Abstract Characterizing the non-classical correlations of a complex many-body system is an important part of quantum technologies. An ideal tool for this task would scale well with the size of the system, be easily computable and be easily measurable. In this work, we focus on graph states, which are promising platforms for quantum computation, simulation, and metrology. We consider four topologies: star graph states with edges, Turán graphs, r-ary tree graphs, and square grid cluster states. We provide a method to characterize their quantum content: many-body Bell correlations, non-separability and entanglement strength for an arbitrary number of qubits. We also relate the strength of these correlations to the usefulness of graph states for quantum sensing. Finally, we characterize many-body entanglement in graph states with up to eight qubits in 146 classes that are not equivalent under local transformations or graph isomorphisms. This technique is straightforward and does not require any assumptions about the multi-qubit state; therefore it could be applied wherever precise knowledge of many-body quantum correlations is necessary.
Abstract Characterizing the non-classical correlations of a complex many-body system is an important part of quantum technologies. An ideal tool for this task would scale well with the size of the system, be easily computable and be easily measurable. In this work, we focus on graph states, which are promising platforms for quantum computation, simulation, and metrology. We consider four topologies: star graph states with edges, Turán graphs, r-ary tree graphs, and square grid cluster states. We provide a method to characterize their quantum content: many-body Bell correlations, non-separability and entanglement strength for an arbitrary number of qubits. We also relate the strength of these correlations to the usefulness of graph states for quantum sensing. Finally, we characterize many-body entanglement in graph states with up to eight qubits in 146 classes that are not equivalent under local transformations or graph isomorphisms. This technique is straightforward and does not require any assumptions about the multi-qubit state; therefore it could be applied wherever precise knowledge of many-body quantum correlations is necessary.
Graph states are multiparticle entangled states that correspond to mathematical graphs, where the vertices of the graph take the role of quantum spin systems and edges represent Ising interactions. They are many-body spin states of distributed quantum systems that play a significant role in quantum error correction, multiparty quantum communication, and quantum computation within the framework of the one-way quantum computer. We characterize and quantify the genuine multiparticle entanglement of such graph states in terms of the Schmidt measure, to which we provide upper and lower bounds in graph theoretical terms. Several examples and classes of graphs will be discussed, where these bounds coincide. These examples include trees, cluster states of different dimensions, graphs that occur in quantum error correction, such as the concatenated [7,1,3]-CSS code, and a graph associated with the quantum Fourier transform in the one-way computer. We also present general transformation rules for graphs when local Pauli measurements are applied, and give criteria for the equivalence of two graphs up to local unitary transformations, employing the stabilizer formalism. For graphs of up to seven vertices we provide complete characterization modulo local unitary transformations and graph isomorphisms.
We propose a method for constructing multi-qubit entangled quantum states that represent weighted tripartite graphs, and develop approaches for investigating their structural properties using quantum computing. In the general case of multi-qubit states corresponding to arbitrary tripartite graph structures, we derive an expression for the entanglement distance. We establish a connection between entanglement and properties of the corresponding tripartite graphs. Namely, we show that the entanglement of a qubit with the rest of the system in a quantum tripartite graph state depends on the weights of the arcs in the neighborhood of the corresponding vertex, as well as on its degree with respect to the vertex sets of the tripartite graph. As an illustrative example, we consider a tripartite graph forming a triangle and evaluate the entanglement distance with quantum computing. We also compute quantum correlators for the general case of tripartite quantum graph states and relate these quantities to structural features of the underlying graphs, including the number of non-overlapping neighbors, the number of common neighbors of the corresponding vertices, and the number of 4-cycles. Obtained relationships between the quantum properties of multi-qubit states and the structural features of tripartite graphs opens up the possibility of investigating classical systems, such as tripartite graphs, using quantum computing. It is worth emphasizing that tripartite graphs have applications in practical problems, including resource allocation, scheduling, and database and hypergraph modeling.
