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arXiv:2411.16461 · Physical Review A

Nonequivalence between absolute separability and positive partial transposition in the symmetric subspace

Jonathan Louvet, Eduardo Serrano-Ensástiga, Thierry Bastin, John Martin

Published Apr 11, 2025• 5 citations
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Abstract

The equivalence between absolutely separable states and absolutely positive partial transposed (PPT) states in general remains an open problem in quantum entanglement theory. In this work, we study an analogous question for symmetric multiqubit states. We show that symmetric absolutely PPT (SAPPT) states (symmetric states that remain PPT after any symmetry-preserving unitary evolution) are not always symmetric absolutely separable by providing explicit counterexamples. More precisely, we construct a family of entangled five-qubit SAPPT states. Similar counterexamples for larger odd numbers of qubits are identified.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.042418

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The equivalence between absolutely separable states and absolutely positive partial transposed (PPT) states in general remains an open problem in quantum entanglement theory. In this work, we study an analogous question for symmetric multiqubit states. We show that symmetric absolutely PPT (SAPPT) states (symmetric states that remain PPT after any symmetry-preserving unitary evolution) are not always symmetric absolutely separable by providing explicit counterexamples. More precisely, we construct a family of entangled five-qubit SAPPT states. Similar counterexamples for larger odd numbers of qubits are identified.
Absolutely positive partial transpose (APPT) states, which remain PPT under every global unitary, provide a spectral relaxation of absolutely separable states, which remain separable under every such transformation. Despite substantial progress, whether these two notions coincide beyond qubit-qudit systems remains unresolved, motivating the study of structured state families in which the APPT spectral constraints and separability can be analyzed exactly. We study this problem for Bell-diagonal states in two settings: the standard two-qutrit Weyl-Heisenberg basis and the two-ququart lattice basis generated by two-qubit Pauli operators. In the two-qutrit case, we show that a linearized necessary condition for APPT defines a polytope of spectra in which every associated Weyl-Heisenberg Bell-diagonal state admits an exact decomposition into explicitly separable states. This yields a separability criterion that applies to a region even larger than the APPT set itself. In the two-ququart lattice Bell-diagonal setting, we show that a state remains PPT under every permutation of its Bell coefficients if and only if its six largest Bell coefficients sum to at most 1/2, and we prove that all such states are separable. Equivalently, every entangled lattice Bell-diagonal state becomes NPT after a suitable coefficient permutation and is therefore not APPT. The proofs combine convex-polytope analysis, affine and symplectic orbit reductions, and exact rational decompositions into separable states supported on affine Lagrangian subsets. Our results rule out entangled APPT states in both Bell-diagonal families, and provide simple spectral inequalities as sufficient criteria for separability in both cases. Being basis-specific, however, they do not by themselves settle whether APPT and absolute separability coincide.
A quantum state is called absolutely separable (resp. absolutely positive partial transpose (APPT)) if it remains separable (resp. positive partial transpose (PPT)) under any global unitary transformation. It is known that the set of all absolutely separable states is a subset of the set of all APPT states. Moreover, these two sets are identical for qubit-qudit systems. In this note, we give an upper bound for the purity of APPT bipartite states (and therefore for the purity of absolutely separable bipartite states). For qubit-qudit systems, this upper bound becomes the maximum purity of APPT (and absolutely separable) states.
Separability from the spectrum is an important and ongoing research topic in quantum entanglement. In this study, we investigate properties related to absolute separability from the spectrum in qudit-qudit states in the bipartite state space Hmn=Hm⊗Hn. First, we propose the necessary and sufficient conditions for absolute positive partial transpose states in the Hilbert space H4n. These conditions are equivalent to the positive semidefiniteness of twelve matrices resulting from the symmetric matricizations of eigenvalues. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these sufficient conditions can be extended to the general Hmn case, improving existing conclusions in the literature. These sufficient conditions depend only on the first few leading and last few leading eigenvalues, significantly reducing the complexity of determining absolute separable states. On the other hand, we also introduce additional sufficient conditions for determining that states in Hmn are not absolutely separable. These conditions only depend on 2m − 1 eigenvalues of the mixed states. Our sufficient conditions are not only simple and easy to implement, but also effective in practice. As applications, we derive distance bounds for eigenvalues and purity bounds for general absolutely separable states.
We express the positive-partial-transpose (PPT) separability criterion for symmetric states of multiqubit systems in terms of matrix inequalities based on the recently introduced tensor representation for spin states. We construct a matrix from the tensor representation of the state and show that it is similar to the partial transpose of the density matrix written in the computational basis. Furthermore, the positivity of this matrix is equivalent to the positivity of a correlation matrix constructed from tensor products of Pauli operators. This allows for a more transparent experimental interpretation of the PPT criteria for an arbitrary spin-jjj state. The unitary matrices connecting our matrix to the partial transpose of the state generalize the so-called magic basis that plays a central role in Wootters' explicit formula for the concurrence of a two-qubit system and the Bell bases used for the teleportation of a one- or two-qubit state.
The absolute separability problem asks for a characterization of the quantum states ρ∈Mm⊗Mn\rho \in M_m\otimes M_nρ∈Mm​⊗Mn​ with the property that UρU†U\rho U^\daggerUρU† is separable for all unitary matrices UUU. We investigate whether or not it is the case that ρ\rhoρ is absolutely separable if and only if UρU†U\rho U^\daggerUρU† has positive partial transpose for all unitary matrices UUU. In particular, we develop an easy-to-use method for showing that an entanglement witness or positive map is unable to detect entanglement in any such state, and we apply our method to many well-known separability criteria, including the range criterion, the realignment criterion, the Choi map and its generalizations, and the Breuer--Hall map. We also show that these two properties coincide for the family of isotropic states, and several eigenvalue results for entanglement witnesses are proved along the way that are of independent interest.
The absolute separability problem asks for a characterization of the quantum states ρ∈Mm⊗Mnρ\in M_m\otimes M_nρ∈Mm​⊗Mn​ with the property that UρU†UρU^\daggerUρU† is separable for all unitary matrices UUU. We investigate whether or not it is the case that ρρρ is absolutely separable if and only if UρU†UρU^\daggerUρU† has positive partial transpose for all unitary matrices UUU. In particular, we develop an easy-to-use method for showing that an entanglement witness or positive map is unable to detect entanglement in any such state, and we apply our method to many well-known separability criteria, including the range criterion, the realignment criterion, the Choi map and its generalizations, and the Breuer-Hall map. We also show that these two properties coincide for the family of isotropic states, and several eigenvalue results for entanglement witnesses are proved along the way that are of independent interest.