We show how bipartite entanglement is shared between different partitions of the radiation modes. We investigate the role played by the size of the partitions and their detuning with the decaying atom. The dynamics of the atom-field entanglement during the atomic decay is also briefly discussed. From this dynamics, we assert that such entanglement is the physical quantity that fix the statistical atomic decay time.
Within the Wigner-PDC picture of photon entanglement, detection "errors" are not independent (though they may look, on average), nor can they be controlled by means of a technological improvement on the detectors. Those two elements make possible the interpretation of experimental evidence without the need to exclude local realism: for that reason, we propose the abandonment of the usual (photon, particle-based) description of (PDC-generated) light states, in favour of an also quantum, but field-theoretical description (QED), a description that finds a one-to-one equivalent in the Wigner-PDC a…
In a recent paper, Tilma, Everitt {\it et al.} derived a generalized Wigner function that can characterize both the discrete and continuous variable states, i.e., hybrid states. As such, one can expect that the negativity of the generalized Wigner function applied to the hybrid states can reveal their nonclassicality, in analogy with the well-known Wigner function defined for the continuous variable states. In this work, we demonstrate that, indeed, the negativity volume of the generalized Wigner function of the hybrid bipartite states can be used as an entanglement witness for such states, pr…
The generation of entangled states that display negative values of the Wigner function in the quantum phase space is a challenging task, particularly elusive for massive, and possibly macroscopic, systems such as mechanical resonators. In this work, we propose two schemes based on reservoir engineering for generating Wigner-negative entangled states unconditionally. We consider two non-interacting mechanical resonators that are radiation-pressure coupled to either one or two common cavity fields; the optomechanical coupling with the field(s) features both a linear and quadratic part in the mec…
We experimentally demonstrate the steady-state generation of propagating Wigner-negative states from a continuously driven superconducting qubit. We reconstruct the Wigner function of the radiation emitted into propagating modes defined by their temporal envelopes, using digital filtering. For an optimized temporal filter, we observe a large Wigner logarithmic negativity, in excess of 0.08, in agreement with theory. The fidelity between the theoretical predictions and the states generated experimentally is up to 99%, reaching state-of-the-art realizations in the microwave frequency domain. Our…
We introduce a new class of unitary transformations based on the su(1,1) Lie algebra that generalizes, for certain particular representations of its generators, well-known squeezing transformations in quantum optics. To illustrate our results, we focus on the two-mode bosonic representation and show how the parametric amplifier model can be modified in order to generate such a generalized squeezing operator. Furthermore, we obtain a general expression for the bipartite Wigner function which allows us to identify two distinct sources of entanglement, here labelled by dynamical and kinematical e…
We calculate the atomic (spin) Wigner function for the single mode Dicke model in the regime of large number of two-level atoms. The dynamics of this quasi-probability function on the Bloch sphere allows us to visualize the consequences of the entanglement process between the boson and the spin subsystems. Such investigation shows a distinct localization behavior of the spin state with respect to the polar and azimuthal Bloch sphere angles. A complete {\em breakdown of reflection symmetry} in the azimuthal angle is shown in the non-integrable case, even at short evolution times. Also, in the c…
A Bell-type inequality is proposed in terms of Wigner-Yanase skew information, which is quadratic and involves only one local spin observable at each site. This inequality presents a hierarchic classification of all states of multipartite quantum systems from separable to fully entangled states, which is more powerful than the one presented by quadratic Bell inequalities from two-entangled to fully entangled states. In particular, it is proved that the inequality provides an exact test to distinguish entangled from nonentangled pure states of two qubits. Our inequality sheds considerable light…
We present the experimental reconstruction of the Wigner function of an individual electronic spin qubit associated with a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond at room temperature. This spherical Wigner function contains the same information as the density matrix for arbitrary spin systems. As an example, we exactly characterize the quantum state of a single qubit undergoing a nearly pure dephasing process by Wigner function. The fidelities and purities during this process are extracted from the experimental reconstructed Wigner functions, whose dynamics agree with the theoretical predictio…
