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arXiv:1203.2661 · Physical Review Letters

Nonclassicality Criteria from Phase-Space Representations and Information-Theoretical Constraints Are Maximally Inequivalent

Alessandro Ferraro, Matteo G. A. Paris

Published Jun 27, 2012• 94 citations
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Abstract

We consider two celebrated criteria for defining the nonclassicality of bipartite bosonic quantum systems, the first stemming from information theoretic concepts and the second from physical constraints on the quantum phase space. Consequently, two sets of allegedly classical states are singled out: (i) the set C composed of the so-called classical-classical (CC) states-separable states that are locally distinguishable and do not possess quantum discord; (ii) the set P of states endowed with a positive P representation (P-classical states)-mixtures of Glauber coherent states that, e.g., fail to show negativity of their Wigner function. By showing that C and P are almost disjoint, we prove that the two defining criteria are maximally inequivalent. Thus, the notions of classicality that they put forward are radically different. In particular, generic CC states show quantumness in their P representation, and vice versa, almost all P-classical states have positive quantum discord and, hence, are not CC. This inequivalence is further elucidated considering different applications of P-classical and CC states. Our results suggest that there are other quantum correlations in nature than those revealed by entanglement and quantum discord.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.108.260403

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We consider two celebrated criteria for defining the nonclassicality of bipartite bosonic quantum systems, the first stemming from information theoretic concepts and the second from physical constraints on the quantum phase space. Consequently, two sets of allegedly classical states are singled out: (i) the set C composed of the so-called classical-classical (CC) states-separable states that are locally distinguishable and do not possess quantum discord; (ii) the set P of states endowed with a positive P representation (P-classical states)-mixtures of Glauber coherent states that, e.g., fail to show negativity of their Wigner function. By showing that C and P are almost disjoint, we prove that the two defining criteria are maximally inequivalent. Thus, the notions of classicality that they put forward are radically different. In particular, generic CC states show quantumness in their P representation, and vice versa, almost all P-classical states have positive quantum discord and, hence, are not CC. This inequivalence is further elucidated considering different applications of P-classical and CC states. Our results suggest that there are other quantum correlations in nature than those revealed by entanglement and quantum discord.
In the context of bipartite bosonic systems, two notions of classicality of correlations can be defined: PPP classicality, based on the properties of the Glauber-Sudarshan PPP function; and CCC classicality, based on the entropic quantum discord. It has been shown that these two notions are maximally inequivalent in a static (metric) sense, as they coincide only on a set of states of zero measure. We extend and reinforce quantitatively this inequivalence by addressing the dynamical relation between these types of nonclassicality in a paradigmatic quantum-optical setting: the linear mixing at a beam splitter of a single-mode Gaussian state with a thermal reference state. Specifically, we show that almost all PPP-classical input states generate outputs that are not CCC classical. Indeed, for the case of zero thermal reference photons, the more PPP-classical resources at the input the less CCC classicality at the output. In addition, we show that the PPP classicality at the input---as quantified by the nonclassical depth---does instead determine quantitatively the potential of generating output entanglement. This endows the nonclassical depth with a new operational interpretation: it gives the maximum number of thermal reference photons that can be mixed at a beam splitter without destroying the output entanglement.
One of the best signatures of nonclassicality in a quantum system is the existence of correlations that have no classical counterpart. Different methods for quantifying the quantum and classical parts of correlations are among the more actively studied topics of quantum-information theory over the past decade. Entanglement is the most prominent of these correlations, but in many cases unentangled states exhibit nonclassical behavior too. Thus distinguishing quantum correlations other than entanglement provides a better division between the quantum and classical worlds, especially when considering mixed states. Here different notions of classical and quantum correlations quantified by quantum discord and other related measures are reviewed. In the first half, the mathematical properties of the measures of quantum correlations are reviewed, related to each other, and the classical-quantum division that is common among them is discussed. In the second half, it is shown that the measures identify and quantify the deviation from classicality in various quantum-information-processing tasks, quantum thermodynamics, open-system dynamics, and many-body physics. It is shown that in many cases quantum correlations indicate an advantage of quantum methods over classical ones.
Mixtures of coherent states are commonly regarded as classical. Here we show that there is a quantum advantage in discriminating between coherent states in a mixture, implying the presence of quantum properties in the mixture, which are however not captured by commonly used non-classicality measures. We identify a set of desired properties for any non-classicality measure that aims to capture these quantum features, and define the discord potential CD, which we show to satisfy all those properties. We compare the discord potential with recently proposed coherence monotones, and prove that the coherence monotones diverge for classically distinguishable states, thus indicating their failure to quantify non-classicality in this limit. On the technical side, we provide a simple method of calculating the discord as well as other information-theoretic quantities for the (non-Gaussian) output of any input state with positive P-function.
The aim of this paper is to distinguish classical correlations from quantum ones. First, a new characterization of a classical correlated (CC) state is established. Corresponding results for the left and right classical correlations are also obtained. Second, a sufficient and necessary condition for a convex combination of two CC states to be CC is given. It is proved that the set CC of all CC states on is a perfect, nowhere dense and compact subset of the metric space of all states (density operators) on . Based on our new characterization of CC states, a quantity Q (ρ) is associated with a state ρ. It is shown that a state ρ is CC if and only if Q (ρ) = 0. In particular, we prove that the Werner state W λ in a two-qubit system with a single real parameter λ is CC if and only if λ = 0.25.
A bipartite state is called classical (with regard to correlations) if it is left undisturbed by a certain local von Neumann measurement, and is called separable if it can be represented as a convex combination of product states. Due to the perfect distinguishability of orthogonal vectors, a classical state can essentially be identified with a convenient bivariate probability distribution, and moreover, it is separable, but not vice versa. The notion of separability plays a key role in quantum information theory because entanglement is defined via separability. However, the definition of separability is ad hoc and formal. In this paper, we present an intrinsic characterization of separable states via classical states from the measurement perspective: Separable states are precisely those states that are reductions of classical states in higher dimensions with the natural partitions. Consequently, entangled states are precisely those states that cannot be represented as such reductions of classical states. This observation highlights the hidden mutually exclusive and complementary relations between classicality and entanglement.
Quantum discord quantifies nonclassical correlations in a quantum system including those not captured by entanglement. Thus, only states with zero discord exhibit strictly classical correlations. We prove that these states are negligible in the whole Hilbert space: typically a state picked out at random has positive discord and, given a state with zero discord, a generic arbitrarily small perturbation drives it to a positive-discord state. These results hold for any Hilbert-space dimension and have direct implications for quantum computation and for the foundations of the theory of open systems. In addition, we provide a simple necessary criterion for zero quantum discord. Finally, we show that, for almost all positive-discord states, an arbitrary Markovian evolution cannot lead to a sudden, permanent vanishing of discord.