Measurement-device-independent nonlinear entanglement witnesses

Abstract

Entanglement witnesses (EWs) are one of the most effective methods to detect entanglement. It is known that nonlinear EW provide better entanglement detection than their linear counterparts, in that the former detect a strictly larger subset of entangled states than the latter. Whether linear or nonlinear, the method is measurement-device dependent, so that imperfect measurements may cause false certification of entanglement in a shared state. Measurement-device-independent EW provide an escape from such measurement dependence of the entanglement detection for linear EW. Here we present measurement-device-independent nonlinear EW for non-positive partial transpose entangled states as well as for bound entangled states with positive partial transpose. Although the witness considered herein does not detect a larger set of entangled states than other nonlinear EW, it is more efficient in that it never leads to a false detection corresponding to wrong measurements. The constructed measurement-device-independent nonlinear EW certify the entanglement of the same sets of entangled states as their device-dependent parents do, and therefore are better than the linear EW, device-independent or otherwise.