We argue that the geometric discord introduced by Daki\ifmmode \acute{c}\else \'{c}\fi{}, Vedral, and Brukner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)] is not a good measure for the quantumness of correlations, as it can increase even under trivial local reversible operations of the party whose classicality or nonclassicality is not tested. On the other hand it is known that the standard, mutual-information-based discord does not suffer this problem; a simplified proof of such a fact is given.
We argue that the geometric discord introduced by Daki\ifmmode \acute{c}\else '{c}\fi{}, Vedral, and Brukner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)] is not a good measure for the quantumness of correlations, as it can increase even under trivial local reversible operations of the party whose classicality or nonclassicality is not tested. On the other hand it is known that the standard, mutual-information-based discord does not suffer this problem; a simplified proof of such a fact is given.
The geometric discord, as introduced by Daki\ifmmode \acute{c}\else \'{c}\fi{}, Vedral, and Brukner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)], is a significant figure of merit for quantum correlations with wide applications. However, it has a curious drawback in that it may change reversibly by trivially adding a local ancilla, as recently criticized by Piani [Phys. Rev. A 86, 034101 (2012)]. This casts doubt on the information content and usage of geometric discord. In this work, we show that this problem with geometric discord can be remedied simply by starting from the square root of a density operator, rather than the density operator itself, in defining the discord. Moreover, most other basic properties and analytical aspects of the original geometric discord can be carried over to this modified discord. Due to the square-root character, which is reminiscent of probability amplitudes ubiquitous in quantum theory, the modified discord seems to capture quantum correlations in a more intrinsic and informational fashion.
Quantum discord is usually referred to as a measure for quantum correlations. In the search of the fundamental resource to gain a quantum advantage in quantum information applications, quantum discord is considered a promising candidate. In this paper we present an alternative view on quantum correlations in terms of the rank of the correlation matrix as introduced by Daki\ifmmode \acute{c}\else \'{c}\fi{}, Vedral, and Brukner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)]. According to our analysis, information about the quantum discord does not necessarily determine the amount of quantum correlations but rather the quantumness of the state. Nonzero quantum discord is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for correlations above the classically achievable limit. This becomes clear when we consider states of nonzero discord, which can be created from zero discord states only by a single local operation. We further show that the set of these states has measure zero.
We discuss some properties of the quantum discord based on the geometric distance advanced by Dakic, Vedral, and Brukner [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 105}, 190502 (2010)], with emphasis on Werner- and MEM-states. We ascertain just how good the measure is in representing quantum discord. We explore the dependence of quantum discord on the degree of mixedness of the bipartite states, and also its connection with non-locality as measured by the maximum violation of a Bell inequality within the CHSH scenario.
Dakic, Vedral, and Brukner [B. Dakic, V. Vedral, and \ifmmode \check{C}\else \v{C}\fi{}. Brukner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)] gave a geometric measure of quantum discord in a bipartite quantum state as the distance of the state from the closest classical quantum (or zero discord) state and derived an explicit formula for a two-qubit state. Further, Luo and Fu [S. Luo and S. Fu, Phys. Rev. A 82, 034302 (2010)] obtained a generic form of this geometric measure for a general bipartite state and established a lower bound. In this Brief Report we obtain a rigorous lower bound to the geometric measure of quantum discord in a general bipartite state which dominates that obtained by Luo and Fu.
Dakic, Vedral, and Brukner [arXiv:1004.0190 (2010)] introduced a geometric measure of quantum discord and derived an explicit formula for any two-qubit state. This measure is significant in capturing quantum correlations from a geometric perspective. In this brief report, we evaluate the geometric measure of quantum discord for an arbitrary state and obtain an explicit and tight lower bound. Furthermore, we reveal an intrinsic feature of geometric measure of quantum discord by showing that it actually coincides with a simpler quantity based on von Neumann measurements.
The concept of quantum discord aims at unveiling quantum correlations that go beyond those described by entanglement. Its original formulation [L. Henderson and V. Vedral, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 34, 6899 (2001); H. Ollivier and W. H. Zurek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 017901 (2001)] is difficult to compute even for the simplest case of two-qubits systems. Alternative formulations have been developed to address this drawback, such as the geometric measure of quantum discord [L. Chang and S. Luo, Phys. Rev. A 87, 062303 (2013)] and the local quantum uncertainty [D. Girolami, T. Tufarelli, and G. Adesso, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 240402 (2013)] that can be evaluated in closed form for some quantum systems, such as two-qubit systems. We show here that these two measures of quantum discord are equivalent for $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}D$ dimensional bipartite quantum systems. By considering the relevant example of N00N states for phase estimation in lossy environments, we also show that both metrics of quantum discord quantify the decrease of quantum Fisher information of the phase estimation protocol. Given their ease of computation in $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}D$ bipartite systems, the geometric measure of quantum discord and the local quantum uncertainty demonstrate their relevance as computable measures of quantum discord.