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arXiv:1908.02428

A matrix inequality related to the entanglement distillation problem

Lilong Qian, Lin Chen, Delin Chu, Yi Shen

Published Aug 7, 2019• 1 citation

Abstract

The pure entangled state is of vital importance in the field of quantum information. The process of asymptotically extracting pure entangled states from many copies of mixed states via local operations and classical communication is called entanglement distillation. The entanglement distillability problem, which is a long-standing open problem, asks whether such process exists. The 2-copy undistillability of $4\times4$ undistillable Werner states has been reduced to the validness of the a matrix inequality, that is, the sum of the squares of the largest two singular values of matrix $A\otimes I + I \otimes B$ does not exceed $(3d-4)/d^2$ with $A,B$ traceless $d\times d$ matrices and $||A||_F^2+||B||_F^2=1/d$ when $d=4$. The latest progress, made by Ł.~Pankowski~ et al~[IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, 56, 4085 (2010)], shows that this conjecture holds when both matrices $A$ and $B$ are normal. In this paper, we prove that the conjecture holds when one of matrices $A$ and $B$ is normal and the other one is arbitrary. Our work makes solid progress towards this conjecture and thus the distillability problem.

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1908.02428

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The pure entangled state is of vital importance in the field of quantum information. The process of asymptotically extracting pure entangled states from many copies of mixed states via local operations and classical communication is called entanglement distillation. The entanglement distillability problem, which is a long-standing open problem, asks whether such process exists. The 2-copy undistillability of

4\times4

undistillable Werner states has been reduced to the validness of the a matrix inequality, that is, the sum of the squares of the largest two singular values of matrix

A\otimes I + I \otimes B

does not exceed

(3d-4)/d^2

with

A,B

traceless

d\times d

matrices and

||A||_F^2+||B||_F^2=1/d

when

d=4

. The latest progress, made by Ł.~~Pankowski~~ et al~[IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, 56, 4085 (2010)], shows that this conjecture holds when both matrices

A

and

B

are normal. In this paper, we prove that the conjecture holds when one of matrices

A

and

B

is normal and the other one is arbitrary. Our work makes solid progress towards this conjecture and thus the distillability problem.

Motivated by the equivalent partial-trace formulations of Werner-state distillability [P. Costa Rico, Lett. Math. Phys. 115, 47 (2025); S.-Y. Qi et al., Phys. Rev. A 110, 012406 (2024)], we prove a bipartite partial-trace inequality for every matrix of rank at most two. As applications, we prove the two-copy undistillability of NPT Werner states in arbitrary local dimension, thereby resolving this open problem highlighted in [P. Horodecki et al., PRX Quantum 3, 010101 (2022)]. We further prove a two-parameter extension of the matrix inequality and show that two individually one-copy-undistillable NPT Werner states cannot activate each other's one-copy distillability. We also resolve the singular-value maximization problem associated with the two-ququart case.

Entanglement distillation is a basic task in quantum information, and the distillable entanglement of three bipartite reduced density matrices from a tripartite pure state has been studied in [Phys. Rev. A 84, 012325 (2011)]. We extend this result to tripartite mixed states by studying a conjectured matrix inequality, namely

\mathop{\rm rank}(\sum_i R_i \otimes S_i)\leq K \mathop{\rm rank}(\sum_i R_i^T \otimes S_i)

holds for any bipartite matrix

M=\sum_i R_i \otimes S_i

and Schmidt rank

K

. We prove that the conjecture holds for

M

with

K=3

and some special

M

with arbitrary

K

.

Entanglement distillation is a fundamental task in quantum information theory. In this work, we prove that Werner states in arbitrary dimension are

2

-copy distillable if and only if they are

1

-copy distillable. This answers the longstanding open question of the

2

-copy distillability of Werner states. This is an important step on determining whether every non-positive partial transpose (NPT) state is distillable, which remains one of the central open problems in the field of entanglement distillation.

An important open problem in quantum information theory is the question of the existence of NPT bound entanglement. In the past years, little progress has been made, mainly because of the lack of mathematical tools to address the problem. (i) In an attempt to overcome this, we show how the distillability problem can be reformulated as a special instance of the separability problem, for which a large number of tools and techniques are available. (ii) Building up to this we also show how the problem can be formulated as a Schmidt number problem. (iii) A numerical method for detecting distillability is presented and strong evidence is given that all 1-copy undistillable Werner states are also 4-copy undistillable. (iv) The same method is used to estimate the volume of distillable states, and the results suggest that bound entanglement is primarily a phenomenon found in low dimensional quantum systems. (v) Finally, a set of one parameter states is presented which we conjecture to exhibit all forms of distillability.

The distillability conjecture of two-copy 4 by 4 Werner states is one of the main open problems in quantum information. We prove two special cases of the conjecture. The first case occurs when two 4 by 4 matrices A, B are both unitarily equivalent to block diagonal matrices with 2 by 2 blocks. The second case occurs when B is unitarily equivalent to either -A or the transpose of -A. Plus, we propose a simplified version of the distillability conjecture when both A and B are matrices with distinct eigenvalues.

The distillability conjecture for two-copy four-by-four Werner states has been an open problem in quantum information for years. We investigate the conditions under which the conjectured inequality becomes an equality. For all known cases where the conjecture has been verified, we characterize the saturation conditions and show that equality forces the matrices

A

and

B

to be two-by-two block-diagonal. In particular, several previously obtained partial results, including the cases of one normal matrix, unitary similarity between

B

and

-A

or

-A^T

, and anti-diagonal block structures, are reduced to this common block-diagonal structure. We also employ a manifold optimization method, which provides numerical evidence that the two-by-two block-diagonal structure is essential for saturating the inequality. Furthermore, we prove that the identified saturation points are critical points of the objective function on the constraint manifold.