Entanglement theory with limited computational resources

Computing the exact rate at which entanglement can be distilled from noisy quantum states is one of the longest-standing questions in quantum information. We give an exact solution for entanglement distillation under the set of dually non-entangling (DNE) operations—a relaxation of the typically considered local operations and classical communication, comprising all channels which preserve the sets of separable states and measurements. We show that the DNE distillable entanglement coincides with a modified version of the regularised relative entropy of entanglement in which the arguments are measured with a separable measurement. Ours is only the second known regularised formula for the distillable entanglement under any class of free operations in entanglement theory, after that given by Devetak and Winter for (one-way) local operations and classical communication. An immediate consequence of our finding is that, under DNE, entanglement can be distilled from any entangled state. As our second main result, we construct a general upper bound on the DNE distillable entanglement, using which we prove that the separably measured relative entropy of entanglement can be strictly smaller than the regularisation of the standard relative entropy of entanglement, solving an open problem posed by Li and Winter. Finally, we study also the reverse task of entanglement dilution and show that the restriction to DNE operations does not change the entanglement cost when compared with the larger class of non-entangling operations. This implies a strong form of irreversiblility of entanglement theory under DNE operations: even when asymptotically vanishing amounts of entanglement may be generated, entangled states cannot be converted reversibly.

We have investigated numerically the dynamics of quantum Fisher information (QFI) and quantum entanglement (QE) of a two moving two-level atomic systems interacting with a coherent and thermal field in the presence of intrinsic decoherence (ID) and Kerr (non-linear medium) and Stark effects. The state of the entire system interacting with coherent and thermal fields is evaluated numerically under the influence of ID and Kerr (nonlinear) and Stark effects. QFI and von Neumann entropy (VNE) decrease in the presence of ID when the atomic motion is neglected. QFI and QE show an opposite response during its time evolution in the presence of a thermal environment. QFI is found to be more susceptible to ID as compared to QE in the presence of a thermal environment. The decay of QE is further damped at greater time-scales, which confirms the fact that ID heavily influences the system’s dynamics in a thermal environment. However, a periodic behavior of entanglement is observed due to atomic motion, which becomes modest under environmental effects. It is found that a non-linear Kerr medium has a prominent effect on the VNE but not on the QFI. Furthermore, it has been observed that QFI and QE decay soon under the influence of the Stark effect in the absence of atomic motion. The periodic response of QFI and VNE is observed for both the non-linear Kerr medium and the Stark effect in the presence of atomic motion. It is observed that the Stark, Kerr, ID, and thermal environment have significant effects during the time evolution of the quantum system.

Quantum coherence and quantum entanglement represent two fundamental features of nonclassical systems that can each be characterized within an operational resource theory. In this Letter, we unify the resource theories of entanglement and coherence by studying their combined behavior in the operational setting of local incoherent operations and classical communication (LIOCC). Specifically, we analyze the coherence and entanglement trade-offs in the tasks of state formation and resource distillation. For pure states we identify the minimum coherence-entanglement resources needed to generate a given state, and we introduce a new LIOCC monotone that completely characterizes a state's optimal rate of bipartite coherence distillation. This result allows us to precisely quantify the difference in operational powers between global incoherent operations, LIOCC, and local incoherent operations without classical communication. Finally, a bipartite mixed state is shown to have distillable entanglement if and only if entanglement can be distilled by LIOCC, and we strengthen the well-known Horodecki criterion for distillability.

