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arXiv:2104.11933 · Physical Review A

Genuine activation of nonlocality: From locally available to locally hidden information

Somshubhro Bandyopadhyay, Saronath Halder

Published Nov 8, 2021• 17 citations
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Abstract

Quantum nonlocality has different manifestations that, in general, are revealed by local measurements of the parts of a composite system. In this paper, we study nonlocality arising from a set of orthogonal states that cannot be perfectly distinguished by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Such a set is deemed nonlocal, for a joint measurement on the whole system is necessary for perfect discrimination of the states with certainty. On the other hand, a set of orthogonal states that can be perfectly distinguished by LOCC is believed to be devoid of nonlocal properties. Here, we show that there exist orthogonal sets that are locally distinguishable but without local redundancy (i.e., they become nonorthogonal on discarding one or more subsystems) whose nonlocality can be activated by local measurements. In particular, a state chosen from such a set can be locally converted, with certainty, into another state, the identity of which can now only be ascertained by global measurement and no longer by LOCC. In other words, a locally distinguishable set without local redundancy may be locally converted into a locally indistinguishable set with certainty. We also suggest an application, namely, local hiding of information, that allows us to locally hide locally available information without losing any part. Once hidden, the information in its entirety can only be retrieved using entanglement.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.104.l050201

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Quantum nonlocality has different manifestations that, in general, are revealed by local measurements of the parts of a composite system. In this paper, we study nonlocality arising from a set of orthogonal states that cannot be perfectly distinguished by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Such a set is deemed nonlocal, for a joint measurement on the whole system is necessary for perfect discrimination of the states with certainty. On the other hand, a set of orthogonal states that can be perfectly distinguished by LOCC is believed to be devoid of nonlocal properties. Here, we show that there exist orthogonal sets that are locally distinguishable but without local redundancy (i.e., they become nonorthogonal on discarding one or more subsystems) whose nonlocality can be activated by local measurements. In particular, a state chosen from such a set can be locally converted, with certainty, into another state, the identity of which can now only be ascertained by global measurement and no longer by LOCC. In other words, a locally distinguishable set without local redundancy may be locally converted into a locally indistinguishable set with certainty. We also suggest an application, namely, local hiding of information, that allows us to locally hide locally available information without losing any part. Once hidden, the information in its entirety can only be retrieved using entanglement.
Quantum nonlocality admits several operational manifestations, one of which emerges from sets of orthogonal quantum states that cannot be perfectly distinguished by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Such sets are regarded as nonlocal because their perfect discrimination requires global measurements. In contrast, sets that are perfectly distinguishable by LOCC are generally considered locally accessible and operationally classical. In this work, we investigate the role of incompletability in local state discrimination and introduce the notion of \emph{activation of incompletability}. Specifically, we demonstrate the existence of orthogonal sets that are initially perfectly distinguishable by LOCC and free from local redundancy, but which can be transformed via LOCC into strictly incompletable sets. We prove that activation of incompletability necessarily implies activation of nonlocality, whereas the converse fails in general, thereby establishing a hierarchy between the two activation phenomena. Furthermore, within the framework of local incoherent operations and classical communication (LICC), we show that any set whose incompletability can be activated can nevertheless be extended to a complete orthonormal basis of the Hilbert space, although the resulting completed basis is no longer perfectly distinguishable by LOCC. Our results uncover a fundamental interplay among local distinguishability, incompletability, coherence, and nonlocality, and provide new insight into the structure of locally accessible quantum information.
A set of orthogonal product states is said to exhibit "quantum nonlocality without entanglement" if it is locally indistinguishable, i.e. no sequence of local operations and classical communication (LOCC) can perfectly discriminate the states. Building on this foundational idea, recent studies have highlighted the phenomenon of "genuine activation of hidden nonlocality", where a set of initially distinguishable orthogonal states becomes locally indistinguishable through orthogonality-preserving LOCC transformations. In this letter, we establish that any complete orthogonal product basis that is initially locally distinguishable remains so under all orthogonality-preserving local projective measurements, thereby ruling out activation via orthogonality-preserving local projective measurements and classical communication. We further introduce and formalise the notions of "strongly local sets", namely locally distinguishable sets that remain non-activable under all bipartitions. Interestingly, the study of "local activability" of distinguishable sets is useful to characterise the boundary between LOCC distinguishability and its irreversible loss in multipartite systems. Our results provide a rigorous structural understanding of local-to-nonlocal transitions in quantum state discrimination.
