We fully characterize bipartite entanglement-annihilating (EA) channels that destroy entanglement of any state shared by subsystems and, thus, should be avoided in any entanglement-enabled experiment. Our approach relies on extending the problem to EA positive maps, the cone of which remains invariant under concatenation with partially positive maps. Due to this invariancy, positive EA maps adopt a well characterization and their intersection with completely positive trace-preserving maps results in the set of EA channels. In addition to a general description, we also provide sufficient operational criteria revealing EA channels. They have a clear physical meaning since the processes involved contain stages of classical information transfer for subsystems. We demonstrate the applicability of derived criteria for local and global depolarizing noises, and specify corresponding noise levels beyond which any initial state becomes disentangled after passing the channel. The robustness of some entangled states is discussed.
We fully characterize bipartite entanglement-annihilating (EA) channels that destroy entanglement of any state shared by subsystems and, thus, should be avoided in any entanglement-enabled experiment. Our approach relies on extending the problem to EA positive maps, the cone of which remains invariant under concatenation with partially positive maps. Due to this invariancy, positive EA maps adopt a well characterization and their intersection with completely positive trace-preserving maps results in the set of EA channels. In addition to a general description, we also provide sufficient operational criteria revealing EA channels. They have a clear physical meaning since the processes involved contain stages of classical information transfer for subsystems. We demonstrate the applicability of derived criteria for local and global depolarizing noises, and specify corresponding noise levels beyond which any initial state becomes disentangled after passing the channel. The robustness of some entangled states is discussed.
We address the problem of the robustness of entanglement of bipartite systems (qubits) interacting with dynamically independent environments. In particular, we focus on the characterization of so-called local entanglement-annihilating (EA) two-qubit channels, which set the maximum permissible noise level allowing us to perform entanglement-enabled experiments. The differences, but also the subtle relations, between entanglement-breaking and local EA channels are emphasized. A detailed characterization of the latter ones is provided for a variety of channels including depolarizing, unital, (generalized) amplitude-damping, and extremal channels. We also consider the convexity structure of local EA qubit channels and introduce a concept of EA duality.
We introduce a 3-parameter class of maps (1) acting on a bipartite system which are a natural generalisation of the depolarizing channel (and include it as a special case). Then, we find the exact regions of the parameter space that alternatively determine a positive, completely positive, entanglement-breaking, or entanglement-annihilating map. This model displays a much richer behaviour than the one shown by a simple depolarizing channel, yet it stays exactly solvable. As an example of this richness, positive partial transposition but not entanglement-breaking maps is found in Theorem 2. A simple example of a positive yet indecomposable map is provided (see the Remark at the end of Section IV). The study of the entanglement-annihilating property is fully addressed by Theorem 7. Finally, we apply our results to solve the problem of the entanglement annihilation caused in a bipartite system by a tensor product of local depolarizing channels. In this context, a conjecture posed in the work of Filippov [J. Russ. Laser Res. 35, 484 (2014)] is affirmatively answered, and the gaps that the imperfect bounds of Filippov and Ziman [Phys. Rev. A 88, 032316 (2013)] left open are closed. To arrive at this result, we furthermore show how the Hadamard product between quantum states can be implemented via local operations.
Abstract Every multipartite entangled quantum state becomes fully separable after an entanglement breaking quantum channel acted locally on each of its subsystems. Whether there are other quantum channels with this property has been an open problem with important implications for entanglement theory (e.g., for the distillation problem and the PPT squared conjecture). We cast this problem in the general setting of proper convex cones in finite-dimensional vector spaces. The max-entanglement annihilating maps transform thek-fold maximal tensor product of a cone C1 C1 into thek-fold minimal tensor product of a cone C2 C2 , and the pair (C1,C2) (C1,C2) is called resilient if all max-entanglement annihilating maps are entanglement breaking. Our main result is that (C1,C2) (C1,C2) is resilient if either C1 C1 or C2 C2 is a Lorentz cone. Our proof exploits the symmetries of the Lorentz cones and applies two constructions resembling protocols for entanglement distillation: As a warm-up, we use the multiplication tensors of real composition algebras to construct a finite family of generalized distillation protocols for Lorentz cones, containing the distillation protocol for entangled qubit states by Bennett et al. (Phys Rev Lett 76(5):722, 1996) as a special case. Then, we construct an infinite family of protocols using solutions to the Hurwitz matrix equations. After proving these results, we focus on maps between cones of positive semidefinite matrices, where we derive necessary conditions for max-entanglement annihilation similar to the reduction criterion in entanglement distillation. Finally, we apply results from the theory of Banach space tensor norms to show that the Lorentz cones are the only cones with a symmetric base for which a certain stronger version of the resilience property is satisfied.
Consider a bipartite quantum system S=AB such that each part interacts only with its local environment. Under such circumstances, one expects that the entanglement between parts A and B does not increase after the time evolution. In fact, this is the case if the reduced dynamics of the system is given by EA⊗EB, where EA and EB are quantum channels, i.e., completely positive trace-preserving maps. But, the reduced dynamics of the system may be given by a map as ΨA⊗ΨB, where ΨA and ΨB are local non-positive maps. Then, the entanglement between A and B can exceed its initial value, as was shown in the case studied by Jordan et al. [Phys. Rev. A 76, 022102 (2007)]. In this paper, we first explore the general circumstances under which one can find such cases as they found. Next, we introduce another general procedure which leads to local non-positive maps that exhibit entanglement exceeding. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this apparent entanglement increase in the two above procedures corresponds physically to the retrieval of pre-existing inaccessible entanglement stored across the global system-environment degrees of freedom, rather than genuine generation of the entanglement ex nihilo.
Physical transformations are described by linear maps that are completely positive and trace preserving (CPTP). However, maps that are positive (P) but not completely positive (CP) are instrumental to derive separability/entanglement criteria. Moreover, the properties of such maps can be linked to entanglement properties of the states they detect. Here, we extend the results presented in [34], where sufficient separability criteria for bipartite systems were derived. In particular, we analyze the entanglement depth of an [Formula: see text]-qubit system by proposing linear maps that, when applied to any state, result in a biseparable state for the [Formula: see text] partitions, i.e., [Formula: see text]-entanglement depth. Furthermore, we derive criteria to detect arbitrary [Formula: see text]-entanglement depth tailored to states in close vicinity of the completely depolarized state (the normalized identity matrix). We also provide separability (or [Formula: see text]-entanglement depth) conditions in the symmetric sector, including the diagonal states. Finally, we suggest how similar map techniques can be used to derive sufficient conditions for a set of expectation values to be compatible with separable states or local-hidden-variable theories. We dedicate this paper to the memory of the late Andrzej Kossakowski, our spiritual and intellectual mentor in the field of linear maps.
We develop systematic frameworks for characterizing the entanglement properties of two-qubit channels beyond unitary settings. We introduce averaged local-unitary invariants, referred to as moments, obtained from Haar integrals over input states or unitaries. These moments provide computable descriptions of how a quantum channel can create, preserve, or destroy bipartite entanglement. We first show that second-order moments yield criteria for non-entangling and entanglement-breaking channels, which allow us to detect entanglement-creating and entanglement-preserving channels. We then demonstrate that higher-order moments can capture additional information and distinguish channels beyond second-order moments alone. Finally, we show that combinations of moments associated with different channel families improve the discrimination of locally inequivalent two-qubit unitaries.