Quantum cryptographic systems have been commercially available, with a striking advantage over classical systems that their security and ability to detect the presence of eavesdropping are provable based on the principles of quantum mechanics. On the other hand, quantum protocol designers may commit more faults than classical protocol designers since human intuition is poorly adapted to the quantum world. To offer formal techniques for modeling and verification of quantum protocols, several quantum extensions of process algebra have been proposed. An important issue in quantum process algebra is to discover a quantum generalization of bisimulation preserved by various process constructs, in particular, parallel composition, where one of the major differences between classical and quantum systems, namely quantum entanglement, is present. Quite a few versions of bisimulation have been defined for quantum processes in the literature, but in the best case they are only proved to be preserved by parallel composition of purely quantum processes where no classical communication is involved. Many quantum cryptographic protocols, however, employ the LOCC (Local Operations and Classical Communication) scheme, where classical communication must be explicitly specified. So, a notion of bisimulation preserved by parallel composition in the circumstance of both classical and quantum communication is crucial for process algebra approach to verification of quantum cryptographic protocols. In this article we introduce novel notions of strong bisimulation and weak bisimulation for quantum processes, and prove that they are congruent with respect to various process algebra combinators including parallel composition even when both classical and quantum communication are present. We also establish some basic algebraic laws for these bisimulations. In particular, we show the uniqueness of the solutions to recursive equations of quantum processes, which proves useful in verifying complex quantum protocols. To capture the idea that a quantum process approximately implements its specification, and provide techniques and tools for approximate reasoning, a quantified version of strong bisimulation, which defines for each pair of quantum processes a bisimulation-based distance characterizing the extent to which they are strongly bisimilar, is also introduced.

We demonstrate the irreversibility of asymptotic entanglement manipulation under quantum operations that completely preserve the positivity of partial transpose (PPT), resolving a major open problem in quantum information theory. Our key tool is a new efficiently computable additive lower bound for the asymptotic relative entropy of entanglement with respect to PPT states, which can be used to evaluate the entanglement cost under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We find that for any rank-two mixed state supporting on the 3⊗3 antisymmetric subspace, the amount of distillable entanglement by PPT operations is strictly smaller than one entanglement bit (ebit) while its entanglement cost under PPT operations is exactly one ebit. As a by-product, we find that for this class of states, both the Rains's bound and its regularization are strictly less than the asymptotic relative entropy of entanglement. So, in general, there is no unique entanglement measure for the manipulation of entanglement by PPT operations. We further show a computable sufficient condition for the irreversibility of entanglement distillation by LOCC (or PPT) operations.

Transmission of quantum entanglement will play a crucial role in future networks and long-distance quantum communications. Quantum Key Distribution, the working mechanism of quantum repeaters and the various quantum communication protocols are all based on quantum entanglement. To share entanglement between distant points, high fidelity quantum channels are needed. In practice, these communication links are noisy, which makes it impossible or extremely difficult and expensive to distribute entanglement. In this work we first show that quantum entanglement can be generated by a new idea, exploiting the most natural effect of the communication channels: the noise itself of the link. We prove that the noise transformation of quantum channels that are not able to transmit quantum entanglement can be used to generate distillable (useable) entanglement from classically correlated input. We call this new phenomenon the Correlation Conversion property (CC-property) of quantum channels. The proposed solution does not require any nonlocal operation or local measurement by the parties, only the use of standard quantum channels. Our results have implications and consequences for the future of quantum communications, and for global-scale quantum communication networks. The discovery also revealed that entanglement generation by local operations is possible.

We study the dynamical evolution of quantum Fisher information (QFI) and von Neumann entropy (VNE) for a three-level atomic system interacting with the single-mode coherent field in the presence of the Stark effect and intrinsic decoherence (ID) with and without atomic motion. The effect of the ID is significant on the VNE and QFI for a three-level atom in the absence of atomic motion. It is observed that in the case of a three-level atomic system in the presence of ID, the decay of QFI and VNE is rapid and significant but no prominent effect of the Stark effect is observed. Hence, for a three-level atom, the decay of quantum entanglement (QE) with respect to time is very fast and rapid in the absence of atomic motion with an increasing value of ID. Moreover, ID is not suitable to maintain the QE for three-level atomic systems in the absence of atomic motion. The Stark effect has no significant effect on the QE. In the case of three-level atoms, ID and the Stark do not affect the periodic nature of QFI and VNE with time evolution in the presence of atomic motion. The periodic response of QFI and VNE is observed under the effect of the Stark effect and ID in the presence of a motion of a three-level atom. The QE sudden death and birth is observed in the presence of atomic motion. Therefore, the ID with the Stark effect is suitable to sustain and maintain the QE in the presence of atomic motion for three-level atomic systems. These results show the strong dependence of QFI and VNE on the Stark effect and ID.

