Convex-roof Extension Research Articles

A variational quantum algorithm for approximating convex roofs

Many entanglement measures are first defined for pure states of a bipartite Hilbert space, and then extended to mixed states via the convex roof extension. In this article we alter the convex roof extension of an entanglement measure, to produce a sequence of extensions that we call $f$-$d$ extensions, for $d \in \mathbb{N}$, where $f:[0,1]\to [0, \infty)$ is a fixed continuous function which vanishes only at zero. We prove that for any such function $f$, and any continuous, faithful, non-negative function, (such as an entanglement measure), $\mu$ on the set of pure states of a finite dimensional bipartite Hilbert space, the collection of $f$-$d$ extensions of $\mu$ detects entanglement, i.e. a mixed state $\rho$ on a finite dimensional bipartite Hilbert space is separable, if and only if there exists $d \in \mathbb{N}$ such that the $f$-$d$ extension of $\mu$ applied to $\rho$ is equal to zero. We introduce a quantum variational algorithm which aims to approximate the $f$-$d$ extensions of entanglement measures defined on pure states. However, the algorithm does have its drawbacks. We show that this algorithm exhibits barren plateaus when used to approximate the family of $f$-$d$ extensions of the Tsallis entanglement entropy for a certain function $f$ and unitary ansatz $U(\theta)$ of sufficient depth. In practice, if additional information about the state is known, then one needs to avoid using the suggested ansatz for long depth of circuits.

Resource distillation in convex Gaussian resource theories

It is known that distillation in continuous variable resource theories is impossible when restricted to Gaussian states and operations. To overcome this limitation, we enlarge the theories to include convex mixtures of Gaussian states and operations. This extension is operationally well-motivated since classical randomness is easily accessible. We find that resource distillation becomes possible for convex Gaussian resource theories-albeit in a limited fashion. We derive this limitation by studying the convex roof extension of a Gaussian resource measure and then go on to show that our bound is tight by means of example protocols for the distillation of squeezing and entanglement.

Some Remarks on the Entanglement Number

Gudder, in a recent paper, defined a candidate entanglement measure which is called the entanglement number. The entanglement number is first defined on pure states and then it extends to mixed states by the convex roof construction. In Gudder's article it was left as an open problem to show that Optimal Pure State Ensembles (OPSE) exist for the convex roof extension of the entanglement number from pure to mixed states. We answer Gudder's question in the affirmative, and therefore we obtain that the entanglement number vanishes only on the separable states. More generally we show that OPSE exist for the convex roof extension of any function that is norm continuous on the pure states of a finite dimensional Hilbert space. Further we prove that the entanglement number is an LOCC monotone, (and thus an entanglement measure), by using a criterion that was developed by Vidal in 2000. We present a simplified proof of Vidal's result where moreover we use an interesting point of view of tree representations for LOCC communications. Lastly, we generalize Gudder's entanglement number by producing a monotonic family of entanglement measures which converge in a natural way to the entropy of entanglement.Quanta 2020; 9: 22–36.

Complementary properties of multiphoton quantum states in linear optics networks

We have developed a theory for accessing quantum coherences in mutually unbiased bases associated with generalized Pauli operators in multiphoton multimode linear optics networks (LONs). We show a way to construct complementary Pauli measurements in multiphoton LONs and establish a theory for evaluation of their photonic measurement statistics without dealing with the computational complexity of Boson samplings. This theory extends characterization of complementary properties in single-photon LONs to multiphoton LONs employing convex-roof extension. It allows us to detect quantum properties such as entanglement using complementary Pauli measurements, which reveals the physical significance of entanglement between modes in bipartite multiphoton LONs.

