Quantum coherence and quantum entanglement represent two fundamental features of nonclassical systems that can each be characterized within an operational resource theory. In this Letter, we unify the resource theories of entanglement and coherence by studying their combined behavior in the operational setting of local incoherent operations and classical communication (LIOCC). Specifically, we analyze the coherence and entanglement trade-offs in the tasks of state formation and resource distillation. For pure states we identify the minimum coherence-entanglement resources needed to generate a given state, and we introduce a new LIOCC monotone that completely characterizes a state's optimal rate of bipartite coherence distillation. This result allows us to precisely quantify the difference in operational powers between global incoherent operations, LIOCC, and local incoherent operations without classical communication. Finally, a bipartite mixed state is shown to have distillable entanglement if and only if entanglement can be distilled by LIOCC, and we strengthen the well-known Horodecki criterion for distillability.
Quantum coherence and quantum entanglement represent two fundamental features of nonclassical systems that can each be characterized within an operational resource theory. In this Letter, we unify the resource theories of entanglement and coherence by studying their combined behavior in the operational setting of local incoherent operations and classical communication (LIOCC). Specifically, we analyze the coherence and entanglement trade-offs in the tasks of state formation and resource distillation. For pure states we identify the minimum coherence-entanglement resources needed to generate a given state, and we introduce a new LIOCC monotone that completely characterizes a state's optimal rate of bipartite coherence distillation. This result allows us to precisely quantify the difference in operational powers between global incoherent operations, LIOCC, and local incoherent operations without classical communication. Finally, a bipartite mixed state is shown to have distillable entanglement if and only if entanglement can be distilled by LIOCC, and we strengthen the well-known Horodecki criterion for distillability.
The search for a simple description of fundamental physical processes is an important part of quantum theory. One example for such an abstraction can be found in the distance lab paradigm: if two separated parties are connected via a classical channel, it is notoriously difficult to characterize all possible operations these parties can perform. This class of operations is widely known as local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Surprisingly, the situation becomes comparably simple if the more general class of separable operations is considered, a finding which has been extensively used in quantum information theory for many years. Here, we propose a related approach for the resource theory of quantum coherence, where two distant parties can only perform measurements which do not create coherence and can communicate their outcomes via a classical channel. We call this class local incoherent operations and classical communication (LICC). While the characterization of this class is also difficult in general, we show that the larger class of separable incoherent operations (SI) has a simple mathematical form, yet still preserving the main features of LICC. We apply these results to the task of assisted coherence distillation, where the aim is to locally extract maximally coherent states. For all pure states and certain mixed states we observe a collapse of all classes: the distillation rate is always the same. It remains open if the distillation rate can be different for general mixed states, and if the intersection of LOCC and SI is equivalent to LICC. We also introduce the task of incoherent teleportation and show that perfect incoherent teleportation of one qubit is possible with one singlet and two bits of classical communication. The approach presented here opens new ways to study the resource theory of coherence in distributed scenarios.
Abstract Quantum coherence is a fundamental property of quantum systems that can be studied within the framework of a quantum resource theory. From this resource-theoretic approach, many similarities emerge between coherence and quantum entanglement, the latter being another prominent quantum resource. In this paper, we study the relationship between coherence and entanglement from the perspective of resource loss/gain by unitary dynamics. Specifically we consider how much coherence can be either generated or destroyed on a bipartite system when the action is restricted to local unitary (LU) operations. For pure states, we find that the relative entropy of entanglement and the robustness of entanglement provide tight lower bounds on the amount of coherence that can be destroyed by LUs, as measured by the relative entropy and measures of coherence, respectively. This provides new operational interpretations of the entanglement entropy and robustness of entanglement in pure states as the minimal amount of coherence that persists when the system is subjected to LU transformations. We then study the amount of bipartite pure entanglement that can be either maximized or minimized when the action is restricted to a global incoherent operation. For two-qubit pure states, maximum and minimum are shown in terms of coefficients of given state with incoherent basis. Finally we consider a generalized version of the recently introduced CCP of a quantum channel.
Quantum resource theory under different classes of quantum operations advances multiperspective understandings of inherent quantum-mechanical properties, such as quantum coherence and quantum entanglement. We establish hierarchies of different operations for manipulating coherence and entanglement in distributed settings, where at least one of the two spatially separated parties are restricted from generating coherence. In these settings, we introduce new classes of operations and also characterize those maximal, i.e. , the resource-non-generating operations, progressing beyond existing studies on incoherent versions of local operations and classical communication and those of separable operations. The maximal operations admit a semidefinite-programming formulation useful for numerical algorithms, whereas the existing operations not. To establish the hierarchies, we prove a sequence of inclusion relations among the operations by clarifying tasks where separation of the operations appears. We also demonstrate an asymptotically non-surviving separation of the operations in the hierarchy in terms of performance of the task of assisted coherence distillation, where a separation in a one-shot scenario vanishes in the asymptotic limit. Our results serve as fundamental analytical and numerical tools to investigate interplay between coherence and entanglement under different operations in the resource theory.
We establish an operational theory of coherence (or of superposition) in quantum systems, by focusing on the optimal rate of performance of certain tasks. Namely, we introduce the two basic concepts-"coherence distillation" and "coherence cost"-in the processing quantum states under so-called incoherent operations [Baumgratz, Cramer, and Plenio, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 140401 (2014)]. We, then, show that, in the asymptotic limit of many copies of a state, both are given by simple single-letter formulas: the distillable coherence is given by the relative entropy of coherence (in other words, we give the relative entropy of coherence its operational interpretation), and the coherence cost by the coherence of formation, which is an optimization over convex decompositions of the state. An immediate corollary is that there exists no bound coherent state in the sense that one would need to consume coherence to create the state, but no coherence could be distilled from it. Further, we demonstrate that the coherence theory is generically an irreversible theory by a simple criterion that completely characterizes all reversible states.
We establish a kind of resource conversion relationship between quantum coherence and entanglement in multipartite systems, where the operational measures of resource cost and distillation are focused on. The coherence cost of single-party system bounds the maximal amounts of entanglement cost and entanglement of formation generated via multipartite incoherent operations. The converted entanglement in multipartite systems can be further transferred to subsystems or restored to coherence of single party by means of local incoherent operations and classical communications. The similar relations also hold for distillable coherence and entanglement. As an example, we present a scheme for cyclic interconversion between coherence and entanglement in three-qubit systems under full incoherent operations scenario. Moreover, we also analyze the property of genuine multi-level entanglement by the initial coherence and investigate resource dynamics in the conversion.
Quantum coherence has received significant attention in recent years, but the structure of multipartite coherent states is unclear. In this paper, we generalize important results in multipartite entanglement theory to their counterparts in quantum coherence theory. First, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for when two pure multipartite states are equivalent under local incoherent operations assisted by classical communications (LICC), i.e., two states can be deterministically transformed to each other under LICC operations. Next, we investigate and give the conditions in which such a transformation succeeds only stochastically. Different from the entanglement case for two-qubit states, we find that the stochastic LICC (sLICC) equivalence classes are infinite. Moreover, it is possible that there are some classes of states in multipartite entanglement that can convert into each other, whereas they cannot convert into each other in multipartite coherence. In order to show the difference among sLICC classes, we introduce two coherence monotones: accessible coherence and source coherence, following the logistics given in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 150502 (2015)]. These coherence monotones have a straightforward operational interpretation, namely, the accessible coherence characterizes the proficiency of a state to generate other states via quantum incoherent operations, whereas the source coherence characterizes the set of states that can be reached via quantum incoherent operations acting on the given state of interest.