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arXiv:2507.13840 · Quantum

Quantifying mixed-state entanglement via partial transpose and realignment moments

Poetri Sonya Tarabunga, Tobias Haug

Published Aug 19, 2026• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Entanglement plays a crucial role in quantum information science and many-body physics, yet quantifying it in mixed quantum many-body systems has remained a notoriously difficult problem. Here, we introduce families of quantitative entanglement witnesses, constructed from partial transpose and realignment moments, which provide rigorous bounds on entanglement monotones as well as entanglement dimensionality. Our witnesses can be efficiently measured using SWAP tests or variants of Bell measurements, thus making them directly implementable on current hardware. Leveraging our witnesses, we present several novel results on entanglement properties of mixed states, both in quantum information and many-body physics. We develop efficient algorithms to test whether mixed states with bounded entropy have low or high entanglement, which previously was only possible for pure states. We also provide an efficient algorithm to test the Schmidt rank using only two-copy measurements, and the operator Schmidt rank using four-copy measurements. Further, our witnesses robustly certify the quantum circuit depth in the presence of noise, as well as the Schmidt rank of mixed states. Finally, we show that the entanglement phase diagram of Haar random states, quantified by the partial transpose negativity, can be fully established solely by computing our witness, a result that also applies to any state 4 -design. Our witnesses can also be efficiently computed for matrix product states, thus enabling the characterization of entanglement in extensive many-body systems. Finally, we make progress on the entanglement required for quantum cryptography, establishing rigorous limits on pseudoentanglement and pseudorandom density matrices with bounded entropy. Our work opens new avenues for quantifying entanglement in large and noisy quantum systems.

