Thermal quantum and classical correlations in a two-qutrit system

Abstract

The investigation of quantum and classical correlations has mostly concentrated on two-qubit states because the minimization in the classical correlation is quite complicated for high-dimensional states. Thermal quantum and classical correlations are studied for a two-qutrit system with various coupling constants, external magnetic fields, and temperatures as well, where the quantum correlation is described in terms of the quantum discord that has been extensively used in recent literature. The entanglement negativity is calculated for comparison. It is shown that the discord is nonzero whereas the negativity is zero in some ranges of system parameters and temperature. Moreover, the discord is more robust than the entanglement against temperature and magnetic field. However, at lower temperatures all three correlations behave similarly. Those are useful for understanding quantum correlations in high-dimensional mixed states and quantum information processing.