We study different techniques that allow us to gain complete knowledge about an unknown quantum state, e.g. to perform full tomography of this state. We focus on two apparently simple cases, full tomography of one and two qubit systems. We analyze and compare those techniques according to two figures of merit. Our first criterion is the minimisation of the redundancy of the data acquired during the tomographic process. In the case of two-qubits tomography, we also analyze this process from the point of view of factorisability, so to say we analyze the possibility to realise the tomographic pro…
In this manuscript, the behavior of the Wigner function of accelerated and non-accelerated two qubit system passing through different noisy channels is discussed. The decoherence of the initial quantum correlation due to the noisy channels and the acceleration process is investigated by means of Wigner function. The negative (positive) behavior of the Wigner function predicts the gain of the quantum (classical) correlations. Based on the upper and lower bounds of the Wigner function, the entangled initial state loses its quantum correlation due the acceleration process and the strengths of the…
Anomalous weak values and Wigner function's negativity are well known witnesses of quantum contextuality. We show that these effects occur when analyzing the energetics of a single qubit gate generated by a resonant coherent field traveling in a waveguide. The buildup of correlations between the qubit and the field is responsible for bounds on the gate fidelity, but also for a nontrivial energy balance recently observed in a superconducting setup. In the experimental scheme, the field is continuously monitored through heterodyne detection and then post-selected over the outcomes of a final qub…
Pulsed parametric downconversion (PDC) processes generate photon pairs with a rich spectral-temporal structure, which offer an attractive potential for quantum information and communication applications. In this paper, we investigate the four-dimensional chronocyclic Wigner function of the PDC state, which naturally lends itself to the pulsed characteristics of these states. From this function we derive the conditioned time-bandwidth product of one of the pair photons, a quantity which is not only a valid measure of entanglement between the PDC photons but also allows to highlight a remarkable…
We propose the Wigner separability entropy as a measure of complexity of a quantum state. This quantity measures the number of terms that effectively contribute to the Schmidt decomposition of the Wigner function with respect to a chosen phase space decomposition. We prove that the Wigner separability entropy is equal to the operator space entanglement entropy, measuring entanglement in the space of operators, and, for pure states, to twice the entropy of entanglement. The quantum to classical correspondence between the Wigner separability entropy and the separability entropy of the classical …
The first step of quantum measurement procedure is known as \emph{premeasurement}, during when correlation between measuring system and measurement apparatus is established. One compelling non-classical correlation is entanglement, a useful resource for various quantum information theoretic protocols. Quantifying the amount of entanglement in the premeasurement state, therefore, seeks importance from practical ground and this is the central issue of the present paper. Interestingly, for a two-label quantum system we obtain that the amount of entanglement, measured in term of \emph{negativity},…
Tomography of the two qubit density matrix shared by Alice and Bob is an essential ingredient for guaranteeing an acceptable margin of confidentiality during the establishment of a secure fresh key through the Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) scheme. We show how the Singapore protocol for key distribution is optimal from this point of view, due to the fact that it is based on so called SIC POVM qubit tomography which allows the most accurate full tomographic reconstruction of an unknown density matrix on the basis of a restricted set of experimental data. We illustrate with the help of experimen…
The occupancies and entropic entanglement measures for the ground state of two particles in a two-dimensional harmonic anisotropic trap are studied. We implement a method to study the large interaction strength limit for different short- and long-range interaction potentials that allows to obtain the exact entanglement spectrum and several entropies. We show that for long-range interactions, the von Neumann, min-entropy and the family of Rényi entropies remain finite for the anisotropic traps and diverge logarithmically for the isotropic traps. In the short-range interaction case the entanglem…
In this work, we report that the Hawking radiation effect on fermions is fundamentally different from the case of scalar particles. Intrinsic properties of fermions (exclusion principle and spin) affect strongly the interaction of fermions with both Hawking radiation and metric of the spacetime. In particular we have found the following: first, while the fermion vacuum state seen by the Rindler observer is an entangled state in which the right and left Rindler wedge states appear in correlated pairs as in the case of the scalar particles, the entanglement disappears in the excited state due to…
The negativity of the Wigner function is discussed as a measure of the non classicality and the quantum interference pattern obtained therein as a possible measure of the entanglement between the two modes of the vortex states. This measure of entanglement is compared with the results obtained from concurrence.
