We present a novel approach to the separability problem for Gaussian quantum states of bosonic continuous variable systems. We derive a simplified necessary and sufficient separability criterion for arbitrary Gaussian states of m versus n modes, which relies on convex optimisation over marginal covariance matrices on one subsystem only. We further revisit the currently known results stating the equivalence between separability and positive partial transposition (PPT) for specific classes of Gaussian states. Using techniques based on matrix analysis, such as Schur complements and matrix means, we then provide a unified treatment and compact proofs of all these results. In particular, we recover the PPT-separability equivalence for: (i) Gaussian states of 1 versus n modes; and (ii) isotropic Gaussian states. In passing, we also retrieve (iii) the recently established equivalence between separability of a Gaussian state and and its complete Gaussian extendability. Our techniques are then applied to progress beyond the state of the art. We prove that: (iv) Gaussian states that are invariant under partial transposition are necessarily separable; (v) the PPT criterion is necessary and sufficient for separability for Gaussian states of m versus n modes that are symmetric under the exchange of any two modes belonging to one of the parties; and (vi) Gaussian states which remain PPT under passive optical operations can not be entangled by them either. This is not a foregone conclusion per se (since Gaussian bound entangled states do exist) and settles a question that had been left unanswered in the existing literature on the subject. This paper, enjoyable by both the quantum optics and the matrix analysis communities, overall delivers technical and conceptual advances which are likely to be useful for further applications in continuous variable quantum information theory, beyond the separability problem.
We present a novel approach to the separability problem for Gaussian quantum states of bosonic continuous variable systems. We derive a simplified necessary and sufficient separability criterion for arbitrary Gaussian states of m versus n modes, which relies on convex optimisation over marginal covariance matrices on one subsystem only. We further revisit the currently known results stating the equivalence between separability and positive partial transposition (PPT) for specific classes of Gaussian states. Using techniques based on matrix analysis, such as Schur complements and matrix means, we then provide a unified treatment and compact proofs of all these results. In particular, we recover the PPT-separability equivalence for: (i) Gaussian states of 1 versus n modes; and (ii) isotropic Gaussian states. In passing, we also retrieve (iii) the recently established equivalence between separability of a Gaussian state and and its complete Gaussian extendability. Our techniques are then applied to progress beyond the state of the art. We prove that: (iv) Gaussian states that are invariant under partial transposition are necessarily separable; (v) the PPT criterion is necessary and sufficient for separability for Gaussian states of m versus n modes that are symmetric under the exchange of any two modes belonging to one of the parties; and (vi) Gaussian states which remain PPT under passive optical operations can not be entangled by them either. This is not a foregone conclusion per se (since Gaussian bound entangled states do exist) and settles a question that had been left unanswered in the existing literature on the subject. This paper, enjoyable by both the quantum optics and the matrix analysis communities, overall delivers technical and conceptual advances which are likely to be useful for further applications in continuous variable quantum information theory, beyond the separability problem.
We present a novel approach to the separability problem for Gaussian quantum states of bosonic continuous variable systems. We derive a simplified necessary and sufficient separability criterion for arbitrary Gaussian states of m versus n modes, which relies on convex optimisation over marginal covariance matrices on one subsystem only. We further revisit the currently known results stating the equivalence between separability and positive partial transposition (PPT) for specific classes of Gaussian states. Using techniques based on matrix analysis, such as Schur complements and matrix means, we then provide a unified treatment and compact proofs of all these results. In particular, we recover the PPT-separability equivalence for: (i) Gaussian states of 1 versus n modes; and (ii) isotropic Gaussian states. In passing, we also retrieve (iii) the recently established equivalence between separability of a Gaussian state and and its complete Gaussian extendability. Our techniques are then applied to progress beyond the state of the art. We prove that: (iv) Gaussian states that are invariant under partial transposition are necessarily separable; (v) the PPT criterion is necessary and sufficient for separability for Gaussian states of m versus n modes that are symmetric under the exchange of any two modes belonging to one of the parties; and (vi) Gaussian states which remain PPT under passive optical operations can not be entangled by them either. This is not a foregone conclusion per se (since Gaussian bound entangled states do exist) and settles a question that had been left unanswered in the existing literature on the subject. This paper, enjoyable by both the quantum optics and the matrix analysis communities, overall delivers technical and conceptual advances which are likely to be useful for further applications in continuous variable quantum information theory, beyond the separability problem.
