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arXiv:0908.3818 · New Journal of Physics

The invariant-comb approach and its relation to the balancedness of multipartite entangled states

Andreas Osterloh, Jens Siewert

Published Jul 28, 2010• 28 citations
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Abstract

The invariant-comb approach is a method to construct entanglement measures for multipartite systems of qubits. The essential step is the construction of an antilinear operator that we call comb in reference to the hairy-ball theorem . An appealing feature of this approach is that, for qubits (or spins 1/2), the combs are automatically invariant under , which implies that the obtained invariants are entanglement monotones by construction. By asking which property of a state determines whether or not it is detected by a polynomial invariant, we find that it is the presence of a balanced part that persists under local unitary transformations. We present a detailed analysis for the maximally entangled states detected by such polynomial invariants, which leads to the concept of irreducibly balanced states. The latter indicates a tight connection with stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC) classifications of qubit entanglement. Combs may also help to define measures for multipartite entanglement of higher-dimensional subsystems. However, for higher spins there are many independent combs, such that it is nontrivial to find an invariant one. By restricting the allowed local operations to rotations of the coordinate system (i.e. again to the SL ), we manage to define a unique extension of the concurrence to general half-integer spin with an analytic convex-roof expression for mixed states.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/12/7/075025

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The invariant-comb approach is a method to construct entanglement measures for multipartite systems of qubits. The essential step is the construction of an antilinear operator that we call comb in reference to the hairy-ball theorem . An appealing feature of this approach is that, for qubits (or spins 1/2), the combs are automatically invariant under , which implies that the obtained invariants are entanglement monotones by construction. By asking which property of a state determines whether or not it is detected by a polynomial invariant, we find that it is the presence of a balanced part that persists under local unitary transformations. We present a detailed analysis for the maximally entangled states detected by such polynomial invariants, which leads to the concept of irreducibly balanced states. The latter indicates a tight connection with stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC) classifications of qubit entanglement. Combs may also help to define measures for multipartite entanglement of higher-dimensional subsystems. However, for higher spins there are many independent combs, such that it is nontrivial to find an invariant one. By restricting the allowed local operations to rotations of the coordinate system (i.e. again to the SL ), we manage to define a unique extension of the concurrence to general half-integer spin with an analytic convex-roof expression for mixed states.
The invariant-comb approach is a method to construct entanglement measures for multipartite systems of qubits. The essential step is the construction of an antilinear operator that we call comb in reference to the hairy-ball theorem. An appealing feature of this approach is that, for qubits (or spins 1/2), the combs are automatically invariant under SL(2, C), which implies that the obtained invariants are entanglement monotones by construction. By asking which property of a state determines whether or not it is detected by a polynomial SL(2, C) invariant, we find that it is the presence of a balanced part that persists under local unitary transformations. We present a detailed analysis for the maximally entangled states detected by such polynomial invariants, which leads to the concept of irreducibly balanced states. The latter indicates a tight connection with stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC) classifications of qubit entanglement. Combs may also help to define measures for multipartite entanglement of higher-dimensional subsystems. However, for higher spins there are many independent combs, such that it is nontrivial to find an invariant one. By restricting the allowed local operations to rotations of the coordinate system (i.e. again to the SL(2, C)), we manage to define a unique extension of the concurrence to general half-integer spin with an analytic convex-roof expression for mixed states.
We present a method to construct entanglement measures for pure states of multipartite qubit systems. The key element of our approach is an antilinear operator that we call comb in reference to the hairy-ball theorem. For qubits (i.e. spin 1/2) the combs are automatically invariant under SL (2, ℂ). This implies that the filters obtained from the combs are entanglement monotones by construction. We give alternative formulae for the concurrence and the 3-tangle as expectation values of certain antilinear operators. As an application we discuss inequivalent types of genuine four-, five- and six-qubit entanglement.
We present a method to construct entanglement measures for pure states of multipartite qubit systems. The key element of our approach is an antilinear operator that we call {\\em comb} in reference to the {\\em hairy-ball theorem}. For qubits (or spin 1/2) the combs are automatically invariant under SL(2,CC)SL(2,\\CC)SL(2,CC). This implies that the {\\em filters} obtained from the combs are entanglement monotones by construction. We give alternative formulae for the concurrence and the 3-tangle as expectation values of certain antilinear operators. As an application we discuss inequivalent types of genuine four-, five- and six-qubit entanglement.
We present a method to construct entanglement measures for pure states of multipartite qubit systems. The key element of our approach is an antilinear operator that we call ``comb''. For qubits (or spin 1∕21∕21∕2) the combs are automatically invariant under SL(2,C)\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})SL(2,C). This implies that the filters obtained from the combs are entanglement monotones by construction. We give alternative formulas for the concurrence and the three-tangle as expectation values of certain antilinear operators. As an application we discuss inequivalent types of genuine four-qubit entanglement.
We show that a positive homogeneous function that is invariant under determinant-1 stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC) transformations defines an NNN-qubit entanglement monotone if and only if the homogeneous degree is not larger than 4. We then describe a common basis and formalism for the NNN-tangle and other known invariant polynomials of degree 4. This allows us to elucidate the relation of the four-qubit invariants defined by Luque and Thibon [Phys. Rev. A 67, 042303 (2003)] and the reduced two-qubit density matrices of the states under consideration, thus giving a physical interpretation for those invariants. We demonstrate that this is a special case of a completely general law that holds for any multipartite system with bipartitions of equal dimension, e.g., for an even number of qudits.
An SL -invariant extension of the concurrence to higher local Hilbert-space dimension is due to its relation with the determinant of the matrix of a d × d two qudits state, which is the only SL -invariant of polynomial degree d . This determinant is written in terms of antilinear expectation values of the local SL ( d ) operators. We use the permutation invariance of the comb-condition for creating further local antilinear operators which are orthogonal to the original operator. It means that the symmetric group acts transitively on the space of combs of a given order. This extends the mechanism for writing -invariants for qubits to qudits. I outline the method, which in principle works for arbitrary dimension d , explicitly for spin 1 and spin 3/2. There is an odd–even discrepancy: whereas for half odd integer spin a situation similar to that observed for qubits is found, for integer spin the outcome is an asymmetric invariant of polynomial degree 2 d .