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arXiv:2505.15615

Simple Sufficient Criteria for Optimality of Entanglement Witnesses

Frederik vom Ende, Simon Cichy

Published May 21, 2025• 0 citations

Abstract

If one wants to establish optimality of a given bipartite entanglement witness, the current standard approach is to check whether it has the spanning property. Although this is not necessary for optimality, it is most often satisfied in practice, and for small enough dimensions or sufficiently structured witnesses this criterion can be checked by hand. In this work we introduce a novel characterization of the spanning property via entanglement-breaking channels, which in turn leads to a new sufficient criterion for optimality. This criterion amounts to just checking the kernel of some bipartite state. It is slightly weaker than the spanning property, but it is a lot easier to test for -- by hand as well as numerically -- and it applies to almost all witnesses which are known to have the spanning property. A second criterion is derived from this, where one can simply compute the expectation value of the given witness on a maximally entangled state. Finally, this approach implies new spectral constraints on witnesses as well as on positive maps.

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2505.15615

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If one wants to establish optimality of a given bipartite entanglement witness, the current standard approach is to check whether it has the spanning property. Although this is not necessary for optimality, it is most often satisfied in practice, and for small enough dimensions or sufficiently structured witnesses this criterion can be checked by hand. In this work we introduce a novel characterization of the spanning property via entanglement-breaking channels, which in turn leads to a new sufficient criterion for optimality. This criterion amounts to just checking the kernel of some bipartite state. It is slightly weaker than the spanning property, but it is a lot easier to test for -- by hand as well as numerically -- and it applies to almost all witnesses which are known to have the spanning property. A second criterion is derived from this, where one can simply compute the expectation value of the given witness on a maximally entangled state. Finally, this approach implies new spectral constraints on witnesses as well as on positive maps.

In this paper, we present a characterization of optimal entanglement witnesses in terms of positive maps and then provide a general method of checking optimality of entanglement witnesses. Applying it, we obtain indecomposable optimal witnesses that have no spanning property. These also provide examples that support a recent conjecture saying that the so-called structural physical approximations to optimal positive maps (optimal entanglement witnesses) give entanglement breaking maps (separable states).

One of the unsolved problems in the characterization of the optimal entanglement witnesses is the existence of optimal witnesses acting on bipartite Hilbert spaces ${\mathcal{H}}_{m,n}={\mathbb{C}}^{m}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\mathbb{C}}^{n}$ such that the product vectors obeying $\ensuremath{\langle}e,f|W|e,f\ensuremath{\rangle}=0$ do not span

{\mathcal{H}}_{m,n}

. So far, the only known examples of such witnesses were found among indecomposable witnesses, one of them being the witness corresponding to the Choi map. However, it remains an open question whether decomposable witnesses exist without the property of spanning. Here we answer this question affirmatively, providing systematic examples of such witnesses. Then, we generalize some of the recently obtained results on the characterization of $2\ensuremath{\bigotimes}n$ optimal decomposable witnesses [R. Augusiak et al., J. Phys. A 44, 212001 (2011)] to finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces

{\mathcal{H}}_{m,n}

with $m,n\ensuremath{\ge}3$.

Two classes of Bell-diagonal indecomposable entanglement witnesses in ${\mathbb{C}}^{4}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\mathbb{C}}^{4}$ are considered. Within the first class, we find a generalization of the well-known Choi witness from ${\mathbb{C}}^{3}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\mathbb{C}}^{3}$, while the second one contains the reduction map. Interestingly, contrary to the ${\mathbb{C}}^{3}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\mathbb{C}}^{3}$ case, the generalized Choi witnesses are no longer optimal. We perform an optimization procedure of finding spanning vectors that eventually gives rise to optimal witnesses. Operators from the second class turn out to be optimal, however, without the spanning property. This analysis sheds light onto the intricate structure of optimal entanglement witnesses.

Optimal PPTES witnesses for states in

\mathbb C^n\otimes \mathbb C^n

A new criterion necessary and sufficient for the separability of pure bipartite systems for arbitrary finite dimensions is demonstrated; and the corresponding finer quantitative measures or characterizations of entanglement (beyond mere separability or non-separability determination) are discussed. Based on this criterion, we proved that the well-known Peres-Horodecki positivity-of-partial-transform criterion is also necessary and sufficient for separability in the case of pure bipartite systems. The maximum value of entanglement, and the corresponding maximally-entangled states are also worked out in detail.

We introduce a framework to upper bound the entanglement content of a bipartite quantum state from its spectrum alone. Using linear maps and their inverses, we derive rigorous constraints on the maximal entanglement that can be activated under global unitary transformations. We use as entanglement quantifiers the negativity and the Schmidt number; however, our framework is general and applies to any other entanglement measure. Our approach yields compact analytical sufficient criteria for bounding the entanglement of full-rank states in arbitrary dimensions and reveals new spectral constraints on Schmidt number witnesses.