We introduce and investigate a family of entanglement-annihilating channels. These channels are capable of destroying any quantum entanglement within the system they act on. We show that they are not necessarily entanglement breaking. In order to achieve this result we analyze the subset of locally entanglement-annihilating channels. In this case, the same local noise applied on each subsystem individually is less entanglement annihilating (with respect to multi-partite entanglement) as the number of subsystems is increasing. Therefore, the bipartite case provides restrictions on the set of local entanglement-annihilating channels for the multipartite case. The introduced concepts are illustrated on the family of single-qubit depolarizing channels.
We introduce and investigate a family of entanglement-annihilating channels. These channels are capable of destroying any quantum entanglement within the system they act on. We show that they are not necessarily entanglement breaking. In order to achieve this result we analyze the subset of locally entanglement-annihilating channels. In this case, the same local noise applied on each subsystem individually is less entanglement annihilating (with respect to multi-partite entanglement) as the number of subsystems is increasing. Therefore, the bipartite case provides restrictions on the set of local entanglement-annihilating channels for the multipartite case. The introduced concepts are illustrated on the family of single-qubit depolarizing channels.
We address the problem of the robustness of entanglement of bipartite systems (qubits) interacting with dynamically independent environments. In particular, we focus on the characterization of so-called local entanglement-annihilating (EA) two-qubit channels, which set the maximum permissible noise level allowing us to perform entanglement-enabled experiments. The differences, but also the subtle relations, between entanglement-breaking and local EA channels are emphasized. A detailed characterization of the latter ones is provided for a variety of channels including depolarizing, unital, (generalized) amplitude-damping, and extremal channels. We also consider the convexity structure of local EA qubit channels and introduce a concept of EA duality.
We fully characterize bipartite entanglement-annihilating (EA) channels that destroy entanglement of any state shared by subsystems and, thus, should be avoided in any entanglement-enabled experiment. Our approach relies on extending the problem to EA positive maps, the cone of which remains invariant under concatenation with partially positive maps. Due to this invariancy, positive EA maps adopt a well characterization and their intersection with completely positive trace-preserving maps results in the set of EA channels. In addition to a general description, we also provide sufficient operational criteria revealing EA channels. They have a clear physical meaning since the processes involved contain stages of classical information transfer for subsystems. We demonstrate the applicability of derived criteria for local and global depolarizing noises, and specify corresponding noise levels beyond which any initial state becomes disentangled after passing the channel. The robustness of some entangled states is discussed.
We introduce a 3-parameter class of maps (1) acting on a bipartite system which are a natural generalisation of the depolarizing channel (and include it as a special case). Then, we find the exact regions of the parameter space that alternatively determine a positive, completely positive, entanglement-breaking, or entanglement-annihilating map. This model displays a much richer behaviour than the one shown by a simple depolarizing channel, yet it stays exactly solvable. As an example of this richness, positive partial transposition but not entanglement-breaking maps is found in Theorem 2. A simple example of a positive yet indecomposable map is provided (see the Remark at the end of Section IV). The study of the entanglement-annihilating property is fully addressed by Theorem 7. Finally, we apply our results to solve the problem of the entanglement annihilation caused in a bipartite system by a tensor product of local depolarizing channels. In this context, a conjecture posed in the work of Filippov [J. Russ. Laser Res. 35, 484 (2014)] is affirmatively answered, and the gaps that the imperfect bounds of Filippov and Ziman [Phys. Rev. A 88, 032316 (2013)] left open are closed. To arrive at this result, we furthermore show how the Hadamard product between quantum states can be implemented via local operations.
We study a set of new functionals (called entanglement–breaking indices) which characterize how many local iterations of a given (local) quantum channel are needed in order to completely destroy the entanglement between the system of interest over which the transformation is defined and an external ancilla. The possibility of contrasting the noisy effects introduced by the channel iterations via the action of intermediate (filtering) transformations is analyzed. We provide some examples in which our functionals can be exactly calculated. The differences between unitary and non-unitary filtering operations are analyzed showing that, at least for systems of dimension d larger than or equal to 3, the non-unitary choice is preferable (the gap between the performances of the two cases being divergent in some cases). For d = 2 (qubit case), on the contrary, no evidences of the presence of such gap is revealed: we conjecture that for this special case unitary filtering transformations are optimal. The scenario in which more general filtering protocols are allowed is also discussed in some detail. The case of a depolarizing noise acting on a two–qubit system is exactly solved in a general case.
Quantum discord-breaking channels were previously defined as the local channels that act on subsystem A to produce classical-quantum states across system AB. However, unlike entanglement, discord is asymmetric. Here, we characterise the discord-breaking channels that act on subsystem B, thus completing the overall description of discord-breaking channels. We then introduce the notion of discord-annihilating channels, which act globally on system AB to destroy quantum discord, and find their closed form. Discord-annihilating channels have clear operational description, involving subspace projections on subsystem A and conditional preparation of fixed states on subsystem B.
The emerging quantum technologies rely on our ability to establish and control quantum systems in nonclassical states, exhibiting entanglement and quantum coherence. It is thus crucial to understand how entanglement and coherence can be created in the most efficient way. In this Letter we study optimal ways to create a large amount of quantum coherence via quantum channels. For this, we compare different scenarios, where the channel is acting on an incoherent state, on states which have coherence, and also on subsystems of multipartite quantum states. We show that correlations in multipartite systems do not enhance the ability of a quantum channel to create coherence. We also study the ability of quantum channels to destroy coherence, proving that a channel can destroy more coherence when acting on a subsystem of a bipartite state. Crucially, we also show that the destroyed coherence on a multipartite system can exceed the upper bound of those on the single system when the total state is entangled. Our results significantly simplify the evaluation of the coherence generating capacity of quantum channels, which we also discuss.