We investigate the entanglement, CHSH nonlocality, fully entangled fraction, and symmetric extendibility of two-qubit states that have a single maximally mixed marginal. Within this set of states, the steering ellipsoid formalism has recently highlighted an interesting family of so-called maximally obese states. These are found to have extremal quantum correlation properties that are significant in the steering ellipsoid picture and for the study of two-qubit states in general.
We investigate the entanglement, CHSH nonlocality, fully entangled fraction, and symmetric extendibility of two-qubit states that have a single maximally mixed marginal. Within this set of states, the steering ellipsoid formalism has recently highlighted an interesting family of so-called maximally obese states. These are found to have extremal quantum correlation properties that are significant in the steering ellipsoid picture and for the study of two-qubit states in general.
Graphical representations are invaluable for visualising physical systems and processes. In quantum information theory, the Bloch vector representation of a single qubit is ubiquitous, but visualising higher-dimensional quantum systems is far less straightforward. The quantum steering ellipsoid provides a method for geometrically representing the state of two qubits, the most fundamental system for studying quantum correlations. This thesis constitutes a significant development of the steering ellipsoid formalism. As well as offering new insight into the study of two-qubit states, we extend this powerful geometric approach to explore scenarios beyond two qubits. We find necessary and sufficient conditions for when an ellipsoid inside the Bloch ball describes a valid (i.e. positive semidefinite) two-qubit state. Combined with the notion of ellipsoid chirality, this enables a geometric characterisation of entanglement. We find a family of "maximally obese" two-qubit states whose ellipsoids have maximal volume. These states have optimal correlation properties within the set of all two-qubit states with a single maximally mixed marginal. We study a three-qubit scenario and discover that ellipsoid volume obeys an elegant monogamy of steering relationship. From this we can derive the Coffman-Kundu-Wootters (CKW) inequality for concurrence monogamy, providing an intuitive geometric derivation of this classic result. Remarkably, we find that steering ellipsoids offer a fresh perspective on questions beyond quantum state space. Entanglement witnesses are also very naturally represented and classified using the formalism. This gives a physical interpretation to any ellipsoid inside the Bloch ball as a block positive two-qubit operator, which we may then classify further. We can also use steering ellipsoids to derive some highly nontrivial results in classical Euclidean geometry, extending Euler's inequality for the circumradius and inradius of a triangle.
In this paper, we consider the local unitary classification of the class of qudit bipartite mixed states for which no information can be obtained locally. These states are represented by symmetrical density matrices in which both tracial states are maximally mixed. Interestingly, this symmetry facilitates the local unitary classification of two-qubit states. However, the same formalism fails in the case of systems of higher dimensions. We consider a broader set of states by introducing a family of qudit bipartite mixed states with maximally mixed marginals. For this family of states, we determine several constants which are in variant under local unitary transformations so can be used for entanglement classification. Finally, we consider the two-qutrit case and in particular, a two-parameter family of states for which the local unitary classification is complete. We relate this classification to known entanglement measures such as purity and negativity.
Quantum steering ellipsoid formalism provides a faithful representation of all two-qubit states and is useful for obtaining their correlation properties. The steering ellipsoids of two-qubit states that have undergone local operations on both the qubits, in order to bring the state to its canonical form, are the so-called canonical steering ellipsoids. The steering ellipsoids corresponding to the two-qubit subsystems of permutation-symmetric N-qubit states are considered here. We construct and analyze the geometric features of the canonical steering ellipsoids corresponding to pure permutation-symmetric N-qubit states with two distinct spinors. Depending on the degeneracy of the two spinors in the pure symmetric N-qubit state, several families arise which cannot be converted into one another through stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC). The canonical steering ellipsoids of the two-qubit states drawn from the pure symmetric N-qubit states with two distinct spinors allow for a geometric visualization of the SLOCC-equivalent class of states. We show that the states belonging to the W class correspond to oblate spheroids centered at $(0,0,1/(N\ensuremath{-}1))$ with fixed semiaxis lengths $1/\sqrt{N\ensuremath{-}1}$ and $1/(N\ensuremath{-}1)$. The states belonging to all other SLOCC-inequivalent families correspond to ellipsoids centered at the origin of the Bloch sphere. We also explore volume monogamy relations of states belonging to these families, mainly the W class of states.
We prove, modulo a conjecture on quantum steering ellipsoids being true, the existence of the phenomenon of locally inaccessible hidden quantum correlations, that is, the existence of two-particle states whose hidden quantum correlations cannot be revealed by local filters implemented exclusively on one side of the experiment but that can still be revealed when both parties cooperate in applying judiciously chosen local filters. The quantum correlations considered here are the violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality for Bell nonlocality and the violation of the F3 inequality for Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering. Specifically, we provide a necessary criterion for guaranteeing the presence of such phenomena for arbitrary two-qubit states. This criterion in turn relies on the conjecture that the maximal violations of CHSH inequality and F3 inequality are both upper bounded by functions that depend on the magnitude of the quantum steering ellipsoid center. This latter conjecture, although currently lacking an analytical proof, is supported by numerical results. We use this necessary criterion to explicitly show examples of two-qubit states with locally inaccessible hidden quantum correlations and furthermore two-qubit states with locally inaccessible maximal hidden quantum correlations.
We discuss the problem of characterizing upper bounds on entanglement in a bipartite quantum system when only the reduced density matrices (marginals) are known. In particular, starting from the known two-qubit case, we propose a family of candidates for maximally entangled mixed states with respect to fixed marginals for two qutrits. These states are extremal in the convex set of two-qutrit states with fixed marginals. Moreover, it is shown that they are always quasidistillable. As a by-product we prove that any maximally correlated state that is quasidistillable must be pure. Our observations for two qutrits are supported by numerical analysis.
Quantum steering is an asymmetric correlation which occupies a place between entanglement and Bell nonlocality. In the paradigmatic scenario involving the protagonists Alice and Bob, the entangled state shared between them is said to be steerable from Alice to Bob if the steering assemblage on Bob's side does not admit a local hidden state (LHS) description. Quantum conditional entropies, on the other hand, provide for another characterization of quantum correlations. Contrary to our common intuition, conditional entropies for some entangled states can be negative, marking a significant departure from the classical realm. Quantum steering and quantum nonlocality, in general, share an intricate relation with quantum conditional entropies. In the present contribution, we investigate this relationship. For a significant class, namely the two-qubit Weyl states, we show that negativity of conditional R\'enyi 2-entropy and conditional Tsallis 2-entropy is a necessary and sufficient condition for the violation of a suitably chosen three settings steering inequality. With respect to the same inequality we find an upper bound for the conditional R\'enyi 2-entropy, such that the general two-qubit state is steerable. Moving from a particular steering inequality to local hidden-state descriptions, we show that some two-qubit Weyl states which admit a LHS model possess nonnegative conditional R\'enyi 2-entropy. However, the same does not hold true for some non-Weyl states. Our study further investigates the relation between nonnegativity of conditional entropy and LHS models in two-qudits for the isotropic and Werner states. There we find that, whenever these states admit a LHS model, they possess a nonnegative conditional R\'enyi 2-entropy. We then observe that the same holds true for a noisy variant of the two-qudit Werner state.