Abstract We address the problem of finding the optimal common resource for an arbitrary family of target states in quantum resource theories based on majorization, that is, theories whose conversion law between resources is determined by a majorization relationship, such as it happens with entanglement, coherence or purity. We provide a conclusive answer to this problem by appealing to the completeness property of the majorization lattice. We give a proof of this property that relies heavily on the more geometric construction provided by the Lorenz curves, which allows to explicitly obtain the corresponding infimum and supremum. Our framework includes the case of possibly non-denumerable sets of target states (i.e. targets sets described by continuous parameters). In addition, we show that a notion of approximate majorization, which has recently found application in quantum thermodynamics, is in close relation with the completeness of this lattice. Finally, we provide some examples of optimal common resources within the resource theory of quantum coherence.
Abstract We address the problem of finding the optimal common resource for an arbitrary family of target states in quantum resource theories based on majorization, that is, theories whose conversion law between resources is determined by a majorization relationship, such as it happens with entanglement, coherence or purity. We provide a conclusive answer to this problem by appealing to the completeness property of the majorization lattice. We give a proof of this property that relies heavily on the more geometric construction provided by the Lorenz curves, which allows to explicitly obtain the corresponding infimum and supremum. Our framework includes the case of possibly non-denumerable sets of target states (i.e. targets sets described by continuous parameters). In addition, we show that a notion of approximate majorization, which has recently found application in quantum thermodynamics, is in close relation with the completeness of this lattice. Finally, we provide some examples of optimal common resources within the resource theory of quantum coherence.
Optimal approximate state conversion is a fundamental task in quantum resource theories, yet existing solutions are largely tailored to specific distinguishability measures and resource theories. We show that every optimal approximate-conversion problem in the three paradigmatic majorization-based quantum resource theories of non-uniformity, bipartite pure-state entanglement, and pure-state coherence reduces exactly to one of only four elementary taut-string constructions. This holds for problems generated by Schur-convex spectral distances and by a broad family of quantum divergences satisfying a natural reduction property with respect to the corresponding equivalence group. The resulting framework encompasses a broad class of physically relevant distinguishability measures, including the trace distance, all unitarily invariant norms, quantum relative entropy, maximal quantum f-divergences, and the α-z Rényi relative entropies. The increment vector of the corresponding taut string completely determines both the optimal approximation error and a canonical optimal state. Our results establish a common geometric framework for approximate quantum resource conversion, revealing that a broad class of seemingly different optimization problems is governed by the same taut-string geometric principle.
The theory of majorization and its variants, including thermomajorization, have been found to play a central role in the formulation of many physical resource theories, ranging from entanglement theory to quantum thermodynamics. Here we formulate the framework of quantum relative Lorenz curves, and show how it is able to unify majorization, thermomajorization, and their noncommutative analogs. In doing so, we define the family of Hilbert $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ divergences and show how it relates with other divergences used in quantum information theory. We then apply these tools to the problem of deciding the existence of a suitable transformation from an initial pair of quantum states to a final one, focusing in particular on applications to the resource theory of athermality, a precursor of quantum thermodynamics.
We introduce and study a generalization of majorization called relative submajorization and show that it has many applications to the resource theories of thermodynamics, bipartite entanglement, and quantum coherence. Relative majorization is an ordering on pairs of vectors induced by stochastic transformations: One pair of vectors relatively majorizes another when there exists a stochastic transformation taking the former to the latter. Relative submajorization is a weakened version in which a substochastic matrix need only generate a vector pair obeying certain positivity conditions relative to the input pair. In the context of resource theories, we show that the relative submajorization characterizes both the probability and approximation error that can be obtained when transforming one resource to another, also when assisted by additional standard resources such as useful work or maximally entangled states. These characterizations have a geometric formulation as the ratios or differences, respectively, between the Lorenz curves associated with the input and output resources, making them efficient to compute. We also find several interesting bounds on the reversibility of a given transformation in terms of the properties of the forward transformation. The main technical tool used to establish these results is the linear programming duality, which is used to show that any instance of relative submajorization can be “dilated” to an instance of strict relative majorization.
One of the main goals of any resource theory such as entanglement, quantum thermodynamics, quantum coherence, and asymmetry, is to find necessary and sufficient conditions that determine whether one resource can be converted to another by the set of free operations. Here we find such conditions for a large class of quantum resource theories which we call affine resource theories. Affine resource theories include the resource theories of athermality, asymmetry, and coherence, but not entanglement. Remarkably, the necessary and sufficient conditions can be expressed as a family of inequalities between resource monotones (quantifiers) that are given in terms of the conditional min-entropy. The set of free operations is taken to be (1) the maximal set (i.e., consists of all resource nongenerating quantum channels) or (2) the self-dual set of free operations (i.e., consists of all resource nongenerating maps for which the dual map is also resource nongenerating). As an example, we apply our results to quantum thermodynamics with Gibbs preserving operations, and several other affine resource theories. Finally, we discuss the applications of these results to resource theories that are not affine and, along the way, provide the necessary and sufficient conditions that a quantum resource theory consists of a resource destroying map.
Entanglement is among the most fundamental—and at the same time puzzling—properties of quantum physics. Its modern description relies on a resource-theoretical approach, which treats entangled systems as a means to enable or accelerate certain informational tasks. Hence, it is of crucial importance to determine whether—and how—different entangled states can be converted into each other under free operations (those which do not create entanglement from nothing). Here, we show that the majorization lattice provides an efficient framework in order to characterize the allowed transformations of pure entangled states under local operations and classical communication. The underlying notions of meet ∧ and join ∨ in the majorization lattice lead us to define, respectively, the optimal common resource and optimal common product states. Based on these two states, we introduce two optimal probabilistic protocols for the (single-copy) conversion of incomparable bipartite pure states, which we name greedy and thrifty. Both protocols reduce to Vidal's protocol [G. Vidal, ] if the initial and final states are comparable, but otherwise the thrifty protocol can be shown to be superior to the greedy protocol as it yields a more entangled residual state when it fails (they both yield the same entangled state with the same optimal probability when they succeed). Finally, we consider the generalization of these protocols to entanglement transformations involving multiple initial or final states. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
A question that is commonly asked in all areas of physics is how a certain property of a physical system can be used to achieve useful tasks and how to quantify the amount of such a property in a meaningful way. We answer this question by showing that, in a general resource-theoretic framework that allows the use of free states as catalysts, the amount of "resources" contained in a given state, in the asymptotic scenario, is equal to the regularized relative entropy of a resource of that state. While we need to place a few assumptions on our resource-theoretical framework, it is still sufficiently general, and its special cases include quantum resource theories of entanglement, coherence, asymmetry, athermality, nonuniformity, and purity. As a by-product, our result also implies that the amount of noise one has to inject locally to erase all the entanglement contained in an entangled state is equal to the regularized relative entropy of entanglement.