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arXiv:2212.10954 · Physical Review Letters

Fermionic One-Body Entanglement as a Thermodynamic Resource

Krzysztof Ptaszyński, Massimiliano Esposito

Published Apr 12, 2023• 7 citations
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Abstract

There is ongoing controversy about whether a coherent superposition of the occupied states of two fermionic modes should be regarded entangled or not, that is, whether its intrinsic quantum correlations are operationally accessible and useful as a resource. This has been questioned on the basis that such an entanglement cannot be accessed by local operations on individual modes due to the parity superselection rule which constrains the set of physical observables. In other words, one cannot observe violations of Bell's inequality. Here, we show, however, that entanglement of a two-mode fermionic state can be used as a genuine quantum resource in open-system thermodynamic processes, enabling one to perform tasks forbidden for separable states. We thus demonstrate that quantum thermodynamics can shed light on the nature of fermionic entanglement and the operational meaning of the different notions used to define it.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.130.150201

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There is ongoing controversy about whether a coherent superposition of the occupied states of two fermionic modes should be regarded entangled or not, that is, whether its intrinsic quantum correlations are operationally accessible and useful as a resource. This has been questioned on the basis that such an entanglement cannot be accessed by local operations on individual modes due to the parity superselection rule which constrains the set of physical observables. In other words, one cannot observe violations of Bell's inequality. Here, we show, however, that entanglement of a two-mode fermionic state can be used as a genuine quantum resource in open-system thermodynamic processes, enabling one to perform tasks forbidden for separable states. We thus demonstrate that quantum thermodynamics can shed light on the nature of fermionic entanglement and the operational meaning of the different notions used to define it.
The characterization of entanglement is a fundamental issue for Quantum Information Theory. But the definition of entanglement depends on the notion of locality, and thus on the tensor product structure of the state space of the composite system. This notion is affected by the presence of superselection rules that restrict the accessible Hilbert space to a direct sum of subspaces. Indistinguishability of particles imposes one such restriction, namely to totally symmetric or totally antisymmetric states. The entanglement can in this case be defined with respect to partitions of modes in the second quantization formalism. For fermionic systems the Fock space of m modes is isomorphic to the space of m qubits, but the action of creation and annihilation operators is not local, due to their anticommutation. Conservation of the parity of fermion number imposes another relevant superselection rule. It requires that local physical observables commute with the local parity operator. Taking into account the considerations above, it is possible to define the set of separable states or equivalently the concept of entanglement for fermionic systems in a number of ways. Here we analyze systematically these possibilities and the relation among the various sets of separable states. We also discuss the behavior of the different classes when taking several copies of the state, as well as the characterization of the sets in terms of the usual criteria regarding the tensor product.
Abstract Aside from other puzzling features of entanglement, it has been debated whether a physically meaningful notion of entanglement requires two (or more) particles as carriers of the correlated degrees-of-freedom, or if a single particle could be considered to be entangled as well. While the usefulness of single-boson entanglement has been demonstrated some time ago, the restrictions of superselection rules have previously thwarted attempts at similar arguments for single fermions. In Dasenbrook et al (2016 New J. Phys. 18 043036 ) this obstacle is overcome. The authors propose a scheme for a Bell test on two copies of single-electron states whose entanglement is individually not accessible. The discussed scheme, which makes use of recent progress in electronic quantum optics, provides an experimentally viable and theoretically unambiguous way to assert that certain single-electron states can be considered to be entangled.
Quantum teleportation is considered a basic primitive in many quantum information processing tasks and has been experimentally confirmed in various photonic and matter-based setups. Here, we consider teleportation of quantum information encoded in modes of a fermionic field. In fermionic systems, superselection rules lead to a more differentiated picture of entanglement and teleportation. In particular, one is forced to distinguish between single-mode entanglement swapping and qubit teleportation with or without authentication via Bell inequality violation, as we discuss here in detail. We focus on systems subject to parity superselection where the particle number is not fixed, and contrast them with systems constrained by particle number superselection which are relevant for possible practical implementations. Finally, we analyze the consequences for the operational interpretation of fermionic mode entanglement and examine the usefulness of so-called mixed maximally entangled states for teleportation.
Quantum correlation, or entanglement, is now believed to be an indispensable physical resource for certain tasks in quantum information processing, for which classically correlated states cannot be useful. Besides information processing, what kind of physical processes can exploit entanglement? In this Letter, we show that there is indeed a more basic relationship between entanglement and its usefulness in thermodynamics by illustrating that we can extract more work out of entangled systems than out of classically correlated ones. Our results suggest a novel connection between entanglement and thermodynamics.
Superselection rules (SSRs), linked to the conservation of physical quantities such as parity or particle number, impose constraints on allowable physical operations in fermionic systems. This affects the amount of extractable mode entanglement possessed in a given state and its manipulation by the so-called entanglement-free operations. Here, we present a majorization-based algorithm for the mixed state transformations of bipartite mode entanglement, where the allowed operations (i.e., resource non-generating operations), that is, local operations and classical communication, are restricted by local SSRs. We then focus on the local parity SSR and investigate the possibility to relax the constraints imposed by it through a catalyst. In particular, we show that an ancillary mode system can catalyze the change in local parity. Finally, we discuss the application of our methodology to various problems in different fields. Accordingly, we propose that it may shed new light on the activation of orbital entanglement in chemical molecules and the manipulation of multipartite entanglement or quantum discord in distinguishable quantum systems.
Abstract Mode entanglement in many-body quantum systems is an active area of research. It provides crucial insight into the suitability of many-body systems for quantum information processing tasks. Local super-selection rules must be taken into account when assessing the amount of physically accessible entanglement. This requires amending well-established entanglement measures by incorporating local parity and local particle number constraints. In this paper, we report on mode entanglement present in the analytically solvable system of N-Harmonium. To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first analytic study of the physically accessible mode and mode-mode entanglement of an interacting many-body system in a continuous state space. We find that super-selection rules dramatically reduce the amount of physically accessible entanglement, which vanishes entirely in some cases. Our results strongly suggest the need to re-evaluate intra and inter-mode entanglement in other fermionic and bosonic systems.