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arXiv:2105.05867 · IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW)

Second Law of Entanglement Dynamics for the Non-Asymptotic Regime

Mark M. Wilde

Published Oct 17, 2021• 1 citation
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Abstract

The distillable entanglement of a bipartite quantum state does not exceed its entanglement cost. This well known inequality can be understood as a second law of entanglement dynamics in the asymptotic regime of entanglement manipulation, excluding the possibility of perpetual entanglement extraction machines that generate boundless entanglement from a finite reserve. In this paper, I establish a refined second law of entanglement dynamics that holds for the non-asymptotic regime of entanglement manipulation.

DOI
10.1109/itw48936.2021.9611411

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The distillable entanglement of a bipartite quantum state does not exceed its entanglement cost. This well known inequality can be understood as a second law of entanglement dynamics in the asymptotic regime of entanglement manipulation, excluding the possibility of perpetual entanglement extraction machines that generate boundless entanglement from a finite reserve. In this paper, I establish a refined second law of entanglement dynamics that holds for the non-asymptotic regime of entanglement manipulation.
A central question since the beginning of quantum information science is how two distant parties can convert one entangled state into another. It has been conjectured that such conversions could be executed reversibly in an asymptotic regime, mirroring the reversible nature of Carnot cycles in classical thermodynamics. While a conclusive proof of this conjecture has been missing so far, earlier studies have excluded reversible entanglement manipulation in various settings. In this Letter, we show that arbitrary mixed state entanglement transformations can be made reversible under local operations and classical communication, when assisted by an entanglement battery-an auxiliary quantum system that stores and supplies entanglement in a way that ensures no net entanglement is lost. In particular, the rate of transformation in the asymptotic limit can be quantitatively expressed as a ratio of entanglement present within the quantum states involved. Our setting allows us to consider different entanglement quantifiers which give rise to unique principles governing state transformations, effectively constituting diverse manifestations of a "second law" of entanglement manipulation. These findings resolve a long-standing open question on the reversible manipulation of entangled states and are also applicable to multipartite entanglement and other quantum resource theories, including quantum thermodynamics.
Quantum entanglement is an essential resource for implementing practical quantum devices. However, for the resource to be useful in large-scale applications, it must be accessible to parties with limited computational resources. Computational entanglement measures quantify the usefulness of entanglement in the presence of limited computational resources in the practical setting of non-asymptotic manipulations. In this paper, we build a framework of non-asymptotic efficient entanglement manipulations by systematically analyzing a wide range of properties of two recently introduced computational entanglement measures: the computational one-shot distillable entanglement and cost. To do so, we adapt definitions of some common properties of scalar entanglement measures to the case in which only lower or upper function bounds are available. Using the developed framework, we then proceed to investigate the mathematical behavior of the newly introduced entanglement measures under probabilistic state mixing and tensor-product operations. Furthermore, we analyze how the values of both measures change under local unitary and LOCC transformations. For this, we derive an explicit quantitative connection between the geometry of projective-net-generated families of states and their computational one-shot distillable entanglement, and use this connection to establish an unconditional separation between computational and information-theoretic one-shot distillable entanglement. Furthermore, we investigate the robustness of efficiently accessible entanglement against noise and derive the first quantitative continuity bound on computational distillable entanglement. Finally, as an application of the developed "dictionary" of properties, we establish a fundamental relation between computational entanglement measures that we call the "Second Law of Efficient Entanglement Manipulation".
A review is given on the thermodynamical structure of bipartite entanglement. By comparing it to the axiomatic formulation of thermodynamics presented by Giles it is shown that for finite dimensional systems the two theories are formally inequivalent. The same approach is used to demonstrate the full equivalence in the asymptotic limit for pure quantum states. For mixed states a different method for obtaining the second law is described applied to two different classes of operations, PPT-preserving and asymptotically non-entangling operations.
A review is given on the thermodynamical structure of bipartite entanglement. By comparing it to the axiomatic formulation of thermodynamics presented by Giles it is shown that for finite dimensional systems the two theories are formally inequivalent. The same approach is used to demonstrate the full equivalence in the asymptotic limit for pure quantum states. For mixed states a different method for obtaining the second law is described applied to two different classes of operations, PPT-preserving and asymptotically non-entangling operations.