It is a crucial feature of quantum mechanics that not all measurements are compatible with each other. However, if measurements suffer from noise they may lose their incompatibility. Here, we consider the effect of white noise and determine the critical visibility such that all qubit measurements, i.e., all positive operator-valued measures (POVMs), become compatible, i.e., jointly measurable. In addition, we apply our methods to quantum steering and Bell nonlocality. We obtain a tight local hidden state model for two-qubit Werner states of visibility 1/2. This determines the exact steering bound for two-qubit Werner states and also provides a local hidden variable model that improves on previously known models. Interestingly, this proves that POVMs are not more powerful than projective measurements to demonstrate quantum steering for these states.
We address the problem of quantum nonlocality with positive operator valued measures (POVM) in the context of Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen quantum steering. We show that, given a candidate for local hidden state (LHS) ensemble, the problem of determining the steerability of a bipartite quantum state of finite dimension with POVMs can be formulated as a nesting problem of two convex objects. One consequence of this is the strengthening of the theorem that justifies choosing the LHS ensemble based on symmetry of the bipartite state. As a more practical application, we study the classic problem of the steerability of two-qubit Werner states with POVMs. We show strong numerical evidence that these states are unsteerable with POVMs up to a mixing probability of within an accuracy of 10 −3 .
Not all entangled states can exhibit quantum steering, and determining whether a given entangled state is steerable is a crucial problem in quantum information theory. The main challenge lies in verifying the existence of a local hidden-state (LHS) model capable of reproducing all post-measurement assemblages generated by arbitrary measurements. To address this, we propose a machine learning-based framework that employs batch sampling of measurements and gradient-based optimization to construct an optimal LHS model. We validate our method by analyzing the steerability of two-qubit Werner and two-qutrit isotropic states. For Werner states, our approach saturates the analytical visibility bounds under three Pauli measurements, arbitrary projective measurements (PVMs), and arbitrary positive operator-valued measurements (POVMs). For isotropic states, we achieve the known analytical bounds under arbitrary PVMs. We further investigate the steerability of this class of states under arbitrary POVMs, and our results suggest that POVMs can offer an advantage over PVMs in revealing the steerability of such states.
Quantum nonlocality manifests in multipartite systems through entanglement, Bell's nonlocality, and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering. While Peres's positive-partial-transpose criterion provides a simple and powerful test for entanglement, a comparably elegant spectral criterion for detecting EPR steering remains an open challenge. In this work, we systematically explore whether a Peres-type criterion can be established for EPR steering in the two-qubit system. Focusing on rank-2 (including rank-1) states and the two-qubit Werner state, we analyze the eigenvalues of their partially transposed density matrices and construct a significant steering criterion based on symmetric combinations of these eigenvalues. We prove that this criterion serves as a necessary and sufficient condition for steerability for the Werner state, all two-qubit pure states, all two-qubit rank-2 states. Furthermore, we validate the criterion for higher-rank states (rank-3 and rank-4) and show that the results align with known steering inequalities. Our findings suggest a more unified framework for detecting quantum nonlocality via partial transposition and open avenues for further theoretical and numerical investigations into steering detection.
In quantum information, the Werner state is a benchmark to test the boundary between quantum mechanics and classical models. There have been three well-known critical values for the two-qubit Werner state, i.e.,
VcE=1/3 characterizing the boundary between the entanglement and separable model,
VcB=1/KG(3) characterizing the boundary between Bell's nonlocality and the local-hidden-variable model, and
VcS=1/2 characterizing the boundary between Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering and the local-hidden-state model. So far, the problem of
VcE=1/3 has been completely solved by an inequality involving in the positive-partial-transpose criterion, while the question of how to reveal the other two critical values by the inequality approach is still open. In this work, we focus on EPR steering, which is a form of quantum nonlocality intermediate between entanglement and Bell's nonlocality. By proposing the stronger
N-setting linear EPR-steering inequalities, we have successfully obtained the desired value
VcS=1/2 for the two-qubit Werner state, thus resolving the long-standing problem.
We study when a noisy qubit channel renders all positive-operator-valued measures (POVMs) jointly measurable. For every unital qubit channel, we derive the exact incompatibility-breaking criterion and prove that projective measurements already determine the boundary for arbitrary POVMs. Through the steering--joint-measurability correspondence, this result gives the exact POVM-steering boundary for all two-qubit states with maximally mixed marginals, with the Werner states recovered as a special case. For nonunital qubit channels, we construct a generally asymmetric parent POVM and obtain an explicit sufficient incompatibility-breaking condition, which in turn yields a sufficient unsteerability criterion for arbitrary two-qubit states.