We evaluate a Gaussian entanglement measure for a symmetric two-mode Gaussian state of the quantum electromagnetic field in terms of its Bures distance to the set of all separable Gaussian states. The required minimization procedure was considerably simplified by using the remarkable properties of the Uhlmann fidelity as well as the standard form II of the covariance matrix of a symmetric state. Our result for the Gaussian degree of entanglement measured by the Bures distance depends only on the smallest symplectic eigenvalue of the covariance matrix of the partially transposed density operator. It is thus consistent to the exact expression of the entanglement of formation for symmetric two-mode Gaussian states. This non-trivial agreement is specific to the Bures metric.
We evaluate a Gaussian entanglement measure for a symmetric two-mode Gaussian state of the quantum electromagnetic field in terms of its Bures distance to the set of all separable Gaussian states. The required minimization procedure was considerably simplified by using the remarkable properties of the Uhlmann fidelity as well as the standard form II of the covariance matrix of a symmetric state. Our result for the Gaussian degree of entanglement measured by the Bures distance depends only on the smallest symplectic eigenvalue of the covariance matrix of the partially transposed density operator. It is thus consistent to the exact expression of the entanglement of formation for symmetric two-mode Gaussian states. This non-trivial agreement is specific to the Bures metric.
We propose a reliable entanglement measure for a two-mode squeezed thermal state of the quantum electromagnetic field in terms of its Bures distance to the set of all separable states of the same kind. The requisite fidelity of a pair of two-mode squeezed thermal states is exactly evaluated. By applying the Peres-Simon criterion of separability, we find the closest separable state. This enables us to establish an insightful expression of the amount of entanglement. We also derive the relative entropy of a two-mode squeezed thermal state with respect to another one. This quantity is exploited in the pure-state case by undertaking a similar approximation for the entropic entanglement of a two-mode squeezed vacuum state. Comparison with previous work lends support to our approach that replaces the reference set of all separable Gaussian states by its subset consisting only of the squeezed thermal ones.
We propose a reliable entanglement measure for a two-mode squeezed thermal state of the quantum electromagnetic field in terms of its Bures distance to the set of all separable states of the same kind. The requisite Uhlmann fidelity of a pair of two-mode squeezed thermal states is evaluated as the maximal transition probability between two four-mode purifications. By applying the Peres-Simon criterion of separability we find the closest separable state. This enables us to derive an insightful expression of the amount of entanglement. Then we apply this measure of entanglement to the study of the Braunstein-Kimble protocol of teleportation. We use as input state in teleportation a mixed one-mode Gaussian state. The entangled state shared by the sender (Alice) and the receiver (Bob) is taken to be a two-mode squeezed thermal state. We find that the properties of the teleported state depend on both the input state and the entanglement of the two-mode resource state. As a measure of the quality of the teleportation process, we employ the Uhlmann fidelity between the input and output mixed one-mode Gaussian states.
We prove that the entanglement of formation of every two-mode Gaussian state coincides with its Gaussian restriction, solving a longstanding open problem in continuous variable quantum information theory. The key result is a sharp affine relation between entanglement and a generalized Einstein--Podolsky--Rosen observable, valid for arbitrary pure two-mode states, including non-Gaussian ones. We further prove that the entanglement of formation is additive on arbitrary tensor products of two-mode Gaussian states, and hence coincides with the entanglement cost, settling the latter for all two-mode Gaussian states. As a consequence, we obtain in closed form the entanglement cost of thermal-loss, thermal-amplifier and additive-noise bosonic channels. Our results, which also extend to bisymmetric multimode states, establish that no two-mode state is less entangled than the Gaussian state with the same covariance matrix, yielding measurable lower bounds on both the entanglement of formation and the entanglement cost of arbitrary non-Gaussian states.
We study the entanglement of general (pure or mixed) two-mode Gaussian states of continuous-variable systems by comparing the two available classes of computable measures of entanglement: entropy-inspired Gaussian convex-roof measures and positive partial transposition--inspired measures (negativity and logarithmic negativity). We first review the formalism of Gaussian measures of entanglement, adopting the framework introduced in M. M. Wolf et al., Phys. Rev. A 69, 052320 (2004), where the Gaussian entanglement of formation was defined. We compute explicitly Gaussian measures of entanglement for two important families of nonsymmetric two-mode Gaussian state: namely, the states of extremal (maximal and minimal) negativities at fixed global and local purities, introduced in G. Adesso et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 087901 (2004). This analysis allows us to compare the different orderings induced on the set of entangled two-mode Gaussian states by the negativities and by the Gaussian measures of entanglement. We find that in a certain range of values of the global and local purities (characterizing the covariance matrix of the corresponding extremal states), states of minimum negativity can have more Gaussian entanglement of formation than states of maximum negativity. Consequently, Gaussian measures and negativities are definitely inequivalent measures of entanglement on nonsymmetric two-mode Gaussian states, even when restricted to a class of extremal states. On the other hand, the two families of entanglement measures are completely equivalent on symmetric states, for which the Gaussian entanglement of formation coincides with the true entanglement of formation. Finally, we show that the inequivalence between the two families of continuous-variable entanglement measures is somehow limited. Namely, we rigorously prove that, at fixed negativities, the Gaussian measures of entanglement are bounded from below. Moreover, we provide some strong evidence suggesting that they are as well bounded from above.
We propose three alternative measures for non-Gaussianity of quantum states: sine distance, Bures angle, and Bures distance, which are based on quantum fidelity introduced by Wang [Phys. Lett. A 373 58 (2008)]. Using them, we evaluate the non-Gaussianity of some relevant single-mode and two-mode non-Gaussian states and find a good consistency of the three examined measures. In addition, we show that such metrics can exactly quantify the degree of Gaussianity of even Schrödinger-cat-like states of small amplitudes that can not be measured by other known non-Gaussianity measures such as the Hilbert–Schmidt metric and the relative entropy metric. We make a comparative study between all existing non-Gaussianity measures according to the metric axioms and point out that the sine distance is the best candidate among them.
We present a novel approach to the separability problem for Gaussian quantum states of bosonic continuous variable systems. We derive a simplified necessary and sufficient separability criterion for arbitrary Gaussian states of m versus n modes, which relies on convex optimisation over marginal covariance matrices on one subsystem only. We further revisit the currently known results stating the equivalence between separability and positive partial transposition (PPT) for specific classes of Gaussian states. Using techniques based on matrix analysis, such as Schur complements and matrix means, we then provide a unified treatment and compact proofs of all these results. In particular, we recover the PPT-separability equivalence for: (i) Gaussian states of 1 versus n modes; and (ii) isotropic Gaussian states. In passing, we also retrieve (iii) the recently established equivalence between separability of a Gaussian state and and its complete Gaussian extendability. Our techniques are then applied to progress beyond the state of the art. We prove that: (iv) Gaussian states that are invariant under partial transposition are necessarily separable; (v) the PPT criterion is necessary and sufficient for separability for Gaussian states of m versus n modes that are symmetric under the exchange of any two modes belonging to one of the parties; and (vi) Gaussian states which remain PPT under passive optical operations can not be entangled by them either. This is not a foregone conclusion per se (since Gaussian bound entangled states do exist) and settles a question that had been left unanswered in the existing literature on the subject. This paper, enjoyable by both the quantum optics and the matrix analysis communities, overall delivers technical and conceptual advances which are likely to be useful for further applications in continuous variable quantum information theory, beyond the separability problem.