A set of orthogonal quantum states in multipartite systems is of genuine nonlocality if it is locally indistinguishable in every bipartition. If it is locally reducible when the parties are separated, we say that it has genuine nonlocality of type~\uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral 1}; otherwise, it has genuine nonlocality of type~\uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral 2}. For a locally distinguishable set without local redundancy, if there exist some orthogonality preserving local measurements such that each outcome leads to a locally indistinguishable set, then we say that it exhibits the activation of nonlocality. We activate type-\uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral 1} and type-\uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral 2} genuine nonlocality of orthogonal product state sets in tripartite systems. In particular, we tackle the local irredundancy problem with partial trace operation and ppp-ary numeral systems to significantly simplify the proofs. Our results also address the open question raised by S. Bandyopadhyay \textit{et al.}[\href{https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.104.L050201}{Phys. Rev. A \textbf{104}, L050201 (2021)}]. Furthermore, we observe the activation of hidden genuine nonlocality in multipartite systems, which highlights the applications of nonlocality based on state discrimination in different practical scenarios.
Abstract Quantum nonlocality without entanglement is a fantastic phenomenon in quantum theory. This kind of quantum nonlocality is based on the task of local discrimination of quantum states. Recently, Bandyopadhyay and Halder (2021 Phys. Rev. A 104 L050201) studied the problem: is there any set of orthogonal states which can be locally distinguishable, but under some orthogonality preserving local measurement, each outcome will lead to a locally indistinguishable set. The set with such property is called to have hidden nonlocality. Moreover, if such phenomenon can not arise from discarding subsystems which is termed as local irredundancy, we call it genuine hidden nonlocality. There, they presented several sets of entangled states with genuine hidden nonlocality. However, they doubted the existence of a set without entanglement but with genuine hidden nonlocality. In this paper, we eliminate this doubt by constructing a series of sets without entanglement but whose nonlocality can be genuinely activated. We derive a method to tackle with the local irredundancy problem which is a key tricky for the systems whose local dimensions are composite numbers. Unexpectedly, the constructions of genuine hidden nonlocal sets without entanglement seems to be easier than that with entanglement. Therefore, from this perspective, this kind of nonlocality is rather different from the Bell nonlocality.
Based on the conviction of switching information from locally accessible to locally hidden environs, the concept of hidden nonlocality activation has recently been highlighted by Bandyopadhyay et al. [Phys. Rev. A 104, L050201 (2021)]. They have demonstrated that a certain locally distinguishable set of pure quantum states can be transformed into a locally indistinguishable set with certainty through orthogonality preserving local measurements. This transformation makes the set locally inaccessible, despite being locally accessible before. This phenomenon is defined as the activation of hidden nonlocality. In this paper, we present two classes of locally distinguishable sets within $(2m+1)\ensuremath{\bigotimes}2\ensuremath{\bigotimes}(2m+1)$ systems. One class reveals nonlocality through local operations, whereas the other requires joint measurements for it. As the latter class depends on nonlocal operations to exhibit nonlocality, it arguably has a lower degree of nonlocality, and accordingly, can be considered as more local compared to the first class. This analysis exhibits a stronger manifestation of locality by elucidating the nuanced interplay between these distinct local phenomena within the framework of quantum state discrimination. Furthermore, we also explore their significant applications in the context of data hiding. Additionally, we introduce the concept of strong local set and compare it with various activable sets, highlighting differences in terms of locality.
Local discrimination of quantum states is a fundamental task in distributed quantum information processing and underlies applications such as quantum communication, data hiding, and secret sharing. Here we investigate a weak form of local indistinguishability by asking how easily it can disappear when the candidate set is reduced or an additional copy of the unknown state is supplied. We introduce inclusion-minimal locally indistinguishable sets, namely, locally indistinguishable sets for which every proper subset is perfectly distinguishable by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), and show that every finite locally indistinguishable set contains such a subset. We further find that any inclusion-minimal locally indistinguishable sets becomes perfectly distinguishable by LOCC when two identical copies are available, although a single copy is insufficient. Fininally, We construct explicit inclusion-minimal locally indistinguishable product-state sets in (Cd)⊗n(\mathbb C^d)^{\otimes n}(Cd)⊗n for every odd d=2k+1d=2k+1d=2k+1 and n≥2n\ge2n≥2. These results show that local indistinguishability can be nontrivial at the single-copy level yet fragile under either the removal of candidate states or a modest increase in copy resources, providing a complementary perspective on the structure of quantum nonlocality.