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Introducing Quantum Discord: a Criterion for Classicality and Pointer States

Ollivier, H, Wojciech Hubert Zurek

Published May 16, 2001• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Two classically identical expressions for the mutual information generally differ when the two systems involved are quantum. We investigate this difference -- quantum discord -- and show that it can be used as a criterion for the classicality of the correlations. We also show that quantum discord can be used for describing the selection of the preferred, effectively classical, pointer states.

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Quantum discord for two-qubit systems

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Quantum discord, as introduced by Olliver and Zurek [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 017901 (2001)], is a measure of the discrepancy between two natural yet different quantum analogs of the classical mutual information. This notion characterizes and quantifies quantumness of correlations in bipartite states from a measurement perspective, and is fundamentally different from the various entanglement measures in the entanglement vs separability paradigm. The phenomenon of nonzero quantum discord is a manifestation of quantum correlations due to noncommutativity rather than due to entanglement, and has interesting and significant applications in revealing the advantage of certain quantum tasks. We will evaluate analytically the quantum discord for a large family of two-qubit states, and make a comparative study of the relationships between classical and quantum correlations in terms of the quantum discord. We furthermore compare the quantum discord with the entanglement of formation, and illustrate that the latter may be larger than the former, although for separable states, the entanglement of formation always vanishes and thus is less than the quantum discord.

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Measurements of Quantum Systems disturb their states. To quantify this non-classical characteristic, Zurek and Ollivier introduced the quantum discord, a quantum correlation which can be nonzero even when entanglement in the system is zero. Discord has aroused great interest as a resource that is more robust against the effects of decoherence and offers exponential speed up of certain computational algorithms. Here, we study general two-level bipartite systems and give general results on the relationship between discord, entanglement, and linear entropy, and identify the states for which discord takes a maximal value for a given entropy or entanglement, thus placing strong bounds on entanglement-discord and entropy-discord relations. We find out that although discord and entanglement are identical for pure states, they differ when generalized to mixed states as a result of the difference in the method of generalization.

arXiv:1007.1814•Jul 12, 2010•3 citations
Two classically identical expressions for the mutual information generally differ when the two systems involved are quantum. We investigate this difference -- quantum discord -- and show that it can be used as a criterion for the classicality of the correlations. We also show that quantum discord can be used for describing the selection of the preferred, effectively classical, pointer states.
Two classically identical expressions for the mutual information generally differ when the systems involved are quantum. This difference defines the quantum discord. It can be used as a measure of the quantumness of correlations. Separability of the density matrix describing a pair of systems does not guarantee vanishing of the discord, thus showing that absence of entanglement does not imply classicality. We relate this to the quantum superposition principle, and consider the vanishing of discord as a criterion for the preferred effectively classical states of a system, i.e., the pointer states.
Quantum discord, a kind of quantum correlation, is defined as the difference between quantum mutual information and classical correlation in a bipartite system. In general, this correlation is different from entanglement, and quantum discord may be nonzero even for certain separable states. Even in the simple case of bipartite quantum systems, this different kind of quantum correlation has interesting and significant applications in quantum information processing. So far, quantum discord has been calculated explicitly only for a rather limited set of two-qubit quantum states and expressions for more general quantum states are not known. In this article, we derive explicit expressions for quantum discord for a larger class of two-qubit states, namely, a seven-parameter family of so called XXX states that have been of interest in a variety of contexts in the field. We also study the relation between quantum discord, classical correlation, and entanglement for a number of two-qubit states to demonstrate that they are independent measures of correlation with no simple relative ordering between them.
Quantum discord witnesses the nonclassicality of quantum states even when there is no entanglement in these quantum states. This type of quantum correlation also has some interesting and significant applications in quantum information processing. Quantum discord has been evaluated explicitly only for a certain class of two-qubit states. We extend the previous studies to 2⊗ d quantum systems and derive analytical expressions for quantum discord, classical correlation and entanglement for a two-parameter class of states for d ⩾ 3. We compare quantum discord, classical correlation and entanglement for qubit–qutrit systems to demonstrate that different measures of quantum correlation are not identical and conceptually different.
Quantum discord is the quantitative difference between two alternative expressions for bipartite mutual information, given respectively in terms of two distinct definitions for the conditional entropy. By constructing a stochastic model of shared states, classical discord can be similarly defined, quantifying the presence of some stochasticity in the measurement process. Therefore, discord can generally be understood as a quantification of the system's state disturbance due to local measurements, be it quantum or classical. We establish an operational meaning of classical discord in the context of state merging with noisy measurement and thereby show the quantum-classical separation in terms of a negative conditional entropy.
Quantum discord, as introduced by Olliver and Zurek [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 017901 (2001)], is a measure of the discrepancy between two natural yet different quantum analogs of the classical mutual information. This notion characterizes and quantifies quantumness of correlations in bipartite states from a measurement perspective, and is fundamentally different from the various entanglement measures in the entanglement vs separability paradigm. The phenomenon of nonzero quantum discord is a manifestation of quantum correlations due to noncommutativity rather than due to entanglement, and has interesting and significant applications in revealing the advantage of certain quantum tasks. We will evaluate analytically the quantum discord for a large family of two-qubit states, and make a comparative study of the relationships between classical and quantum correlations in terms of the quantum discord. We furthermore compare the quantum discord with the entanglement of formation, and illustrate that the latter may be larger than the former, although for separable states, the entanglement of formation always vanishes and thus is less than the quantum discord.
Measurements of Quantum Systems disturb their states. To quantify this non-classical characteristic, Zurek and Ollivier introduced the quantum discord, a quantum correlation which can be nonzero even when entanglement in the system is zero. Discord has aroused great interest as a resource that is more robust against the effects of decoherence and offers exponential speed up of certain computational algorithms. Here, we study general two-level bipartite systems and give general results on the relationship between discord, entanglement, and linear entropy, and identify the states for which discord takes a maximal value for a given entropy or entanglement, thus placing strong bounds on entanglement-discord and entropy-discord relations. We find out that although discord and entanglement are identical for pure states, they differ when generalized to mixed states as a result of the difference in the method of generalization.