Entanglement is the crucial resource in the field of quantum information processing and consequently a better understanding of its properties is very desirable. While for bipartite entangled qubit states many tools for characterization exist and also the experimental implementation of the tools is feasible, the situation for multipartite entangled states is different: The available tools have to be suited for a much greater diversity of entanglement properties, e.g. to analyze all the different entanglement classes [1]. A full experimental characterization via state tomography is increasingly difficult as the number of necessary measurement settings grows exponentially with the number of particles. In this contribution we focus on efficient, non-tomographic methods to characterize experimentally observed, multipartite entangled states. First steps towards this goal were demonstrated recently, for instance, for the proof of genuine multipartite entanglement [2] or for the analysis of the persistency of entanglement under loss [3]. Such methods can be further optimized by tailoring them to particular properties of states. We show how three important characteristic quantities, the fidelity, the non-separability and the permutation symmetry, can be evaluated with a significantly lower number of measurement settings than required for a complete tomography. Although the determination of these particular properties provides less information than the reconstruction of the complete density matrix, it allows to judge how well state characteristics are reproduced experimentally. This might be important with respect to an experimental application of states in quantum information. Exemplarily we apply the analysis tools to two genuinely four-qubit entangled states: the Dicke state with two excitations |D 4 〉 [4] and the cluster state |C4 〉 [5, 6]. These states are relevant for particular tasks: The state |D 4 〉 is a resource for telecloning [7], cluster states find an application in one-way quantum computation [6, 8] and are a subgroup of graph states, which play an important role for quantum error correction.
The characterization of genuine multiparticle entanglement is important for entanglement theory as well as experimental studies related to quantum-information theory. Here, we completely characterize genuine multiparticle entanglement for four-qubit states diagonal in the cluster-state basis. In addition, we give a complete characterization of multiparticle entanglement for all five-qubit graph states mixed with white noise, for states diagonal in the basis corresponding to the five-qubit Y-shaped graph, and for a family of graph states with an arbitrary number of qubits.
In this thesis we present methods to efficiently verify quantum many-body experiments. The first part focuses on the quantitative verification of graph state experiments from simple measurements. In particular, optimal bounds on the fidelity, purity and entropy from stabilizer measurements are derived as well as high-quality bounds on entanglement measures. Furthermore, we show how entanglement may be quantified in spin and cold atom many-body systems using standard experimental techniques only. The scheme requires no assumptions on the state in the laboratory, and a lower bound to the entanglement can be read off directly from the scattering cross section of neutrons deflected from solid state samples or the time-of-flight distribution of cold atoms in optical lattices, respectively. Quantum mechanics offers many interesting properties such as entanglement and non-locality. However, one can easily think of more general correlations than quantum correlations. This gives rise to the question if quantum correlations are the most general allowed in nature? In the last part we propose a new axiom we call macroscopic locality. The idea behind this axiom is that any physical theory should recover classical physics in the continuum limit (i.e., when a large number of particles is involved and our measurement devices fail to resolve discrete particles). We will show that this very intuitive axiom, together with the no-signaling principle, allows to recover many important results in quantum mechanics, like the universality of the Tsirelson bound, or the set of accessible two-point correlators. Moreover, we will provide a complete characterization of the correlations between two distant physical systems that arise out of both axioms and comment on its consistency.
Quantum metrology exploits quantum mechanical effects to increase the precision of measurements of physical quantities. A wide variety of applications are currently being developed for scientific and technological purposes, however, most research relies on the use of highly entangled resource states that are challenging to generate and control in a given physical system. Here, we study the use of weighted graph states as more accessible resources for quantum metrology, which yield a favorable precision beyond the classical limit, approaching the Heisenberg limit. We find a notable robustness to variation in weights and less challenging weight requirements compared to standard graph states, which require a maximal weight at all edges. Both of these aspects reduce the practical demands in a physical setup, with the latter implying significantly less entanglement is required to gain a quantum advantage in metrology. We study the quantum Fisher information and optimized estimator variance of two identified sub classes of weighted graph states for an arbitrary number of N qubits, providing analytical forms and investigating their scaling. Our work opens up opportunities for using weakly entangled states in quantum-enhanced metrology.