Multipartite entanglement measure and complete monogamy relation

Although many different entanglement measures have been proposed so far, much less is known in the multipartite case, which leads to the previous monogamy relations in literatures are not complete. We establish here a strict framework for defining multipartite entanglement measure (MEM): apart from the postulates of bipartite measure, a genuine MEM should additionally satisfy the unification condition and the hierarchy condition. We then come up with a complete monogamy formula for the unified MEM and a tightly complete monogamy relation for the genuine MEM. Consequently, we propose MEMs which are multipartite extensions of entanglement of formation (EoF), concurrence, tangle, Tsallis $q$-entropy of entanglement, R\'{e}nyi $\alpha$-entropy of entanglement, the convex-roof extension of negativity and negativity, respectively. We show that (i) the extensions of EoF, concurrence, tangle, and Tsallis $q$-entropy of entanglement are genuine MEMs, (ii) multipartite extensions of R\'{e}nyi $\alpha$-entropy of entanglement, negativity and the convex-roof extension of negativity are unified MEMs but not genuine MEMs, and (iii) all these multipartite extensions are completely monogamous and the ones which are defined by the convex-roof structure (except for the R\'{e}nyi $\alpha$-entropy of entanglement and the convex-roof extension of negativity) are not only completely monogamous but also tightly completely monogamous. In addition, we find a class of tripartite states that one part can maximally entangled with other two parts simultaneously according to the definition of maximally entangled mixed state (MEMS) in [Quantum Inf. Comput. 12, 0063 (2012)]. Consequently, we improve the definition of maximally entangled state (MES) and prove that there is no MEMS and that the only MES is the pure MES.

Faithful measure of quantum non-Gaussianity via quantum relative entropy

We introduce a measure of quantum non-Gaussianity (QNG) for those quantum states not accessible by a mixture of Gaussian states in terms of quantum relative entropy. Specifically, we employ a convex-roof extension using all possible mixed-state decompositions beyond the usual pure-state decompositions. We prove that this approach brings a QNG measure fulfilling the properties desired as a proper monotone under Gaussian channels and conditional Gaussian operations. As an illustration, we explicitly calculate QNG for the noisy single-photon states and demonstrate that QNG coincides with non-Gaussianity of the state itself when the single-photon fraction is sufficiently large.

Monogamy of the entanglement of formation

We show that any measure of entanglement that on pure bipartite states is given by a strictly concave function of the reduced density matrix is monogamous on pure tripartite states. This includes the important class of bipartite measures of entanglement that reduce to the (von Neumann) entropy of entanglement. Moreover, we show that the convex roof extension of such measures (e.g., entanglement of formation) are monogamous also on \emph{mixed} tripartite states. To prove our results, we use the definition of monogamy without inequalities, recently put forward[Gour and Guo, Quantum \textbf{2}, 81 (2018)]. Our results promote the theme that monogamy of entanglement is a property of quantum entanglement and not an attribute of some particular measures of entanglement.

Entanglement in four qubit states: Polynomial invariant of degree 2, genuine multipartite concurrence and one-tangle

Characterization of the multipartite mixed state entanglement is still a challenging problem. This is due to the fact that the entanglement for the mixed states, in general, is defined by a convex-roof extension. That is the entanglement measure of a mixed state ρ of a quantum system can be defined as the minimum average entanglement of an ensemble of pure states. In this paper, we show that polynomial entanglement measures of degree 2 of even-N qubits X states is in the full agreement with the genuine multipartite (GM) concurrence. Then, we plot the hierarchy of entanglement classification for four qubit pure states and then using new invariants, we classify the four qubit pure states. We focus on the convex combination of the classes whose at most the one of the invariants is non-zero and find the relationship between entanglement measures consist of non-zero-invariant, GM concurrence and one-tangle. We show that in many entanglement classes of four qubit states, GM concurrence is equal to the square root of one-tangle.

Family of coherence measures and duality between quantum coherence and path distinguishability

Coherence measures and their operational interpretations lay the cornerstone of coherence theory. In this paper, we introduce a class of coherence measures with $\alpha$-affinity, say $\alpha$-affinity of coherence for $\alpha \in (0, 1)$. Furthermore, we obtain the analytic formulae for these coherence measures and study their corresponding convex roof extension. We provide an operational interpretation for $1/2$-affinity of coherence by showing that it is equal to the error probability to discrimination a set of pure states with the least square measurement. Employing this relationship we regain the optimal measurement for equiprobable quantum state discrimination. Moreover, we compare these coherence quantifiers, and establish a complementarity relation between $1/2$-affinity of coherence and path distinguishability for some special cases.