Starting with the quasi-Bell states of the qubit-oscillator system, we obtain time evolution of the density matrix under the adiabatic approximation. The composite density matrix leads to, via partial tracing of the qubit degree of freedom, the reduced density matrix of the oscillator that is utilized to obtain the quasi-probability distributions such as Glauber-Sudarshan P function, Wigner W function and Husimi Q function. The negativity of the Wigner function acts as a measure of the nonclassicality of the state. The negativity becomes particularly relevant in understanding a comparison betw…
In this paper, we use the displacement operator together with parity operation to construct the superposition of two coherent states. By transmitting this superposition from 50-50 beam splitter the two-mode qubit like ECS is generated. Moreover, we introduce a controllable method for producing qutrit like ECS using atom-field interaction in cavity QED and beam splitter. We will show that the distances of peaks of Wigner functions for reduced density matrices of two-mode ECS's are entanglement sensitive and can be a witness for entanglement. To confirm the results we use concurrence measure to …
We provide a detailed description of the EPR paradox (in the Bohm version) for a two qubit-state in the discrete Wigner function formalism. We compare the probability distributions for two qubit relevant to simultaneously-measurable observables (computed from the Wigner function) with the probability distributions representing two perfectly-correlated classic particles in a discrete phase-space. We write in both cases the updating formulae after a measure, thus obtaining a mathematical definition of \textit{classic collapse} and \textit{quantum collapse}. We study, with the EPR experiment, the…
We investigate the teleportation of an entangled two-qubit state using three-qubit GHZ and W channels. The effects of white noise on the average teleportation fidelity and amount of entanglement transmitted are also studied.
Effect of Lorentz transformation on some properties of multi-qubit systems is investigated. It is shown that, properties like, the fidelity and entanglement decay as the Wigner's angles increase, but can be improved, if all the transformed particles are transformed with the same Wigner's angles. The upper bounds of the average capacity of the GHZ state increases while it decreases and more robust with the W-state as the Wigner's angle of the observer decreases. Under Lorentz transformation, the tripartite states transform into another equivalent states and hence no change on the efficiency of …
We show that real polarization method can be effectively used to geometrically quantize physical systems with compact phase space, like the spin. Our method enables us to construct a wave function of a qubit in both position and momentum representations and also its Wigner function. These results can be used in quantum informatics.
We study Wigner function of a system describing entanglement of two cat-states. Quantum interferece arising due to entanglement is shown to produce sub-Planck structures in the phase-space plots of the Wigner function. Origin of these structures in our case depends on entanglement unlike those in Zurek \cite{Zurek}. It is argued that the entangled cat-states are better suited for carrying out precision measurements.
Effects of DM and KSEA interactions on entanglement, Fisher and Wigner-Yanase information correlations of two XYZ-Heisenberg-qubit states under a magnetic field
In this Brief Report we show the relation between three-qubit entanglement invariants and two-qubit concurrence with the help of projective measurements. How to use these invariants to represent the entanglement property of three-qubit pure states is also investigated.
We calculate the Wigner (quasi)probability distribution function of the quantum optical elliptical vortex (QEV), generated by coupling squeezed vacuum states of two modes. The coupling between the two modes is performed by using beam splitter (BS) or a dual channel directional coupler (DCDC). The quantum interference due to the coupling between the two modes promises the generation of controlled entanglement for quantum computation and quantum tomography. We compute the entanglement of such QEV formed by non-classical radiation field, using Wigner function. We report a critical squeezing param…
It is shown that the entanglement-structure of 3- and 4-qubit states can be characterized by optimized operators of the Mermin-Klyshko type. It is possible to discriminate between pure 2-qubit entanglements and higher entanglements. A comparison with a global entanglement measure and the i-concurrence is made.
We analyze and further develop a new method to represent the quantum state of a system of $n$ qubits in a phase space grid of $N\times N$ points (where $N=2^n$). The method, which was recently proposed by Wootters and co--workers (Gibbons {\it et al.}, quant-ph/0401155), is based on the use of the elements of the finite field $GF(2^n)$ to label the phase space axes. We present a self--contained overview of the method, we give new insights on some of its features and we apply it to investigate problems which are of interest for quantum information theory: We analyze the phase space representati…
We study the entanglement creation between two flux qubits interacting with electromagnetic field modes. No direct interaction between the qubits exists. Entanglement is reached using entanglement swapping method by an interference measurement performed on photons. We discuss the influence of off-resonance and multi-photon initial states on the qubit-qubit entanglement. The presented scheme is able to drive an initially separable state of two qubits into an highly entangled state suitable for quantum information processing.