We use quantum entanglement witnesses derived from Gaussian operators to study the separable criteria of continuous variable states. For bipartite system, we transform the validity of a Gaussian witness to a bosonic Gaussian channel problem. It follows that the maximal means of two-mode and some four-mode Gaussian operators over product pure states are achieved by vacuum (or coherent states and squeezed states) according to the properties of bosonic Gaussian channels. We demonstrate necessary and sufficient criteria of separability for two-mode and some four-mode Gaussian quantum states. We also propose multipartite Gaussian witnesses based on numeric evidence. The entanglement and multipartite entanglement detecting powers of the Gaussian witness criteria are illustrated by the mixture of two Gaussian states. We apply the Gaussian witness criterion to a Gaussian Fock state, which is prepared by passing a product Fock state through bosonic Gaussian channel. We show that the necessary criterion of separability for a Gaussian Fock state does not rely on the initial product Fock state, it relies on the channel.
We use quantum entanglement witnesses derived from Gaussian operators to study the separable criteria of continuous variable states. We transform the validity of a Gaussian witness to a Bosonic Gaussian channel problem. It follows that the maximal means of two-mode and some four-mode Gaussian operators over product pure states are achieved by vacuum (or coherent states and squeezed states) according to the properties of Bosonic Gaussian channels. Then we have necessary and sufficient criteria of separability not only for Gaussian quantum states, but also for non-Gaussian states prepared by photon adding to or/and subtracting from Gaussian states. The criterion can be further explicitly expressed with covariance matrix of the Gaussian state or covariance matrix of Gaussian kernel of the non-Gaussian state. This opens a way for precise detection of non-Gaussian entanglement.
The notion of partial trace of a density operator is essential for the understanding of the entanglement and separability properties of quantum states. In this paper, we investigate these notions putting an emphasis on the geometrical properties of the covariance ellipsoids of the reduced states. We thereafter focus on Gaussian states and we give new and easily numerically implementable sufficient conditions for the separability of all Gaussian states. Unlike the positive partial transposition criterion, none of these conditions is however necessary.
Continuous-variable Gaussian entanglement is an attractive notion, both as a fundamental concept in quantum information theory, based on the well-established Gaussian formalism for phase-space variables, and as a practical resource in quantum technology, exploiting in particular, unconditional room-temperature squeezed-light quantum optics. The readily available high level of scalability, however, is accompanied by an increased theoretical complexity when the multipartite entanglement of a growing number of optical modes is considered. For such systems, we present several approaches to reconstruct the most probable physical covariance matrix from a measured nonphysical one and then test the reconstructed matrix for different kinds of separability (factorizability, concrete partite separability, or biseparability) even in the presence of measurement errors. All these approaches are based on formulating the desired properties (physicality or separability) as convex optimization problems, which can be efficiently solved with modern optimization solvers, even when the system grows. To every optimization problem, we construct the corresponding dual problem used to verify the optimality of the solution. Besides this numerical part of work, we derive an explicit analytical expression for the symplectic trace of a positive definite matrix, which can serve as a simple witness of an entanglement witness, and extend it for positive semidefinite matrices. In addition, we show that in some cases our optimization problems can be solved analytically. As an application of our analytical approach, we consider small instances of bound entangled or genuine multipartite entangled Gaussian states, including some examples from the literature that were treated only numerically, and a family of non-Gaussian states.
Currently available separability criteria for continuous-variable states are generally based on the covariance matrix of quadrature operators. The well-known separability criterion of Duan et al. [L. M. Duan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 2722 (2000)] and Simon [R. Simon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 2726 (2000)], for example, gives a necessary and sufficient condition for a two-mode Gaussian state to be separable, but leaves many entangled non-Gaussian states undetected. Here we introduce an improvement of this criterion that enables a stronger entanglement detection. The improved condition is based on the knowledge of an additional parameter, namely, the degree of Gaussianity, and exploits a connection with Gaussianity-bounded uncertainty relations [A. Mandilara and N. J. Cerf, Phys. Rev. A 86, 030102 (2012)]. We exhibit families of non-Gaussian entangled states whose entanglement remains undetected by the Duan-Simon criterion.