The main part of this dissertation starts with a generalization of the entangling power, which quantifies the ability of unitary operators to generate entangled states by their action on the computational basis. The entangling power has been defined for an evenly split bipartite system, whose states live in a Hilbert space of the form H1⊗ H2 where dimH1= dimH2 . I generalize this so that we can consider an odd number of qubits. Entangling power is defined in terms of the linear entropy, a linearization of the von Neumann entropy, whose polynomial form allows one to derive simpler expressions for functions of the entropy. The linear entropy measure is lifted from the state space to the operator space to measure the entanglement of operators. In particular, we focus on the three qubit case, where dimH1 = 2 and dimH2 = 4, as a step to understanding entanglement in many qubit systems. This is the content of Chapter 3.
The goal of Chapter 4 is to explore the structure of entanglement producing operators in SU(2n), with the focus on SU(8). I first review the magic matrix formalism for two-qubit operators, a well known matrix that captures the entangling capability of operators in SU(4), using only 3 of the 15 parameters of the group. I then use a recursive definition of the Cartan decomposition of SU(2n) to construct a magic matrix for operators in SU(8). Because we view the entangling operation as between the first qubit and the other two as a single subsystem, the entanglement is invariant under the action of SU(2) ⊗ SU(4), but SU(8)/SU(2) ⊗ SU(4) is not a symmetric space, and we must use the decomposition in two stages to capture enough entangling operators to account for all of SU(8). The number of parameters appearing in the entangling power is then reduced from 63 to 8, keeping track of 7 entangling operators, one of which does not commute with the others. The next chapter then presents calculations of the entangling powers of operators that generate GHZ states from the computational basis, many of which are solutions to the Yang-Baxter equation and have strong connections to topological quantum computing. We find that the Kauffman-Lomonaco two-qubit gate that produces the Bell states from the computational basis has a maximal entangling power, while the GHZ gate on three qubits does not, adding another piece to the puzzle of entanglement.
Kauffman and Lomonaco (New J Phys 4:73.1–73.18, 2002. arXiv:quant-ph/0401090 , New J Phys 6:134.1–134.40, 2004) explored the idea of understanding quantum entanglement (the non-local correlation of certain properties of particles) topologically by viewing unitary entangling operators as braiding operators. In Alagic et al. (Yang–Baxter operators need quantum entanglement to distinguish knots, 2015. arXiv:1507.05979v1 ), it is shown that entanglement is a necessary condition for forming non-trivial invariants of knots from braid closures via solutions to the Yang–Baxter equation. We show that the arguments used by Alagic et al. (2015) generalize to essentially the same results for quantum invariant state summation models of knots. In one case (the unoriented swap case) we give an example of a Yang–Baxter operator, and associated quantum invariant, that can detect the Hopf link. Again this is analogous to the results of Alagic et al. (2015). We also give a class of R matrices that are entangling and are weak invariants of classical knots and links yet strong invariants of virtual knots and links. We also give an example of an SU(2) representation of the three-strand braid group that models the Jones polynomial for closures of three-strand braids. This invariant is a quantum model for the Jones polynomial restricted to three-strand braids, and it does not involve quantum entanglement. These relationships between topological braiding and quantum entanglement can be used as a framework for future work in understanding the properties of entangling gates in topological quantum computing. The paper ends with a discussion of the Aravind hypothesis about the direct relationship of knots and quantum entanglement and the
ER=EPR E R = E P R hypothesis about the relationship of quantum entanglement with the connectivity of space. We describe how, given a background space and a quantum tensor network, to construct a new topological space that welds the network and the background space together. This construction embodies the principle that quantum entanglement and topological connectivity are intimately related.
Important developments in fault-tolerant quantum computation using the braiding of anyons have placed the theory of braid groups at the very foundation of topological quantum computing. Furthermore, the realization by Kauffman and Lomonaco that a specific braiding operator from the solution of the Yang-Baxter equation, namely the Bell matrix, is universal implies that in principle all quantum gates can be constructed from braiding operators together with single qubit gates. In this paper we present a new class of braiding operators from the Temperley-Lieb algebra that generalizes the Bell matrix to multi-qubit systems, thus unifying the Hadamard and Bell matrices within the same framework. Unlike previous braiding operators, these new operators generate directly , from separable basis states, important entangled states such as the generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, cluster-like states, and other states with varying degrees of entanglement.
