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arXiv:1407.1738 · Physical Review A

Multiqubit symmetric states with maximally mixed one-qubit reductions

Dorian Baguette, Thierry Bastin, John Martin

Published Sep 12, 2014• 42 citations
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Abstract

We present a comprehensive study of maximally entangled symmetric states of arbitrary numbers of qubits in the sense of the maximal mixedness of the one-qubit reduced density operator. A general criterion is provided to easily identify whether given symmetric states are maximally entangled in that respect or not. We show that these maximally entangled symmetric (MES) states are the only symmetric states for which the expectation value of the associated collective spin of the system vanishes, as well as in corollary the dipole moment of the Husimi function. We establish the link between this kind of maximal entanglement, the anticoherence properties of spin states, and the degree of polarization of light fields. We analyze the relationship between the MES states and the classes of states equivalent through stochastic local operations with classical communication (SLOCC). We provide a nonexistence criterion of MES states within SLOCC classes of qubit states and show in particular that the symmetric Dicke state SLOCC classes never contain such MES states, with the only exception of the balanced Dicke state class for even numbers of qubits. The 4-qubit system is analyzed exhaustively and all MES states of this system are identified and characterized. Finally the entanglement content of MES states is analyzed with respect to the geometric and barycentric measures of entanglement, as well as to the generalized $N$-tangle. We show that the geometric entanglement of MES states is ensured to be larger than or equal to $1/2$, but also that MES states are not in general the symmetric states that maximize the investigated entanglement measures.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.90.032314

