Entanglement is a key resource in the emerging field of Quantum Information. The strong correlations between systems described by an entangled state allow us to perform certain tasks more efficiently than it would be possible by using only classical resources. This is why the characterization of entanglement is one of the most important problems in Quantum Information. In this thesis, we analyze several aspects of entanglement. First, we introduce a new family of criteria to determine if a bipartite mixed state is entangled or not. This family consists of a sequence of tests that can be implemented efficiently, and has the property that all entangled states can be detected by some test in the sequence. Each test in the family can be stated as a semidefinite program, which is a class of convex optimization problems. The duality structure of these programs allows us to explicitly construct an entanglement witness that proves entanglement of a state, whenever the state fails one of the tests in the sequence. The entanglement witnesses constructed in this manner have well-defined algebraic properties that can be used to give a characterization of the interior of the set of all possible entanglement witnesses, as well as the set of strictly positive bihermitian forms and the set of strictly positive maps. We also study deterministic transformations of three-qubit pure state when only local operations and classical communication (LOCC) are allowed. We derive strong constraints that the operations and states involved must satisfy, and we apply these results to characterize the set of real states that can be obtained from the GHZ state by LOCC.
Entanglement is a key resource in the emerging field of Quantum Information. The strong correlations between systems described by an entangled state allow us to perform certain tasks more efficiently than it would be possible by using only classical resources. This is why the characterization of entanglement is one of the most important problems in Quantum Information. In this thesis, we analyze several aspects of entanglement. First, we introduce a new family of criteria to determine if a bipartite mixed state is entangled or not. This family consists of a sequence of tests that can be implemented efficiently, and has the property that all entangled states can be detected by some test in the sequence. Each test in the family can be stated as a semidefinite program, which is a class of convex optimization problems. The duality structure of these programs allows us to explicitly construct an entanglement witness that proves entanglement of a state, whenever the state fails one of the tests in the sequence. The entanglement witnesses constructed in this manner have well-defined algebraic properties that can be used to give a characterization of the interior of the set of all possible entanglement witnesses, as well as the set of strictly positive bihermitian forms and the set of strictly positive maps. We also study deterministic transformations of three-qubit pure state when only local operations and classical communication (LOCC) are allowed. We derive strong constraints that the operations and states involved must satisfy, and we apply these results to characterize the set of real states that can be obtained from the GHZ state by LOCC.
The characterization of possible transformations between quantum states and the quantification of entanglement are central for understanding quantum resources. Explicit results are, however, scarce since they require complicated optimizations over transformation protocols or state decompositions. We introduce a method to optimize functions of the entanglement spectrum of bipartite states over mixed-state decompositions with arbitrary accuracy. Our results are based on a convergent semidefinite programming hierarchy of optimizations over entanglement spectra using a natural polynomial basis and Schur-Weyl duality. Our approach can also be used to determine non-polynomial measures, such as the entanglement of formation, and to characterize the dimensionality of entanglement. Moreover, extracting the decomposition allows us to formulate criteria to determine state transformations under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). In particular, we provide a hierarchy of certificates of LOCC non-convertibility from pure to mixed states in any dimension and a heuristic approach for LOCC convertibility.
Convexity arises naturally in the study of quantum information. As a result, many useful tools from convex analysis can be used to give important results regarding aspects of quantum information. This thesis builds up methods using core concepts from convex analysis, including convex optimization problems, convex roof constructions, and conic programming, to study mathematical problems related to quantum entanglement. In this thesis, I develop a method for solving convex optimization problems that arise in quantum information theory by analyzing the corresponding converse problem. That is, given an element in a convex set, I determine a family of convex functions that are minimized at this point. This method is used find explicit formulas for the relative entropy of entanglement, as well as other important quantities used to quantify entanglement, and allows one to show important relationships between them. I also construct a practical algorithm that can be used to compute these quantities. This thesis also presents a method to compute convex roofs of arbitrary entanglement measures evaluated on highly symmetric bipartite states. I also establish a framework for completely characterizing quantum resource theories that are convex. For resource theories with a simple mathematical structure, this gives rise to a complete set of resource monotones that can be computed in practice using semidefinite programs. This has applications to the study of entanglement transformations.
Multipartite entanglement is one of the crucial resources in quantum information processing tasks such as quantum metrology, quantum computing and quantum communications. It is essential to verify not only the multipartite entanglement, but also the entanglement structure in both fundamental theories and the applications of quantum information technologies. However, it is proved to be challenging to detect the entanglement structures, including entanglement depth, entanglement intactness and entanglement stretchability, especially for general states and large-scale quantum systems. By using the partitions of the tensor product space we propose a systematic method to construct powerful entanglement witnesses which identify better the multipartite entanglement structures. Besides, an efficient algorithm using semi-definite programming and a gradient descent algorithm are designed to detect entanglement structure from the inner polytope of the convex set containing all the states with the same entanglement structure. We demonstrate by detailed examples that our criteria perform better than other known ones. Our results may be applied to many quantum information processing tasks.
Quantum physics provides results at information processing tasks that are unattainable by any classical theory. The aim of this thesis is to identify and characterize quantum entanglement and quantum nonlocality, the key resources used at quantum information protocols. We consider the problem of finding better experimental schemes to detect entangled states. For that, we study approximate physical realizations to non-physical processes, which provide the most efficient method to identify entanglement. We prove that many of these physical approximations have a simple experimental implementation. We then study characterization of quantum nonlocality. We introduce a method using the multipartite scenario, where more than two parties are involved, which provides several results on bipartite and multipartite quantum nonlocality. First, we prove that there exist quantum states which contain full multipartite nonlocality, which consist of the strongest kind of nonlocality. then, we prove that the combined use of several copies of a state can activate its nonlocal properties. In particular, this holds for bipartite and genuine multipartite nonlocality. Finally, we characterize quantum nonlocality by distinguishing it from stronger-than-quantum nonlocality. We construct a multipartite game for which classical and quantum players perform equally well, but for which supre-quantum players can sometimes provide an advantage. Our results suggest that physical resources might obbey a generalized no-signaling principle ( according to which ther's no instantaneous communication).
We study the application of sums of squares decompositions and semidefinite programming in the formulation of computational criteria for distinguishing entangled from separable quantum states. A hierarchy of tests is obtained, the simplest of which corresponds to the well-known positive partial transpose (PPT) sufficient criterion, with the more complicated tests being strictly stronger. The duality structure of the problem allows us to provide an explicit construction of the entanglement witnesses corresponding to our tests.
We introduce a family of separability criteria that are based on the existence of extensions of a bipartite quantum state \ensuremath{\rho} to a larger number of parties satisfying certain symmetry properties. It can be easily shown that all separable states have the required extensions, so the nonexistence of such an extension for a particular state implies that the state is entangled. One of the main advantages of this approach is that searching for the extension can be cast as a convex optimization problem known as a semidefinite program. Whenever an extension does not exist, the dual optimization constructs an explicit entanglement witness for the particular state. These separability tests can be ordered in a hierarchical structure whose first step corresponds to the well-known positive partial transpose (Peres-Horodecki) criterion, and each test in the hierarchy is at least as powerful as the preceding one. This hierarchy is complete, in the sense that any entangled state is guaranteed to fail a test at some finite point in the hierarchy, thus showing it is entangled. The entanglement witnesses corresponding to each step of the hierarchy have well-defined and very interesting algebraic properties that, in turn, allow for a characterization of the interior of the set of positive maps. Coupled with some recent results on the computational complexity of the separability problem, which has been shown to be NP hard, this hierarchy of tests gives a complete and also computationally and theoretically appealing characterization of mixed bipartite entangled states.