Instantaneous nonlocal quantum computation refers to a process in which spacelike separated parties simulate a nonlocal quantum operation on their joint systems through the consumption of pre-shared entanglement. To prevent a violation of causality, this simulation succeeds up to local errors that can only be corrected after the parties communicate classically with one another. However, this communication is non-interactive, and it involves just the broadcasting of local measurement outcomes. We refer to this operational paradigm as local operations and broadcast communication (LOBC) to distinguish it from the standard local operations and (interactive) classical communication (LOCC). In this paper, we show that an arbitrary two-qubit gate can be implemented by LOBC with $\epsilon$-error using $O(\log(1/\epsilon))$ entangled bits (ebits). This offers an exponential improvement over the best known two-qubit protocols, whose ebit costs behave as $O(1/\epsilon)$. We also consider the family of binary controlled gates on dimensions $d_A\otimes d_B$. We find that any hermitian gate of this form can be implemented by LOBC using a single shared ebit. In sharp contrast, a lower bound of $\log d_B$ ebits is shown in the case of generic (i.e. non-hermitian) gates from this family, even when $d_A=2$. This demonstrates an unbounded gap between the entanglement costs of LOCC and LOBC gate implementation. Whereas previous lower bounds on the entanglement cost for instantaneous nonlocal computation restrict the minimum dimension of the needed entanglement, we bound its entanglement entropy. To our knowledge this is the first such lower bound of its kind.

Based on the positive maps separability criterion, we present a method for the detection of quantum entanglement of a shared bipartite quantum state, within the ``distant labs'' paradigm, using only local operations and classical communication.

We investigate dynamics of quantum entanglement (QE) and quantum Fisher information (QFI) of a system of two four-level atoms moving in the thermal environment. The time evolution of the state vector of the whole quantum system interacting with the thermal field is investigated numerically in the presence of intrinsic decoherence (ID). We see that ID and the thermal environment play a prominent role in the time evolution of the quantum system. QFI and von Neumann entropy (VNE) show the opposite response during their time evolution in the presence of the thermal environment. QFI is seen as more prone to intrinsic decoherence when compared with the VNE in the presence of the thermal environment. VNE changes remarkably with increase in the intrinsic decoherence parameter without the atomic motion. However, the periodic response of VNE is seen because of the atomic motion which gets modest under environmental effects. The decay of VNE is further damped at larger time scales that confirm that ID affects the system dynamics in a thermal environment. Moreover, VNE and QFI saturate to a lower level for larger time-scales under these environments. The damping response of VNE is observed under intrinsic decoherence for larger time scales. The VNE and QFI saturate to a lower level for larger time scales under the environmental effects. Moreover, one sees that the thermal environment induces a quicker decay of VNE when compared with the decay induced by ID. In this manner, the ID and thermal environment are found to suppress the nonclassical effects of the quantum system.

On the premises that total correlations in a bipartite quantum state are measured by the quantum mutual information, and that separation of total correlations into quantum and classical parts satisfies an intuitive dominance relation, we examine to what extent various entropic entanglement measures, such as the distillable entanglement, the relative entropy entanglement, the squashed entanglement, the entanglement cost, and the entanglement of formation, can be regarded as consistent measures of quantum correlations. We illustrate that the entanglement of formation often overestimates quantum correlations and thus is too big to be a genuine measure of quantum correlations. This indicates that the entanglement of formation does not quantify the quantum correlations intrinsic to a quantum state, but rather characterizes the pure entanglement needed to build the quantum state via local operations and classical communication. Furthermore, it has the consequence that, if the additive conjecture for the entanglement of formation is true (as is widely believed), then the entanglement cost, which is an operationally defined measure of entanglement with significant physical meaning, cannot be a consistent measure of quantum correlations in the sense that it may exceed total correlations. Alternatively, if the entanglement cost is dominated by total correlations, as our intuition suggests, then we can immediately disprove the additive conjecture. Both scenarios have their counterintuitive and appealing aspects, and a natural challenge arising in this context is to prove or disprove that the entanglement cost is dominated by the quantum mutual information.

