We present a general class of entanglement criteria for continuous variable systems. Our criteria are based on the Husimi Q distribution and allow for optimization over the set of all concave functions rendering them extremely general and versatile. We show that several entropic criteria and second moment criteria are obtained as special cases. Our criteria reveal entanglement of families of states undetected by any commonly used criteria and provide clear advantages under typical experimental constraints such as finite detector resolution and measurement statistics.
We present a general class of entanglement criteria for continuous variable systems. Our criteria are based on the Husimi Q distribution and allow for optimization over the set of all concave functions rendering them extremely general and versatile. We show that several entropic criteria and second moment criteria are obtained as special cases. Our criteria reveal entanglement of families of states undetected by any commonly used criteria and provide clear advantages under typical experimental constraints such as finite detector resolution and measurement statistics.
We prove a general class of continuous variable entanglement criteria based on the Husimi Q distribution, which represents a quantum state in canonical phase space, by employing a theorem by Lieb and Solovej. We discuss their generality, which roots in the possibility to optimize over the set of concave functions, from the perspective of continuous majorization theory and show that with this approach families of entropic as well as second moment criteria follow as special cases. All derived criteria are compared with corresponding marginal based criteria, and the strength of the phase-space approach is demonstrated for a family of prototypical example states where only our criteria flag entanglement. Furthermore, we explore their optimization prospects in two experimentally relevant scenarios characterized by sparse data: Finite detector resolution and finite statistics. In both scenarios optimization leads to clear improvements enlarging the class of detected states and the signal-to-noise ratio of the detection, respectively.
We explore the advantages of a class of entanglement criteria for continuous variable systems based on the Husimi Q-distribution in scenarios with sparse experimental data. The generality of these criteria allows optimizing them for a given entangled state and experimental setting. We consider the scenario of coarse grained measurements, or finite detector resolution, where the values of the Husimi Q-distribution are only known on a grid of points in phase space, and show how the entanglement criteria can be adapted to this case. Further, we examine the scenario where experimental measurements amount to drawing independent samples from the Husimi distribution. Here, we customize our entanglement criteria to maximize the statistical significance of the detection for a given finite number of samples. In both scenarios optimization leads to clear improvements enlarging the class of detected states and the signal-to-noise ratio of the detection, respectively.
We derive entropic inseparability criteria for the phase-space representation of quantum states. In contrast to criteria involving differential entropies of marginal phase-space distributions, our criteria are based on a joint distribution known as the Husimi Q distribution. This distribution is experimentally accessible in cold atoms, circuit QED architectures, and photonic systems, and bears practical advantages compared to the detection of marginals. We exemplify the strengths of our entropic approach by considering several classes of non-Gaussian states where second-order criteria fail. We show that our criteria certify entanglement in previously undetectable regions, highlighting the strength of using the Husimi Q distribution for entanglement detection.
We develop a method to construct entanglement criteria for arbitrary multipartite systems of discrete or continuous variables and hybrid combinations of both. While any set of local operators generates a sufficient condition for entanglement of arbitrary quantum states, a suitable set leads to a necessary and sufficient criterion for pure states. The criteria are readily implementable with existing technology and reveal entanglement that remains undetected by the respective state-of-the-art methods for discrete and continuous variables.
The dimensionality of entanglement in high-dimensional quantum systems is quantified by the Schmidt number, whose large value signals potential advantages for quantum communication and quantum computation. A commonly used approach to practical Schmidt-number detection in finite-dimensional systems is based on the estimation of fidelities to pure states with large entanglement dimensionality or lower bounds to these fidelities. However, for mode-entangled continuous-variable systems, the corresponding measurements are typically difficult to realize. Here, we introduce and assess fidelity bounds for Schmidt-number detection based on practically more accessible measurements of the first and second statistical moments of arbitrary continuous-variable quantum states. We provide analytical formulas that allow evaluating these bounds and test them for families of Gaussian and non-Gaussian states, including two-mode squeezed thermal states and photon-added displaced two-mode squeezed vacuum states. We compare our bounds to other methods for the certification of high-dimensional entanglement based on the same measurements.
The characterisation of quantum correlations, also known as entanglement, is central to quantum information theory. Operationally, entanglement gives rise to the notion of quantum non-locality, which challenges the ‘reality’ of quantum mechanics (adopting the terminology of Einstein, Podolski and Rosen) and arguably represents its most distinctive feature, in the sense that it calls for a departure from certain foundational tenets of classical physics. It should thus not come as a surprise that entanglement turns out to be a key resource for the implementation of a number of quantum communication protocols and also necessary to achieve computational speed-ups with quantum hardware, in the sense that accessing regions of the Hilbert space with entangled states allows one to shorten the computational depth of certain algorithms. Not surprisingly, generating and maintaining entanglement is generally difficult in practice, as it requires strong interactions between selected components of a system that must at the same time be isolated from the environment. Thanks to the techniques developed in quantum optical set-ups to achieve squeezed light, entanglement is, however, comparatively accessible with optical quantum continuous variables. As we shall see, in fact, continuous variable entanglement is closely related to the notion of squeezing. It is therefore of the utmost importance to be able to qualify and quantify the entanglement of quantum continuous variables, which is the subject matter of the present chapter. The first part of the chapter is devoted to techniques and criteria based on second moments to detect the entanglement of Gaussian states and also to the description of possible ways to quantify such quantum correlations, bearing in mind that the determination of entanglement monotones of clear operational significance is still an open problem, even in the restricted arena of Gaussian states. Although the criteria based on second moments are sufficient, but not necessary, for the detection of non-Gaussian entanglement too, we will push our analysis further by introducing more general criteria based on higher order statistical moments, which will be put to use to detect, on paper, the quantum correlations of an entangled cat-like state. We will also address the issues of entanglement distillation and quantum non-locality tests, in whose contexts we shall encounter other non-Gaussian operations and states, such as photon-subtracted states.