Localizable measurements are joint quantum measurements that can be implemented using only non-adaptive local operations and shared entanglement. We provide a protocol-independent characterization of localizable projection-valued measures (PVMs) by exploiting algebraic structures that any such measurement must satisfy. We first show that a rank-1 PVM on
Cd⊗Cd containing an element with the maximal Schmidt rank can be localized using entanglement of a Schmidt number at most
d if and only if it forms a maximally entangled basis corresponding to a nice unitary error basis. This reveals strong limitations imposed by non-adaptive local operations, in contrast to the adaptive setting where any joint measurement is implementable. We then completely characterize two-qubit rank-1 PVMs that can be localized with two-qubit entanglement, resolving a conjecture of Gisin and Del Santo, and finally extend our characterization to ideal two-qudit measurements, strengthening earlier results.
The operator-Schmidt decomposition is useful in quantum information theory for quantifying the nonlocality of bipartite unitary operations. We construct a family of unitary operators on n ⊗ n whose operator-Schmidt decompositions are computed using the discrete Fourier transform. As a corollary, we produce unitaries on 3 ⊗ 3 with operator-Schmidt number S for every S ∊ {1, ..., 9}. This corollary was unexpected, since it contradicted reasonable conjectures of Nielsen et al (2003 Phys. Rev. A 67 052301) based on intuition from a striking result in the two-qubit case. By the results of Dür et al (2002 Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 057901), who also considered the two-qubit case, our result implies that there are nine equivalence classes of unitaries on 3 ⊗ 3 which are probabilistically interconvertible by (stochastic) local operations and classical communication. As another corollary, a prescription is produced for constructing maximally-entangled unitaries from biunimodular functions. Reversing tact, we state a generalized operator-Schmidt decomposition of the quantum Fourier transform considered as an operator M 1 ⊗ M 2 → N 1 ⊗ N 2 , with M 1 M 2 = N 1 N 2 . This decomposition shows (by Nielsen's bound) that the communication cost of the QFT remains maximal when a net transfer of qudits is permitted. In an appendix, a canonical procedure is given for removing basis-dependence for results and proofs depending on the 'magic basis' introduced in S Hill and W Wootters (1997 Entanglement of a pair of quantum bits Phys Rev. Lett. 78 5022–5).
Two different measures of operator entanglement of two-qubit gates, namely, Schmidt strength and linear entropy, are studied. While these measures are shown to have a one-to-one relation between them for the Schmidt number 2 class of gates, no such relation exists for the Schmidt number 4 class, implying that the measures are inequivalent in general. Further, we establish a simple relation between linear entropy and local invariants of two-qubit gates. The implication of the relation is discussed.