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We present a comprehensive study of maximally entangled symmetric states of arbitrary numbers of qubits in the sense of the maximal mixedness of the one-qubit reduced density operator. A general criterion is provided to easily identify whether given symmetric states are maximally entangled in that respect or not. We show that these maximally entangled symmetric (MES) states are the only symmetric states for which the expectation value of the associated collective spin of the system vanishes, as well as in corollary the dipole moment of the Husimi function. We establish the link between this kind of maximal entanglement, the anticoherence properties of spin states, and the degree of polarization of light fields. We analyze the relationship between the MES states and the classes of states equivalent through stochastic local operations with classical communication (SLOCC). We provide a nonexistence criterion of MES states within SLOCC classes of qubit states and show in particular that the symmetric Dicke state SLOCC classes never contain such MES states, with the only exception of the balanced Dicke state class for even numbers of qubits. The 4-qubit system is analyzed exhaustively and all MES states of this system are identified and characterized. Finally the entanglement content of MES states is analyzed with respect to the geometric and barycentric measures of entanglement, as well as to the generalized NNN-tangle. We show that the geometric entanglement of MES states is ensured to be larger than or equal to 1/21/21/2, but also that MES states are not in general the symmetric states that maximize the investigated entanglement measures.
Quantum states that are symmetric with respect to permutations of their subsystems appear in a wide range of physical settings, and they have a variety of promising applications in quantum information science. In this thesis, the entanglement of symmetric multipartite states is categorized, with a particular focus on the pure multi-qubit case and the geometric measure of entanglement. An essential tool for this analysis is the Majorana representation, a generalization of the single-qubit Bloch sphere representation, which allows for a unique representation of symmetric n-qubit states by n points on the surface of a sphere. Here this representation is employed to search for the maximally entangled symmetric states of up to 12 qubits in terms of the geometric measure, and an intuitive visual understanding of the upper bound on the maximal symmetric entanglement is given. Furthermore, it will be seen that the Majorana representation facilitates the characterization of entanglement equivalence classes such as stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC) and the degeneracy configuration (DC). It is found that SLOCC operations between symmetric states can be described by the Möbius transformations of complex analysis, which allows for a clear visualization of the SLOCC freedoms and facilitates the understanding of SLOCC invariants and equivalence classes. In particular, explicit forms of representative states for all symmetric SLOCC classes of up to five qubits are derived. Well-known entanglement classification schemes such as the four qubit entanglement families or polynomial invariants are reviewed in the light of the results gathered here, which leads to sometimes surprising connections. Some interesting links and applications of the Majorana representation to related fields of mathematics and physics are also discussed.
We investigate multiqubit permutation-symmetric states with maximal entropy of entanglement. Such states can be viewed as particular spin states, namely anticoherent spin states. Using the Majorana representation of spin states in terms of points on the unit sphere, we analyze the consequences of a point-group symmetry in their arrangement on the quantum properties of the corresponding state. We focus on the identification of anticoherent states (for which all reduced density matrices in the symmetric subspace are maximally mixed) associated with point-group-symmetric sets of points. We provide three different characterizations of anticoherence and establish a link between point symmetries, anticoherence, and classes of states equivalent through stochastic local operations with classical communication. We then investigate in detail the case of small numbers of qubits and construct infinite families of anticoherent states with point-group symmetry of their Majorana points, showing that anticoherent states do exist to arbitrary order.
Entanglement is a resource to overcome the natural restriction of operations used for state manipulation to Local Operations assisted by Classical Communication (LOCC). Hence, a bipartite maximally entangled state is a state which can be transformed deterministically into any other state via LOCC. In the multipartite setting no such state exists. There, rather a whole set, the Maximally Entangled Set of states (MES), which we recently introduced, is required. This set has on the one hand the property that any state outside of this set can be obtained via LOCC from one of the states within the set and on the other hand, no state in the set can be obtained from any other state via LOCC. Recently, we studied LOCC transformations among pure multipartite states and derived the MES for three and generic four qubit states. Here, we consider the non-generic four qubit states and analyze their properties regarding local transformations. As already the most coarse grained classification, due to Stochastic LOCC (SLOCC), of four qubit states is much richer than in case of three qubits, the investigation of possible LOCC transformations is correspondingly more difficult. We prove that most SLOCC classes show a similar behavior as the generic states, however we also identify here three classes with very distinct properties. The first consists of the GHZ and W class, where any state can be transformed into some other state non-trivially. In particular, there exists no isolation. On the other hand, there also exist classes where all states are isolated. Last but not least we identify an additional class of states, whose transformation properties differ drastically from all the other classes. Although the possibility of transforming states into local-unitary inequivalent states by LOCC turns out to be very rare, we identify those states (with exception of the latter class) which are in the MES and those, which can be obtained (transformed) non-trivially from (into) other states respectively. These investigations do not only identify the most relevant classes of states for LOCC entanglement manipulation, but also reveal new insight into the similarities and differences between separable and LOCC transformations and enable the investigation of LOCC transformations among arbitrary four qubit states.
We analyze entanglement classes for permutation-symmetric states for nnn qudits (i.e., ddd-level systems), with respect to local unitary operations (LU equivalence) and stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC equivalence). In both cases, we show that the search can be restricted to operations where the same local operation acts on all qudits, and we provide an explicit construction for it. Stabilizers of states in the form of one-particle operations preserving permutation symmetry are shown to provide a coarse-grained classification of entanglement classes. We prove that the Jordan form of such one-particle operators is a SLOCC invariant. We find, as representatives of those classes, a discrete set of entangled states that generalize the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and WWW states for the many-particle qudit case. In the latter case, we introduce the excitation state as a natural generalization of the WWW state for d>2d>2d>2.
We analyze the entanglement properties for the not-completely-permutation-symmetric states of quantum systems composed of two subsystems with an equal but arbitrary finite local Hilbert space dimension. We investigate both pure and mixed states with such a symmetry obtained by relaxing the symmetry requirement of the axisymmetric states. For such states we discuss the entanglement classification with respect to stochastic local operations and classical communication and establish the entanglement quantitatively by means of concurrence and negativity. In particular, we determine the separability criterion in the frame of various methods, including the kkk-positive map witness, optimal Schmidt-number witnesses, and entanglement measures.
We introduce an operational entanglement classification of symmetric mixed states for an arbitrary number of qubits based on stochastic local operations assisted with classical communication (SLOCC operations). We define families of SLOCC entanglement classes successively embedded into each other, we prove that they are of nonzero measure, and we construct witness operators to distinguish them. Moreover, we discuss how arbitrary symmetric mixed states can be realized in the laboratory via a one-to-one correspondence between well-defined sets of controllable parameters and the corresponding entanglement families.