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arXiv:0710.1184 · Physical Review A

Geometric entanglement witnesses and bound entanglement

Reinhold A. Bertlmann, Philipp Krammer

Published Feb 21, 2008• 68 citations
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Abstract

We study entanglement witnesses that can be constructed with regard to the geometrical structure of the Hilbert-Schmidt space, i.e., we present how to use these witnesses in the context of quantifying entanglement and the detection of bound entangled states. We give examples for a particular three-parameter family of states that are part of the magic simplex of two-qutrit states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.77.024303

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We study entanglement witnesses that can be constructed with regard to the geometrical structure of the Hilbert-Schmidt space, i.e., we present how to use these witnesses in the context of quantifying entanglement and the detection of bound entangled states. We give examples for a particular three-parameter family of states that are part of the magic simplex of two-qutrit states.
We show how to detect entangled, bound entangled and separable bipartite quantum states of arbitrary dimension and mixedness using geometric entanglement witnesses. These witnesses are constructed using properties of the Hilbert–Schmidt geometry and can be shifted along parameterized lines. The involved conditions are simplified using Bloch decompositions of operators and states. As an example we determine the three different types of states for a family of two-qutrit states that is part of the 'magic simplex', i.e. the set of Bell-state mixtures of arbitrary dimension.
Constructing optimal entanglement witnesses for arbitrary quantum systems remains a formidable challenge, hindered by the structural complexity of high-dimensional quantum state spaces. In this work, we overcome this barrier by introducing a unified framework for constructing geometrically optimal witnesses capable of identifying arbitrary entanglement structures. By leveraging the geometric properties of a target quantum state relative to a specific entanglement structure in Hilbert-Schmidt space, these witnesses are constructed in an efficient and effective manner. Among all nontrivial witnesses, they provide maximal distinguishability between the target state and the set of states without the desired entanglement structure. As a result, our approach enables the universal detection of bipartite, multipartite, and high-dimensional entanglement. To demonstrate its experimental feasibility, we apply the framework to a four-qubit nuclear spin quantum system. Compared to existing methods, our approach offers enhanced noise robustness, broader detection universality, and improved construction efficiency, providing a powerful and versatile tool for advancing the characterization and understanding of entanglement in quantum systems.
Let ${H}^{[N]}{=H}^{[{d}_{1}]}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}\ensuremath{\cdots}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{H}^{[{d}_{n}]}$ be a tensor product of Hilbert spaces and let ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{0}$ be the closest separable state in the Hilbert-Schmidt norm to an entangled state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}.$ Let ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{0}$ denote the closest separable state to ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ along the line segment from I/NI/NI/N to ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ where I is the identity matrix. Following A. O. Pittenger and M. H. Rubin [Linear Algebr. Appl. 346, 75 (2002)] a witness W0{W}_{0}W0​ detecting the entanglement of ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ can be constructed in terms of I, ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{0},$ and ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{0}.$ If representations of ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{0}$ and ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{0}$ as convex combinations of separable projections are known, then the entanglement of ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ can be detected by local measurements. G\"uhne et al. [Phys. Rev. A 66, 062305 (2002)] obtain the minimum number of measurement settings required for a class of two-qubit states. We use our geometric approach to generalize their result to the corresponding two-qudit case when d is prime and obtain the minimum number of measurement settings. In those particular bipartite cases, ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{0}={\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{0}.$ We illustrate our general approach with a two-parameter family of three-qubit bound entangled states for which ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{0}\ensuremath{\ne}{\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{0}$ and we show that our approach works for n qubits. We elaborated earlier [A. O. Pittenger, Linear Algebr. App. 359, 235 (2003)] on the role of a ``far face'' of the separable states relative to a bound entangled state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ constructed from an orthogonal unextendible product base. In this paper the geometric approach leads to an entanglement witness expressible in terms of a constant times I and a separable density ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{0}$ on the far face from ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}.$ Up to a normalization this coincides with the witness obtained by G\"uhne et al. for the particular example analyzed there.
Characterizing entanglement is central for quantum information science. Special observables which indicate entanglement, so-called entanglement witnesses, are a widely used tool for this task. The construction of these witnesses typically relies on the observation that quantum states with a high fidelity to some entangled target state are entangled, too. We introduce a general method to construct entanglement witnesses based on the Schmidt decomposition of observables. The method works for two-particle and multiparticle systems and is strictly stronger than fidelity-based constructions. The resulting witnesses can also be used to quantify entanglement and to characterize its dimensionality. Finally, we present experimentally relevant examples, where our approach improves entanglement detection significantly.
Entanglement witnesses are of special interest for distinguishing between separable and entangled states. For three-qubit states, a family of optimal entanglement witnesses has been introduced by Jafarizadeh et al. [Eur. Phys. J. D 50 (2008) 107]. We give an alternative demonstration for some elements of this family and show that they are able to detect bound entangled states. To illustrate this fact, we consider two families of bound entangled three-qubit states, introduced by Kay [Phys. Rev. A 83 (2011) 020303] and Kye [J. Phys. A, Math. Theor. 48 (2015) 235303], and show that these witnesses detect the entanglement of all states of these two families.
The Schmidt number of a mixed state characterizes the minimum Schmidt rank of the pure states needed to construct it. We investigate the Schmidt number of an arbitrary mixed state by studying Schmidt-number witnesses that detect it. We present a canonical form of such witnesses and provide constructive methods for their optimization. Finally, we present strong evidence that all bound entangled states with positive partial transpose in ${\mathcal{C}}^{3}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\mathcal{C}}^{3}$ have Schmidt number 2.