We show that the rich structure of multipartite entanglement can be tested following a device-independent approach. Specifically we present Bell inequalities for distinguishing between different types of multipartite entanglement, without placing any assumptions on the measurement devices used in the protocol, in contrast with usual entanglement witnesses. We first address the case of three qubits and present Bell inequalities that can be violated by W states but not by Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, and vice versa. Next, we devise 'subcorrelation Bell inequalities' for any number of parties, which can provably not be violated by a broad class of multipartite entangled states (generalizations of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states), but for which violations can be obtained for W states. Our results give insight into the nonlocality of W states. The simplicity and robustness of our tests make them appealing for experiments.
We show that the rich structure of multipartite entanglement can be tested following a device-independent approach. Specifically we present Bell inequalities for distinguishing between different types of multipartite entanglement, without placing any assumptions on the measurement devices used in the protocol, in contrast with usual entanglement witnesses. We first address the case of three qubits and present Bell inequalities that can be violated by W states but not by Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, and vice versa. Next, we devise 'subcorrelation Bell inequalities' for any number of parties, which can provably not be violated by a broad class of multipartite entangled states (generalizations of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states), but for which violations can be obtained for W states. Our results give insight into the nonlocality of W states. The simplicity and robustness of our tests make them appealing for experiments.
Genuine multipartite entanglement represents the strongest type of entanglement, which is an essential resource for quantum information processing. Standard methods to detect genuine multipartite entanglement, e.g., entanglement witnesses, state tomography, or quantum state verification, require full knowledge of the Hilbert space dimension and precise calibration of measurement devices, which are usually difficult to acquire in an experiment. The most radical way to overcome these problems is to detect entanglement solely based on the Bell-like correlations of measurement outcomes collected in the experiment, namely, device independently. However, it is difficult to certify genuine entanglement of practical multipartite states in this way, and even more difficult to quantify it, due to the difficulty in identifying optimal multipartite Bell inequalities and protocols tolerant to state impurity. In this Letter, we explore a general and robust device-independent method that can be applied to various realistic multipartite quantum states in arbitrary finite dimension, while merely relying on bipartite Bell inequalities. Our method allows us both to certify the presence of genuine multipartite entanglement and to quantify it. Several important classes of entangled states are tested with this method, leading to the detection of genuinely entangled states. We also certify genuine multipartite entanglement in weakly entangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, showing that the method applies equally well to less standard states.
In a recent paper, Bancal et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 250404 (2011)] put forward the concept of device-independent witnesses of genuine multipartite entanglement. These witnesses are capable of verifying genuine multipartite entanglement produced in a laboratory without resorting to any knowledge of the dimension of the state space or of the specific form of the measurement operators. As a by-product they found a multiparty three-setting Bell inequality which makes it possible to detect genuine n-partite entanglement in a noisy n-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state for visibilities as low as 2/3 in a device-independent way. In this paper, we generalize this inequality to an arbitrary number of settings, demonstrating a threshold visibility of $2/\ensuremath{\pi}~0.6366$ for number of settings going to infinity. We also present a pseudotelepathy Bell inequality achieving the same threshold value. We argue that our device-independent witnesses are optimal in the sense that for n odd the above value cannot be beaten with n-party-correlation Bell inequalities.
Practical robust self-testing of multipartite entanglement has so far been restricted to small-scale systems due to error bounds that degrade severely with system size. In this work, we establish multipartite self-testing with robustness independent of the size of the quantum network. We derive a fully analytic, device-independent self-testing bound for n-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. The bound scales linearly with the observed violation error and lies universally within a constant factor of two from a theoretical upper bound. Furthermore, the operator-inequality framework reduces the verification of the conjectured optimal bound to a highly efficient numerical check, which we perform up to n=100. Consequently, GHZ entanglement can be certified under a fixed noise level in arbitrarily large systems, enabling scalable device-independent verification.
Local measurements acting on entangled quantum states give rise to a rich correlation structure in the multipartite scenario. We introduce a versatile technique to build families of Bell inequalities witnessing different notions of multipartite nonlocality for any number of parties. The idea behind our method is simple: a known Bell inequality satisfying certain constraints, for example the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt inequality, serves as the seed to build new families of inequalities for more parties. The constructed inequalities have a clear operational meaning, capturing an essential feature of multipartite correlations: their violation implies that numerous subgroups of parties violate the inequality chosen as seed. The more multipartite nonlocal the correlations, the more subgroups can violate the seed. We illustrate our construction using different seeds and designing Bell inequalities to detect k -way nonlocal multipartite correlations, in particular, genuine multipartite nonlocal correlations—the strongest notion of multipartite nonlocality. For one of our inequalities we prove analytically that a large class of pure states that are genuine multipartite entangled (GME) exhibit genuine multipartite nonlocality for any number of parties, even for some states that are almost product. We also provide numerical evidence that this family is violated by all GME pure states of three and four qubits. Our results make us conjecture that this family of Bell inequalities can be used to prove the equivalence between genuine multipartite pure-state entanglement and nonlocality for any number of parties.
Abstract In device-independent quantum information processing Bell inequalities are not only used as detectors of nonlocality, but also as certificates of relevant quantum properties. In order for these certificates to work, one very often needs Bell inequalities that are maximally violated by specific quantum states. Recently, in Salavrakos et al (2017 Phys. Rev. Lett. 119 040402) a general class of Bell inequalities, with arbitrary numbers of measurements and outcomes, has been designed, which are maximally violated by the maximally entangled states of two quantum systems of arbitrary dimension. In this work, we generalize these results to the multipartite scenario and obtain a general class of Bell inequalities maximally violated by the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger states of any number of parties and any local dimension. We then derive analytically their maximal quantum and nonsignaling values. We also obtain analytically the bound for detecting genuine nonlocality and compute the fully local bound for a few exemplary cases. Moreover, we consider the question of adapting this class of inequalities to partially entangled Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger-like states for some special cases of low dimension and small number of parties. Through numerical methods, we find classes of inequalities maximally violated by these partially entangled states.
We consider the problem of determining whether genuine multipartite entanglement was produced in an experiment, without relying on a characterization of the systems observed or of the measurements performed. We present an n-partite inequality that is satisfied by all correlations produced by measurements on biseparable quantum states, but which can be violated by n-partite entangled states, such as Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. In contrast to traditional entanglement witnesses, the violation of this inequality implies that the state is not biseparable independently of the Hilbert space dimension and of the measured operators. Violation of this inequality does not imply, however, genuine multipartite nonlocality. We show more generically how the problem of identifying genuine tripartite entanglement in a device-independent way can be addressed through semidefinite programming.