We construct a family of positive but not completely positive linear maps acting on
M4(C), obtained as a natural extension of Kye’s indecomposable maps defined for
M3(C). We rigorously prove positivity of these maps on 'X' states and employ them to identify a one-parameter family of bipartite quantum states living in the vicinity of maximally mixed state to be entangled even though states are positive under partial transposition (PPT). This provides an explicit example of a family of quantum states with both bound entangled states and free entangled states in
4⊗4 systems, a regime that remains less characterized compared to lower-dimensional cases. The proposed maps detect entanglement and reveal new structural features of the PPT entangled region in higher dimensions. Our results extend the applicability of positive-map–based entanglement detection and contribute to the systematic understanding of bound entanglement beyond the
3⊗3 and
2⊗4 systems. In addition, we show that generalized Choi maps simply can not detect well known PPT entangled states for
2⊗4 systems.
We study a family of sparse positive maps on qutrits for which positivity, decomposability, and PPT entanglement can all be analysed explicitly. The block structure of the associated Choi matrices reduces positivity to a Hermitian biquadratic form and leads to exact positivity boundaries for three representative parametric families. For the same families we determine the exact transition between decomposable and non-decomposable maps and construct associated PPT states of two classes. The first consists of witness-adapted deformations naturally tied to the non-decomposability analysis. The second consists of analytically tractable families whose full PPT-entangled branch is detected by fixed positive maps, yielding exact thresholds between separability and bound entanglement. For the trace-preserving subclass, we further compare positivity with a recent eigenvalue bound for 2-positive maps, thereby making the gap between positivity and higher-order positivity fully explicit within this family.
Power symmetric stochastic matrices introduced by R. Sinkhorn (1981) and their generalization by R.B. Bapat, S.K. Jain and K. Manjunatha Prasad (1999) have been utilized to give positive block matrices with trace one possessing positive partial transpose, the so-called PPT states. Another method to construct such PPT states is given, it uses the form of a matrix unitarily equivalent to to its transpose obtained by S.R. Garcia and J.E. Tener (2012). Evolvement or suppression of separability or entanglement of various levels for a quantum dynamical semigroup of completely positive maps has been studied using Choi-Jamiolkowsky matrix of such maps and the famous Hordeckis criteria (1996). A Trichotomy Theorem has been proved, and examples have been given that depend mainly on generalized Choi maps and clearly distinguish the levels of entanglement breaking.
Positive but not completely positive maps provide one of the most direct ways to detect entanglement beyond the positive-partial-transpose (PPT) criterion. We introduce and analyze an exactly solvable two-parameter family of sparse bistochastic positive maps on qutrits, in which two coherence channels are independently tuned by parameters
w and
z. The sparse structure makes the full phase diagram analytic: positivity holds exactly on the square
0≤w,z≤2/3, complete positivity on the smaller square
0≤w,z≤1/3, and decomposability is lost precisely outside a quarter circle in the corner
w,z≥1/3. The indecomposable region is certified by explicit PPT entangled state adapted to the same witness geometry. At the endpoint
W∗=W(2/3,2/3) we construct a four-parameter family of PPT edge states of rank type
(5,5), derive their analytic detection region, and show that the corresponding rays are exposed faces of the PPT cone. Finally, although
W∗ is not optimal, we give an explicit optimal refinement whose detection region on this family is strictly larger. The result is an analytically tractable qutrit setting in which positivity, indecomposability, PPT entanglement, optimality, and exposed convex geometry can be studied in a single framework.
Power symmetric stochastic matrices introduced by R. Sinkhorn (1981) and their generalization by R.B. Bapat, S.K. Jain and K. Manjunatha Prasad (1999) have been utilized to give positive block matrices with trace one possessing positive partial transpose, the so-called PPT states. Another method to construct such PPT states is given, it uses the form of a matrix unitarily equivalent to to its transpose obtained by S.R. Garcia and J.E. Tener (2012). Evolvement or suppression of separability or entanglement of various levels for a quantum dynamical semigroup of completely positive maps has been studied using Choi-Jamiolkowsky matrix of such maps and the famous Hordeckis criteria (1996). A Trichotomy Theorem has been proved, and examples have been given that depend mainly on generalized Choi maps and clearly distinguish the levels of entanglement breaking.
We investigate the structure of
k-positivity and Schmidt numbers for classes of linear maps and bipartite quantum states exhibiting symplectic group symmetries. Specifically, we consider (1) linear maps on
Md(C) which are covariant under conjugation by unitary symplectic matrices
S, and (2)
d⊗d bipartite states which are invariant under
S⊗S or
S⊗S actions, each parametrized by two real variables. We provide a complete characterization of all
k-positivity and decomposability conditions for these maps and explicitly compute the Schmidt numbers for the corresponding bipartite states. In particular, our analysis yields a broad class of PPT states with Schmidt number
d/2 and the first explicit constructions of (optimal)
k-positive indecomposable linear maps for arbitrary
k=1,…,d/2−1, achieving the best-known bounds. Overall, our results offer a natural and analytically tractable framework in which both strong forms of positive indecomposability and high degrees of PPT entanglement can be studied systematically.
We present two further applications of symplectic group symmetries. First, we show that the PPT-squared conjecture holds within the class of PPT linear maps that are either symplectic-covariant or conjugate-symplectic-covariant. Second, we resolve a conjecture of Pal and Vertesi concerning the optimal lower bound of the Sindici-Piani semidefinite program for PPT entanglement.