Monogamy of entanglement without inequalities

We provide a fine-grained definition for monogamous measure of entanglement that does not invoke any particular monogamy relation. Our definition is given in terms an equality, as oppose to inequality, that we call the "disentangling condition". We relate our definition to the more traditional one, by showing that it generates standard monogamy relations. We then show that all quantum Markov states satisfy the disentangling condition for any entanglement monotone. In addition, we demonstrate that entanglement monotones that are given in terms of a convex roof extension are monogamous if they are monogamous on pure states, and show that for any quantum state that satisfies the disentangling condition, its entanglement of formation equals the entanglement of assistance. We characterize all bipartite mixed states with this property, and use it to show that the G-concurrence is monogamous. In the case of two qubits, we show that the equality between entanglement of formation and assistance holds if and only if the state is a rank 2 bipartite state that can be expressed as the marginal of a pure 3-qubit state in the W class.

Useful States and Entanglement Distillation

We derive general upper bounds on the distillable entanglement of a mixed state under one-way and two-way LOCC. In both cases, the upper bound is based on a convex decomposition of the state into 'useful' and 'useless' quantum states. By 'useful', we mean a state whose distillable entanglement is non-negative and equal to its coherent information (and thus given by a single-letter, tractable formula). On the other hand, 'useless' states are undistillable, i.e., their distillable entanglement is zero. We prove that in both settings the distillable entanglement is convex on such decompositions. Hence, an upper bound on the distillable entanglement is obtained from the contributions of the useful states alone, being equal to the convex combination of their coherent informations. Optimizing over all such decompositions of the input state yields our upper bound. The useful and useless states are given by degradable and antidegradable states in the one-way LOCC setting, and by maximally correlated and PPT states in the two-way LOCC setting, respectively. We also illustrate how our method can be extended to quantum channels. Interpreting our upper bound as a convex roof extension, we show that it reduces to a particularly simple, non-convex optimization problem for the classes of isotropic states and Werner states. In the one-way LOCC setting, this non-convex optimization yields an upper bound on the quantum capacity of the qubit depolarizing channel that is strictly tighter than previously known bounds for large values of the depolarizing parameter. In the two-way LOCC setting, the non-convex optimization achieves the PPT-relative entropy of entanglement for both isotropic and Werner states.

Correlations between outcomes of random measurements

We recently showed that multipartite correlations between outcomes of random observables detect quantum entanglement in all pure and some mixed states. In this followup article we further develop this approach, derive a maximal amount of such correlations, and show that they are not monotonous under local operations and classical communication. Nevertheless, we demonstrate their usefulness in entanglement detection with a single random observable per party. Finally we study convex-roof extension of the correlations and provide a closed-form necessary and sufficient condition for entanglement in rank-2 mixed states and a witness in general.

Entanglement in fermion systems

We analyze the problem of quantifying entanglement in pure and mixed states of fermionic systems with a fixed number parity yet not necessarily a fixed particle number. The mode entanglement between one single-particle level and its orthogonal complement is first considered, and an entanglement entropy for such a partition of a particular basis of the single-particle Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$ is defined. The sum over all single-particle modes of this entropy is introduced as a measure of the total entanglement of the system with respect to the chosen basis and it is shown that its minimum over all bases of $\mathcal{H}$ is a function of the one-body density matrix. Furthermore, we show that if minimization is extended to all bases related through a Bogoliubov transformation, then the entanglement entropy is a function of the generalized one-body density matrix. These results are then used to quantify entanglement in fermion systems with four single-particle levels. For general pure states of such a system a closed expression for the fermionic concurrence is derived, which generalizes the Slater correlation measure defined by J. Schliemann et al. [Phys. Rev. A 64, 022303 (2001)], implying that particle entanglement may be seen as minimum mode entanglement. It is also shown that the entanglement entropy defined before is related to this concurrence by an expression analogous to that in the two-qubit case. For mixed states of this system the convex roof extension of the previous concurrence and entanglement entropy is evaluated analytically, extending the results in previous reference to general states.