Important developments in fault-tolerant quantum computation using the braiding of anyons have placed the theory of braid groups at the very foundation of topological quantum computing. Furthermore, the realization by Kauffman and Lomonaco that a specific braiding operator from the solution of the Yang-Baxter equation, namely the Bell matrix, is universal implies that in principle all quantum gates can be constructed from braiding operators together with single qubit gates. In this paper we present a new class of braiding operators from the Temperley-Lieb algebra that generalizes the Bell matrix to multi-qubit systems, thus unifying the Hadamard and Bell matrices within the same framework. Unlike previous braiding operators, these new operators generate directly from separable basis states important entangled states such as the generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, cluster-like states, and other states with varying degrees of entanglement.
Entangled states, such as the Bell and GHZ states, are generated from separable states using matrices known to satisfy the Yang-Baxter equation and its generalization. This remarkable fact hints at the possibility of using braiding operators as quantum entanglers, and is part of a larger speculated connection between topological and quantum entanglement. We push the analysis of this connection forward, by showing that supersymmetry algebras can be used to construct large families of solutions of the spectral parameter-dependent generalized Yang-Baxter equation. We present a number of explicit examples and outline a general algorithm for arbitrary numbers of qubits. The operators we obtain produce, in turn, all the entangled states in a multi-qubit system classified by the Stochastic Local Operations and Classical Communication protocol introduced in quantum information theory.
The entangling power of a unitary operator acting on a bipartite Hilbert space measures the entanglement it generates from product states, averaged over the inputs. A finite-dimensional unitary has a spectral decomposition
U=∑a=1neiθaPa, where
eiθa are the eigenvalues,
Pa the corresponding eigen-projectors, and
n is the number of distinct eigenvalues. After removing an overall phase, the entangling power is a function on the
(n−1)-torus of relative eigenphases at fixed spectral projectors. We prove that this function is stationary at all
2n−1 points on the torus where every relative phase is
0 or
π, which we define as \textit{corners}. Up to an overall phase,
U at each corner is a generalized reflection
R=I−2Q satisfying
R2=I, where
Q is the sum of spectral projectors whose relative phase is
π. At the corner the entangling power is expressed in terms of seven local-unitary invariants of
Q. A unitary gate
U can be realized as a corner of some projector family if and only if
U2∝I, a condition satisfied by many Clifford and non-Clifford gates. We illustrate the theorem with two-qubit gates,
SU(N) channel decompositions, and two-site spin chains, obtaining examples of minima, maxima, and saddle points. In addition, a corner that is a saddle point on the full phase torus can appear as a local maximum or minimum along different time-evolution trajectories.
The capacity of a quantum gate to produce entangled states on a bipartite system is quantified in terms of the entangling power. This quantity is defined as the average of the linear entropy of entanglement of the states produced after applying a quantum gate over the whole set of separable states. Here we focus on symmetric two-qubit quantum gates, acting on the symmetric two-qubit space, and calculate the entangling power in terms of the appropriate local invariant. A geometric description of the local equivalence classes of gates is given in terms of the
su(3) Lie algebra root vectors. These vectors define a primitive cell with hexagonal symmetry on a plane, and through the Weyl group the minimum area on the plane containing the whole set of locally equivalent quantum gates is identified. We give conditions to determine when a given quantum gate produces maximally entangled states from separable ones (perfect entanglers). We find that these gates correspond to one-fourth of the whole set of locally distinct quantum gates. The formalism developed here is applicable to general three-level systems. Via the Majorana representation, qutrit transformations can be regarded as having entangling power and hence classified as perfect and nonperfect entanglers and be grouped into local-equivalence classes of the associated symmetric two-qubit space. The results are illustrated by an anisotropic Heisenberg model, the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model, and two coupled quantized oscillators with cross-Kerr interaction, which we use to obtain three-level gates relevant in qutrit quantum computation.