Entanglement of four qubit pure states defined by the $η$-trigonometric functions is studied. We analyze the behavior of two recently proposed symmetric entanglement monotones on the chosen $n=4$ qubit states .
The concurrence of two alternate qubits in a four-qubit Heisenberg XX chain is investigated when a uniform magnetic field B is included. It is found that there is no thermal entanglement between alternate qubits if B is close to zero. Magnetic field can induce entanglement in a certain range both for the antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic cases. Near zero temperature, the entanglement undergoes two sudden changes with increasing value of the magnetic field B. This is due to the changes in the ground state. This novel property may be used as quantum entanglement switch. The anisotropy in the s…
Two qubits in pure entangled states going through separate paths and interacting with their own individual environments will gradually lose their entanglement. Here we show that the entanglement change of a two-qubit state due to amplitude damping noises can be recovered by entanglement swapping. Some initial states can be asymptotically purified into maximally entangled states by iteratively using our protocol.
We investigate the thermal entanglement in two superconducting qubits for arbitrary interaction strength and ground state frequencies. We calculate the concurrence of the system to quantify the thermal entanglement. We suggest a scheme, where an external tunable coupler qubit sandwich between two superconducting qubits generates entanglement. The behavior of concurrence is analyzed for three different cases, in which we consider the effects of the temperature, the qubit-qubit effective coupling strength, and the qubit frequencies on the thermal entanglement. What deserves mentioning here is th…
In this work, we propose a scheme to design the time evolution of the entropy of entanglement between two qubits. It is shown an explicit accurate solution for the inverse problem of determining the time dependence of the coupling constant from a user-defined dynamical entanglement function. Such an active control of entanglement can be implemented in many different physical implementations of coupled qubits, and we briefly comment on the use of interacting flux qubits.
Recently, Coffman, Kundu, and Wootters introduced the residual entanglement for three qubits to quantify the three-qubit entanglement in Phys. Rev. A 61, 052306 (2000). In Phys. Rev. A 65, 032304 (2007), we defined the residual entanglement for $n$ qubits, whose values are between 0 and 1. In this paper, we want to show that the residual entanglement for $n$ qubits is a natural measure of entanglement by demonstrating the following properties. (1). It is SL-invariant, especially LU-invariant. (2). It is an entanglement monotone. (3). It is invariant under permutations of the qubits. (4). It va…
We study the tomography of propagators for spin systems in the context of finite-dimensional Wigner representations, which completely characterize and visualize operators using shapes assembled from linear combinations of spherical harmonics. The Wigner representation of a propagator can be experimentally recovered by measuring expectation values of rotated axial spherical tensor operators in an augmented system with an additional ancilla qubit. The methodology is experimentally demonstrated for standard one-qubit quantum gates using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In particular, this…
In this paper we consider the generation of a three-qubit GHZ-like thermal state by applying the entanglement swapping scheme of Zukowski {\it et al.} [Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. {\bf 755}, 91 (1995)] to three pairs of two-qubit Heisenberg XY chains. The quality of the resulting three-qubit entanglement is studied by analyzing the teleportation fidelity, when it is used as a resource in the teleportation protocol of Karlsson {\it et al.}[Phys. Rev. A {\bf 58}, 4394 (1998)]. We show that even though thermal noise in the original two-qubit states is amplified by the entanglement swapping process, we …
We study the degree to which quantum entanglement survives when a three-qubit entangled state is copied by using local and non-local processes, respectively, and investigate iterating quantum copying for the three-qubit system. There may exist inter-three-qubit entanglement and inter-two-qubit entanglement for the three-qubit system. We show that both local and non-local copying processes degrade quantum entanglement in the three-particle system due to a residual correlation between the copied output and the copying machine. We also show that the inter-two-qubit entanglement is preserved bette…