DOI
10.22331/q-2026-08-19-2194

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Entanglement plays a crucial role in quantum information science and many-body physics, yet quantifying it in mixed quantum many-body systems has remained a notoriously difficult problem. Here, we introduce families of quantitative entanglement witnesses, constructed from partial transpose and realignment moments, which provide rigorous bounds on entanglement monotones as well as entanglement dimensionality. Our witnesses can be efficiently measured using SWAP tests or variants of Bell measurements, thus making them directly implementable on current hardware. Leveraging our witnesses, we present several novel results on entanglement properties of mixed states, both in quantum information and many-body physics. We develop efficient algorithms to test whether mixed states with bounded entropy have low or high entanglement, which previously was only possible for pure states. We also provide an efficient algorithm to test the Schmidt rank using only two-copy measurements, and the operator Schmidt rank using four-copy measurements. Further, our witnesses robustly certify the quantum circuit depth in the presence of noise, as well as the Schmidt rank of mixed states. Finally, we show that the entanglement phase diagram of Haar random states, quantified by the partial transpose negativity, can be fully established solely by computing our witness, a result that also applies to any state 4 -design. Our witnesses can also be efficiently computed for matrix product states, thus enabling the characterization of entanglement in extensive many-body systems. Finally, we make progress on the entanglement required for quantum cryptography, establishing rigorous limits on pseudoentanglement and pseudorandom density matrices with bounded entropy. Our work opens new avenues for quantifying entanglement in large and noisy quantum systems.
Estimating global properties of many-body quantum systems such as entropy or bipartite entanglement is a notoriously difficult task, typically requiring a number of measurements or classical postprocessing resources growing exponentially in the system size. In this work, we address the problem of estimating global entropies and mixed-state entanglement via partial-transposed (PT) moments and show that efficient estimation strategies exist under the assumption that all the spatial correlation lengths are finite. Focusing on one-dimensional systems, we identify a set of approximate factorization conditions (AFCs) on the system density matrix, which allow us to reconstruct entropies and PT moments from information on local subsystems. This identification yields a simple and efficient strategy for entropy and entanglement estimation. Our method could be implemented in different ways, depending on how information on local subsystems is extracted. Focusing on randomized measurements providing a practical and common measurement scheme, we prove that our protocol requires only polynomially many measurements and postprocessing operations, assuming that the state to be measured satisfies the AFCs. We prove that the AFCs hold for finite-depth quantum-circuit states and translation-invariant matrix-product density operators and provide numerical evidence that they are satisfied in more general, physically interesting cases, including thermal states of local Hamiltonians. We argue that our method could be practically useful to detect bipartite mixed-state entanglement for large numbers of qubits available in today’s quantum platforms. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
One aspect of complexity for quantum many-body systems resides in their ability to exhibit entanglement, uniquely quantum correlations central to quantum computation. To quantitatively explore the diminishing effect that quantum noise has on entanglement resources, we focus on the negativity witness, an entanglement measure based on local time reversal transformations that provides a perfect witness in simple physical contexts. Beyond calculation of the negativity, we analyze the associated eigenvalue spectra of partially transposed density matrices for qudit-qudit bipartitions, finding that higher negativity rank provides greater(reduced) robustness to targeted(depolarizing) noise. In particular, we extend the maximum number of separable states that can be arbitrarily mixed into an entangled pure ensemble while retaining negativity to be exactly equal to the original negativity rank. Furthermore, we report how understanding the role of the negativity rank with respect to the completely depolarizing channel allows direct calculation of (1) certain noise boundaries for the Absolutely Positive Partial Transpose (APPT) subspace beyond which no unitary operator is capable of generating negativity and (2) the maximum qutrit-qutrit APPT purity. Beyond proving tight bounds and contributing to the ongoing search for APPT entanglement, these results expand our understanding of the nuanced relationship between computation with entanglement and practical environments for operating quantum devices.
Quantum phase transitions in many-body systems give rise to highly entangled states, and understanding their quantum correlations is crucial for characterizing quantum materials. However, traditional entanglement measures such as entanglement entropy are difficult to interpret for noisy or mixed states and require complex circuits to evaluate. Therefore, we explore the Positive Partial Transpose (PPT) criterion, coupled with overlapping state tomography, as an efficient and scalable spin-spin entanglement witness. It detects pairwise entanglement from reduced density matrices, distinguishes quantum from classical correlations, and applies to both pure and mixed states. It is ideal for studying condensed matter systems prepared on noisy quantum devices as well as future extensions to finite temperatures. We demonstrate the approach on quantum hardware, using variational circuits to prepare quantum critical states with up to 20 qubits and completely map their two-spin entanglement across various quantum phase transitions.
Quantum entanglement plays a leading role in modern understanding of physical systems, from quantum phases of matter to quantum gravity. In quantum information theory, one seeks operationally meaningful quantifiers of entanglement, which for large quantum systems are notoriously difficult to evaluate due to the lack of computationally efficient algorithms. In this Letter, we show that for large random induced mixed states the logarithmic negativity, an efficiently computable entanglement measure, generically coincides with the exact entanglement cost under positive-partial-transpose-preserving operations, thereby acquiring a precise operational interpretation. Our results establish logarithmic negativity as an exact characterization of entanglement in generic many-body states and provide a tractable route for quantifying entanglement in complex quantum systems.
For the certification and benchmarking of medium-size quantum devices, efficient methods to characterize entanglement are needed. In this context, it has been shown that locally randomized measurements on a multiparticle quantum system can be used to obtain valuable information on the so-called moments of the partially transposed quantum state. This allows one to infer some separability properties of a state, but how to use the given information in an optimal and systematic manner has yet to be determined. We propose two general entanglement detection methods based on the moments of the partially transposed density matrix. The first method is based on the Hankel matrices and provides a family of entanglement criteria, of which the lowest order reduces to the known p_{3}-positive-partial-transpose criterion proposed in A. Elben et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 200501 (2020)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.125.200501]. The second method is optimal and gives necessary and sufficient conditions for entanglement based on some moments of the partially transposed density matrix.
We present experimentally and numerically accessible quantities that can be used to differentiate among various families of random entangled states. To this end, we analyze the entanglement properties of bipartite reduced states of a tripartite pure state. We introduce a ratio of simple polynomials of low-order moments of the partially transposed reduced density matrix, and we show that this ratio takes well-defined values in the thermodynamic limit for various families of entangled states. This allows us to sharply distinguish entanglement phases in a way that can be understood from a quantum information perspective based on the spectrum of the partially transposed density matrix. We analyze in particular the entanglement phase diagram of Haar-random states, states resulting from the evolution of chaotic Hamiltonians, stabilizer states (which are outputs of Clifford circuits), matrix-product states, and fermionic Gaussian states. We show that for Haar-random states, the resulting phase diagram resembles the one obtained via the negativity, and that for all the cases mentioned above, a very distinctive behavior is observed. Our results can be used to experimentally test necessary conditions for different types of mixed-state randomness in quantum states formed in quantum computers and programmable quantum simulators.