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arXiv:1108.2699 · Physical Review Letters

Detecting Nonclassical System-Environment Correlations by Local Operations

Manuel Gessner, Heinz‐Peter Breuer

Published Oct 27, 2011• 77 citations
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Abstract

We develop a general strategy for the detection of nonclassical system-environment correlations in the initial states of an open quantum system. The method employs a dephasing map which operates locally on the open system and leads to an experimentally accessible witness for genuine quantum correlations, measuring the Hilbert-Schmidt distance between pairs of open system states. We further derive the expectation value of the witness for various random matrix ensembles modeling generic features of complex quantum systems. This expectation value is shown to be proportional to a measure for the quantum discord which reduces to the concurrence for pure initial states.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.107.180402

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We develop a general strategy for the detection of nonclassical system-environment correlations in the initial states of an open quantum system. The method employs a dephasing map which operates locally on the open system and leads to an experimentally accessible witness for genuine quantum correlations, measuring the Hilbert-Schmidt distance between pairs of open system states. We further derive the expectation value of the witness for various random matrix ensembles modeling generic features of complex quantum systems. This expectation value is shown to be proportional to a measure for the quantum discord which reduces to the concurrence for pure initial states.
A bipartite quantum system in a mixed state can exhibit nonclassical correlations which can go beyond quantum entanglement. While quantum discord is the standard measure of quantifying such general quantum correlations, the nonclassicality can be determined by simpler means via the measurement of witness operators. We experimentally construct a positive map to witness nonclassicality of two qubits in an NMR system. The map can be decomposed in terms of measurable spin magnetizations so that a single run of an experiment on an ensemble of spins suffices to detect the nonclassicality in the state, if present. We let the state evolve in time and use the map to detect nonclassicality as a function of time. To evaluate the efficacy of the witness operator as a means to detect nonclassicality, we measure quantum discord by performing full quantum-state tomography at each time instant and obtain a fairly good match between the two methods.
Consider an open quantum system which interacts with its environment. Assuming that the experimenter has access only to the system, an interesting question is whether it is possible to detect initial correlations between the system and the environment by performing measurements only on the system. Various methods have been proposed to detect correlations by local measurements on the system. After reviewing these methods, we will show that initial correlations between the system and the environment are always detectable. In particular, we will show that one can always find a unitary evolution, for the whole system-environment, such that the trace distance method, proposed to witness correlations locally, succeeds. We also find the condition for existence of the optimal unitary evolution, for which the entire correlation is locally detectable. Next, we address the case where the system and the environment interact through a time-independent Hamiltonian. For this case we will see that if the initial correlation can be detected locally at some time ttt, then it can be detected for almost all the other times too. On the other hand, we see that one can find cases for which initial correlations between the system and the environment always remain undetectable even though the unitary evolution, generated by the Hamiltonian, is not factorized.
Recent progress in theories of quantum information has determined nonclassical correlation defined differently from the widely used entanglement as an important property to evaluate computation and communication with mixed quantum states. We introduce an operational method to detect nonclassical correlation of bipartite systems. In this method, we use particular maps analogous to the well-established entanglement witnesses. Thus, the maps are called nonclassical correlation witness maps. Furthermore, it is proved that such a map can be generally decomposed so that a single-run experiment is feasible for implementation in bulk-ensemble systems.
A quantum system inevitably interacts with its surroundings. In general, one does not have detailed information on an environment. Identifying the environmental features can help us to control the environment and its effects on the dynamics of an open system. Here, we consider a tripartite system and introduce a witness for the initial correlations among environments by means of the concept of the trace distance. Due to the existence of the initial environmental correlations, a tight upper bound is obtained for the growth of the trace distance of open quantum system states. Therefore, the initial correlations among the environments subject to particular conditions can be detected by measurements on the open system.
We study the evolution of a general open quantum system when the system and its environment are initially correlated. We show that the trace distance between two states of the open system can increase above its initial value, and derive tight upper bounds for the growth of the distinguishability of open-system states. This represents a generalization of the contraction property of quantum dynamical maps. The obtained inequalities can be interpreted in terms of the exchange of information between the system and the environment, and lead to a witness for system-environment correlations which can be determined through measurements on the open system alone.
Recently, we proposed a method for the local detection of quantum correlations on the basis of local measurements and state tomography at different instances in time [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 180402 (2011)]. The method allows for the detection of quantum discord in bipartite systems when access is restricted to only one of the subsystems. Here, we elaborate the details of this method and provide applications to specific physical models. In particular, we discuss the performance of the scheme for generic complex systems by investigating thermal equilibrium states corresponding to randomly generated Hamiltonians. Moreover, we formulate an ergodicity-type hypothesis which links the time average to the analytically obtained average over the group of unitary operators equipped with the Haar measure.