One of the many interesting features of quantum nonlocality is that the states of a multipartite quantum system cannot always be distinguished as well by local measurements as they can when all quantum measurements are allowed. In this work, we characterize the distinguishability of sets of multipartite quantum states when restricted to separable measurements, those which contain the class of local measurements but nevertheless are free of entanglement between the component systems. We consider two quantities: the separable fidelity, a truly quantum quantity, which measures how well we can ``clone'' the input state, and the classical probability of success, which simply gives the optimal probability of identifying the state correctly. We obtain lower and upper bounds on the separable fidelity and give several examples in the bipartite and multipartite settings where these bounds are optimal. Moreover the optimal values in these cases can be attained by local measurements. We further show that for distinguishing orthogonal states under separable measurements, a strategy that maximizes the probability of success is also optimal for separable fidelity. We point out that the equality of fidelity and success probability does not depend on an using the optimal strategy, only on the orthogonality of the states. To illustrate this, we present an example where two sets (one consisting of orthogonal states and the other nonorthogonal states) are shown to have the same separable fidelity even though the success probabilities are different.
One of the many interesting features of quantum nonlocality is that the states of a multipartite quantum system cannot always be distinguished as well by local measurements as they can when all quantum measurements are allowed. In this work, we characterize the distinguishability of sets of multipartite quantum states when restricted to separable measurements, those which contain the class of local measurements but nevertheless are free of entanglement between the component systems. We consider two quantities: the separable fidelity, a truly quantum quantity, which measures how well we can ``clone'' the input state, and the classical probability of success, which simply gives the optimal probability of identifying the state correctly. We obtain lower and upper bounds on the separable fidelity and give several examples in the bipartite and multipartite settings where these bounds are optimal. Moreover the optimal values in these cases can be attained by local measurements. We further show that for distinguishing orthogonal states under separable measurements, a strategy that maximizes the probability of success is also optimal for separable fidelity. We point out that the equality of fidelity and success probability does not depend on an using the optimal strategy, only on the orthogonality of the states. To illustrate this, we present an example where two sets (one consisting of orthogonal states and the other nonorthogonal states) are shown to have the same separable fidelity even though the success probabilities are different.
We prove a tight and close-to-optimal lower bound on the effectiveness of local quantum measurements (without classical communication) at discriminating any two bipartite quantum states. Our result implies, for example, that any two orthogonal quantum states of a nA×nB bipartite quantum system can be discriminated via local measurements with an error probability no larger than 21(1−cmin{nA,nB}1) , where 1≤c≤22 is a universal constant, and our bound scales provably optimally with the local dimensions nA,nB . Mathematically, this is achieved by showing that the distinguishability norm ∥⋅∥LO associated with local measurements satisfies that ∥⋅∥1≤22min{nA,nB}∥⋅∥LO , where ∥⋅∥1 is the trace norm.
We study the discrimination of a pair of orthogonal quantum states in the many-copy setting. This is not a problem when arbitrary quantum measurements are allowed, as then the states can be distinguished perfectly even with one copy. However, it becomes highly nontrivial when we consider states of a multipartite system and locality constraints are imposed. We hence focus on the restricted families of measurements such as local operation and classical communication (LOCC), separable operations (SEP), and the positive-partial-transpose operations (PPT) in this paper. We first study asymptotic discrimination of an arbitrary multipartite entangled pure state against its orthogonal complement using LOCC/SEP/PPT measurements. We prove that the incurred optimal average error probability always decays exponentially in the number of copies, by proving upper and lower bounds on the exponent. In the special case of discriminating a maximally entangled state against its orthogonal complement, we determine the explicit expression for the optimal average error probability, thus establishing the associated Chernoff exponent. Our technique is based on the idea of using PPT operations to approximate LOCC. Then, we show an infinite asymptotic separation between SEP and PPT operations by providing a pair of states constructed from an unextendible product basis (UPB): they can be distinguished perfectly by PPT measurements, while the optimal error probability using SEP measurements admits an exponential lower bound. On the technical side, we prove this result by providing a quantitative version of the well-known statement that the tensor product of UPBs is UPB.