Quantification of entanglement of teleportation in arbitrary dimensions

We study bipartite entangled states in arbitrary dimensions and obtain different bounds for the entanglement measures in terms of teleportation fidelity. We find that there is a simple relation between negativity and teleportation fidelity for pure states, but for mixed states, an upper bound is obtained for negativity in terms of teleportation fidelity using convex-roof extension negativity. However, with this, it is not clear how to distinguish between states useful for teleportation and positive partial transpose (PPT) entangled states. Further, there exists a strong conjecture in the literature that all PPT entangled states, in \(3 \otimes 3\) systems, have Schmidt rank two. This motivates us to develop measures capable of identifying states useful for teleportation and dependent on the Schmidt number. We thus establish various relations between teleportation fidelity and entanglement measures depending upon Schmidt rank of the states. These relations and bounds help us to determine the amount of entanglement required for teleportation, which we call the “Entanglement of Teleportation.” These bounds are used to determine the teleportation fidelity as well as the entanglement required for teleportation of states modeled by a two-qutrit mixed system, as well as two-qubit open quantum systems.

Universal framework for entanglement detection

We construct nonlinear multiparty entanglement measures for distinguishable particles, bosons, and fermions. In each case properties of an entanglement measure are related to the decomposition of the suitably chosen representation of the relevant symmetry group onto irreducible components. In the case of distinguishable particles considered entanglement measure reduces to the well-known many-particle concurrence. We prove that our entanglement criterion is sufficient and necessary for pure states living in both finite and infinite dimensional spaces. We generalize our entanglement measures to mixed states by the convex roof extension and give a nontrivial lower bound of thus obtained generalized concurrence.

Experimental detection of quantum entanglement

In this review, we introduce some methods for detecting or measuring entanglement. Several nonlinear entanglement witnesses are presented. We derive a series of Bell inequalities whose maximally violations for any multipartite qubit states can be calculated by using our formulas. Both the nonlinear entanglement witnesses and the Bell inequalities can be operated experimentally. Thus they supply an effective way for detecting entanglement. We also introduce some experimental methods to measure the entanglement of formation, and the lower bound of the convex-roof extension of negativity.

Entanglement and output entropy of the diagonal map

We review some properties of the convex roof extension, a construction used, e.g., in the definition of the entanglement of formation. Especially we consider the use of symmetries of channels and states for the construction of the convex roof. As an application we study the entanglement entropy of the diagonal map for permutation symmetric real $N=3$ states $\omega(z)$ and solve the case $z<0$ where $z$ is the non-diagonal entry in the density matrix. We also report a surprising result about the behavior of the output entropy of the diagonal map for arbitrary dimensions $N$; showing a bifurcation at $N=6$.

Probability interpretation, an equivalence relation, and a lower bound on the convex-roof extension of negativity

We present a measure of entanglement for pure two-qutrit states which constitutes a probability interpretation for negativity. We also obtain an equivalence relation for the latter, which is used to find a lower bound on its convex-roof extension, for systems with dimensions up to 6. The possibility of the obtained results being valid for higher-dimensional systems is also discussed.

Rescaling multipartite entanglement measures for mixed states

A relevant problem regarding entanglement measures is the following: Given an arbitrary mixed state, how does a measure for multipartite entanglement change if general local operations are applied to the state? This question is nontrivial as the normalization of the states has to be taken into account. Here we answer it for pure-state entanglement measures which are invariant under determinant 1 local operations and homogeneous in the state coefficients, and their convex-roof extension which quantifies mixed-state entanglement. Our analysis allows to enlarge the set of mixed states for which these important measures can be calculated exactly. In particular, our results hint at a distinguished role of entanglement measures which have homogeneous degree 2 in the state coefficients.

Entanglement detection and lower bound of the convex-roof extension of the negativity

We present a set of inequalities based on mean values of quantum mechanical observables similar to nonlinear entanglement witnesses for bipartite quantum systems. These inequalities give rise to sufficient and necessary conditions for separability of all bipartite pure states and even some mixed states. In terms of these mean values of quantum mechanical observables, a measurable lower bound of the convex-roof extension of the negativity is derived.