We introduce the resource marginal problems , which concern the possibility of having a resource-free target subsystem compatible with a g i v e n collection of marginal density matrices. By identifying an appropriate choice of resource R and target subsystem T, our problems reduce, respectively, to the well-known marginal problems for quantum states and the problem of determining if a given quantum system is a resource. More generally, we say that a set of marginal states is resource-free incompatible with a target subsystem T if all global states compatible with this set must result in a resourceful state in T of type R. We show that this incompatibility i n d u c e s a resource theory that can be quantified by a monotone and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for this monotone to be computable as a conic program with finite optimum. We further show, via the corresponding witnesses, that (1) resource-free incompatibility is equivalent to an operational advantage in some channel-discrimination tasks, and (2) some specific cases of such tasks fully characterize the convertibility between marginal density matrices exhibiting resource-free incompatibility. Through our framework, one sees a clear connection between any marginal problem – which implicitly involves some notion of incompatibility – for quantum states and a resource theory for quantum states. We also establish a close connection between the physical relevance of resource marginal problems and the ground state properties of certain many-body Hamiltonians. In terms of application, the universality of our framework leads, for example, to a further quantitative understanding of the incompatibility associated with the recently-proposed entanglement marginal problems and entanglement transitivity problems.
We introduce the resource marginal problems , which concern the possibility of having a resource-free target subsystem compatible with a g i v e n collection of marginal density matrices. By identifying an appropriate choice of resource R and target subsystem T, our problems reduce, respectively, to the well-known marginal problems for quantum states and the problem of determining if a given quantum system is a resource. More generally, we say that a set of marginal states is resource-free incompatible with a target subsystem T if all global states compatible with this set must result in a resourceful state in T of type R. We show that this incompatibility i n d u c e s a resource theory that can be quantified by a monotone and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for this monotone to be computable as a conic program with finite optimum. We further show, via the corresponding witnesses, that (1) resource-free incompatibility is equivalent to an operational advantage in some channel-discrimination tasks, and (2) some specific cases of such tasks fully characterize the convertibility between marginal density matrices exhibiting resource-free incompatibility. Through our framework, one sees a clear connection between any marginal problem – which implicitly involves some notion of incompatibility – for quantum states and a resource theory for quantum states. We also establish a close connection between the physical relevance of resource marginal problems and the ground state properties of certain many-body Hamiltonians. In terms of application, the universality of our framework leads, for example, to a further quantitative understanding of the incompatibility associated with the recently-proposed entanglement marginal problems and entanglement transitivity problems.
Given a set of local dynamics, are they compatible with a global dynamics? We systematically formulate these questions as quantum channel marginal problems. These problems are strongly connected to the generalization of the no-signaling conditions to quantized inputs and outputs and can be understood as a general toolkit to study notions of quantum incompatibility. In fact, they include as special cases channel broadcasting, channel extendibility, measurement compatibility, and state marginal problems. After defining the notion of compatibility between global and local dynamics, we provide a solution to the channel marginal problem that takes the form of a semidefinite program. Using this formulation, we construct channel incompatibility witnesses, discuss their operational interpretation in terms of an advantage for a state-discrimination task, prove a gap between classical and quantum dynamical marginal problems, and show that the latter is irreducible to state marginal problems.
While there is general consensus on the definition of incompatible POVMs, moving up to the level of instruments one finds a much less clear situation, with mathematically different and logically independent definitions of incompatibility. Here we close this gap by introducing the notion of q − c o m p a t i b i l i t y , which unifies different notions of POVMs, channels, and instruments incompatibility into one hierarchy of resource theories of communication between separated parties. The resource theories that we obtain are c o m p l e t e , in the sense that they contain complete families of free operations and monotones providing necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a transformation. Furthermore, our framework is fully o p e r a t i o n a l , in the sense that free transformations are characterized explicitly, in terms of local operations aided by causally-constrained directed classical communication, and all monotones possess a game-theoretic interpretation making them experimentally measurable in principle. We are thus able to pinpoint exactly what each notion of incompatibility consists of, in terms of information-theoretic resources.
The quantum marginal problem is concerned with characterizing which collections of quantum states on different subsystems are compatible in the sense that they are the marginals of some multipartite quantum state. Presented here is a countable family of inequalities, each of which is necessarily satisfied by any compatible collection of quantum states. Additionally, this family of inequalities is shown to be sufficient: every incompatible collection of quantum states will violate at least one inequality belonging to the family.
Entanglement quantification aims to assess the value of quantum states for quantum information processing tasks. A closely related problem is state convertibility, asking whether two remote parties can convert a shared quantum state into another one without exchanging quantum particles. Here, we explore this connection for quantum entanglement and for general quantum resource theories. For any quantum resource theory which contains resource-free pure states, we show that there does not exist a finite set of resource monotones which completely determines all state transformations. We discuss how these limitations can be surpassed, if discontinuous or infinite sets of monotones are considered, or by using quantum catalysis. We also discuss the structure of theories which are described by a single resource monotone and show equivalence with totally ordered resource theories. These are theories where a free transformation exists for any pair of quantum states. We show that totally ordered theories allow for free transformations between all pure states. For single-qubit systems, we provide a full characterization of state transformations for any totally ordered resource theory.
Quantum channels are quintessential to quantum information, being used in all protocols, and describing how systems evolve in space and time. As such, they play a key role in the manipulation of quantum resources, and they are often resources themselves, called dynamical resources. This forces us to go beyond standard resource theories of quantum states. Here we provide a rigorous foundation for dynamical resource theories, where the resources into play are quantum channels, explaining how to manipulate dynamical resources with free superchannels. In particular, when the set of free superchannels is convex, we present a novel construction of an infinite and complete family of convex resource monotones, giving necessary and sufficient conditions for convertibility under free superchannels. After showing that the conversion problem in convex dynamical resource theories can be solved with conic linear programming, we define various resource-theoretic protocols for dynamical resources. These results serve as the framework for the study of concrete examples of theories of dynamical resources, such as dynamical entanglement theory.
Resource theories provide a general framework for the characterization of properties of physical systems in quantum mechanics and beyond. Here we introduce methods for the quantification of resources in general probabilistic theories (GPTs), focusing in particular on the technical issues associated with infinite-dimensional state spaces. We define a universal resource quantifier based on the robustness measure, and show it to admit a direct operational meaning: in any GPT, it quantifies the advantage that a given resource state enables in channel discrimination tasks over all resourceless states. We show that the robustness acts as a faithful and strongly monotonic measure in any resource theory described by a convex and closed set of free states, and can be computed through a convex conic optimization problem. Specializing to continuous-variable quantum mechanics, we obtain additional bounds and relations, allowing an efficient computation of the measure and comparison with other monotones. We demonstrate applications of the robustness to several resources of physical relevance: optical nonclassicality, entanglement, genuine non-Gaussianity, and coherence. In particular, we establish exact expressions for various classes of states, including Fock states and squeezed states in the resource theory of nonclassicality and general pure states in the resource theory of entanglement, as well as tight bounds applicable in general cases.