Remote state preparation is the variant of quantum state teleportation in which the sender knows the quantum state to be communicated. The original paper introducing teleportation established minimal requirements for classical communication and entanglement but the corresponding limits for remote state preparation have remained unknown until now: previous work has shown, however, that it not only requires less classical communication but also gives rise to a tradeoff between these two resources in the appropriate setting. We discuss this problem from first principles, including the various choices one may follow in the definitions of the actual resources. Our main result is a general method of remote state preparation for arbitrary states of many qubits, at a cost of 1 bit of classical communication and 1 bit of entanglement per qubit sent. In this "universal" formulation, these ebit and cbit requirements are shown to be simultaneously optimal by exhibiting a dichotomy. Our protocol then yields the exact tradeoff curve for memoryless sources of pure states (including the case of incomplete knowledge of the ensemble probabilities), based on the recently established quantum-classical tradeoff for visible quantum data compression. A variation of that method allows us to solve the even more general problem of preparing entangled states between sender and receiver (i.e., purifications of mixed state ensembles). The paper includes an extensive discussion of our results, including the impact of the choice of model on the resources, the topic of obliviousness, and an application to private quantum channels and quantum data hiding.

We investigated numerically the dynamics of quantum Fisher information (QFI) and entanglement for three- and four-level atomic systems interacting with a coherent field under the effect of Stark shift and Kerr medium. It was observed that the Stark shift and Kerr-like medium play a prominent role during the time evolution of the quantum systems. The non-linear Kerr medium has a stronger effect on the dynamics of QFI as compared to the quantum entanglement (QE). QFI is heavily suppressed by increasing the value of Kerr parameter. This behavior was found comparable in the cases of three- and four-level atomic systems coupled with a non-linear Kerr medium. However, QFI and quantum entanglement (QE) maintain their periodic nature under atomic motion. On the other hand, the local maximum value of QFI and von Neumann entropy (VNE) decrease gradually under the Stark effect. Moreover, no prominent difference in the behavior of QFI and QE was observed for three- and four-level atoms while increasing the value of Stark parameter. However, three- and four-level atomic systems were found equally prone to the non-linear Kerr medium and Stark effect. Furthermore, three- and four-level atomic systems were found fully prone to the Kerr-like medium and Stark effect.

The bipartite quantum states ρ, with rank strictly smaller than the maximum of the ranks of the reduced states ρA and ρB, are distillable by local operations and classical communication (Horodecki P, Smolin J A, Terhal B M and Thapliyal A V 2003 Theor. Comput. Sci. 292 589–96; 1999 arXiv:quant-ph/9910122). Our first main result is that this is also true for NPT states with rank equal to this maximum. (A state is PPT if the partial transpose of its density matrix is positive semidefinite, and otherwise it is NPT.) This was conjectured first in 1999 in the special case when the ranks of ρA and ρB are equal (see (Horodecki P, Smolin J A, Terhal B M and Thapliyal A V 2003 Theor. Comput. Sci. 292 589–96; 1999 arXiv:quant-ph/9910122). Our second main result provides a complete solution of the separability problem for bipartite states of rank 4. Namely, we show that such a state is separable if and only if it is PPT and its range contains at least one product state. We also prove that the so-called checkerboard states are distillable if and only if they are NPT.

In this paper, we have proposed the numerical calculations to study the quantum entanglement (QE) of moving two-level atom interacting with a coherent and the thermal field influenced by intrinsic decoherence (ID), Kerr medium (non-linear) and the Stark effect. The wave function of the complete system interacting with a coherent and the thermal field is calculated numerically affected by ID, Kerr (non-linear) and Stark effects. It has been seen that the Stark, Kerr, ID and the thermal environment have a significant effect during the time evolution of the quantum system. Quantum Fisher information (QFI) and QE decrease as the value of the ID parameter is increased in the thermal field without the atomic movement. It is seen that QFI and von Neumann entropy (VNE) show an opposite and periodic response in the presence of atomic motion. The non-linear Kerr medium has a more prominent and significant effect on the QE as the value of the Kerr parameter is decreased. At smaller values of the non-linear Kerr parameter, the VNE increases, however, QFI decreases, so QFI and VNE have a monotonic connection with one another. As the value of the Kerr parameter is increased, the effect of non-linear Kerr doesn’t stay critical on both QFI and QE. However, a periodic response of QE is seen because of the atomic movement which becomes modest under natural impacts. Moreover, it has been seen that QFI and QE rot soon at the smaller values of the Stark parameter. However, as the value of the Stark parameter is increased, the QFI and QE show periodic response even when the atomic movement is absent.