Three maximally entangled states can require two-way local operations and classical communication for local discrimination

Abstract

We show that there exist sets of three mutually orthogonal $d$-dimensional maximally entangled states which cannot be perfectly distinguished using one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC) for arbitrarily large values of $d$. This contrasts with several well-known families of maximally entangled states, for which any three states can be perfectly distinguished. We then show that two-way LOCC is sufficient to distinguish these examples. We also show that any three mutually orthogonal $d$-dimensional maximally entangled states can be perfectly distinguished using measurements with a positive partial transpose (PPT) and can be distinguished with one-way LOCC with high probability. These results circle around the question of whether there exist three maximally entangled states which cannot be distinguished using the full power of LOCC; we discuss possible approaches to answer this question.