In this paper, we study the distinguishability of multipartite quantum states by separable operations. We first present a necessary and sufficient condition for a finite set of orthogonal quantum states to be distinguishable by separable operations. An analytical version of this condition is derived for the case of(D-1) pure states, whereDis the total dimension of the state space under consideration. A number of interesting consequences of this result are then carefully investigated. Remarkably, we show there exists a large class of 2 otimes 2 separable operations not being realizable by local operations and classical communication. Before our work, only a class of 3 otimes 3 nonlocal separable operations was known [Bennett , Phys. Rev. A 59, 1070 (1999)]. We also show that any basis of the orthogonal complement of a multipartite pure state is indistinguishable by separable operations if and only if this state cannot be a superposition of one or two orthogonal product states, i.e., has an orthogonal Schmidt number not less than three, thus generalize the recent work about indistinguishable bipartite subspaces [Watrous, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 080505 (2005)]. Notably, we obtain an explicit construction of indistinguishable subspaces of dimension 7 (or 6) by considering a composite quantum system consisting of two qutrits (resp., three qubits), which is slightly better than the previously known indistinguishable bipartite subspace with dimension 8.
We study the distinguishability norms associated to families of locally restricted POVMs on multipartite systems. These norms (introduced by Matthews, Wehner and Winter) quantify how quantum measurements, subject to locality constraints, perform in the task of discriminating two multipartite quantum states. We mainly address the following question regarding the behaviour of these distinguishability norms in the highdimensional regime: On a bipartite space, what are the relative strengths of standard classes of locally restricted measurements? We show that the class of PPT measurements typically performs almost as well as the class of all measurements whereas restricting to local measurements and classical communication, or even just to separable measurements, implies a substantial loss. We also provide examples of state pairs which can be perfectly distinguished by local measurements if (one-way) classical communication is allowed between the parties, but very poorly without it. Finally, we study how many POVMs are needed to distinguish almost perfectly any pair of states on C^d, showing that the answer is exp(Θ(d^2 )).
Quantum nonlocality is usually associated with entangled states by their violations of Bell-type inequalities. However, even unentangled systems, whose parts may have been prepared separately, can show nonlocal properties. In particular, a set of product states is said to exhibit "quantum nonlocality without entanglement" if the states are locally indistinguishable; i.e., it is not possible to optimally distinguish the states by any sequence of local operations and classical communication. Here, we present a stronger manifestation of this kind of nonlocality in multiparty systems through the notion of local irreducibility. A set of multiparty orthogonal quantum states is defined to be locally irreducible if it is not possible to locally eliminate one or more states from the set while preserving orthogonality of the postmeasurement states. Such a set, by definition, is locally indistinguishable, but we show that the converse does not always hold. We provide the first examples of orthogonal product bases on C^{d}⊗C^{d}⊗C^{d} for d=3, 4 that are locally irreducible in all bipartitions, where the construction for d=3 achieves the minimum dimension necessary for such product states to exist. The existence of such product bases implies that local implementation of a multiparty separable measurement may require entangled resources across all bipartitions.
An orthogonal set of states in multipartite systems is called to be strong quantum nonlocality if it is locally irreducible under every bipartition of the subsystems \cite{Halder19}. In this work, we study a subclass of locally irreducible sets: the only possible orthogonality preserving measurement on each subsystems are trivial measurements. We call the set with this property is locally stable. We find that in the case of two qubits systems locally stable sets are coincide with locally indistinguishable sets. Then we present a characterization of locally stable sets via the dimensions of some states depended spaces. Moreover, we construct two orthogonal sets in general multipartite quantum systems which are locally stable under every bipartition of the subsystems. As a consequence, we obtain a lower bound and an upper bound on the size of the smallest set which is locally stable for each bipartition of the subsystems. Our results provide a complete answer to an open question (that is, can we show strong quantum nonlocality in C d 1 ⊗ C d 1 ⊗ ⋯ ⊗ C d N for any d i ≥ 2 and 1 ≤ i ≤ N ?) raised in a recent paper \cite{Shi22N}. Compared with all previous relevant proofs, our proof here is quite concise.