We propose a measure of entanglement between two subsystems of arbitrary (but finite) number of levels. This measure is invariant under unitary transformations of the subsystems and varies between 0 (product states) and 1 (maximum entangled states). The case of two two-level systems is worked out explicitly, where the known complementarity between one- and two-particle interference results in a very natural way from a sum rule. Generalizations to more than two subsystems are discussed. Here we show that for three particles there cannot exist a pure state that is completely characterized by three-particle entanglement alone. For the example of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, an experimental setup is proposed, in which its corresponding two-particle entanglement would show up.
We propose a measure of entanglement between two subsystems of arbitrary (but finite) number of levels. This measure is invariant under unitary transformations of the subsystems and varies between 0 (product states) and 1 (maximum entangled states). The case of two two-level systems is worked out explicitly, where the known complementarity between one- and two-particle interference results in a very natural way from a sum rule. Generalizations to more than two subsystems are discussed. Here we show that for three particles there cannot exist a pure state that is completely characterized by three-particle entanglement alone. For the example of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, an experimental setup is proposed, in which its corresponding two-particle entanglement would show up.
In quantum mechanics, the general state describing two or more particles is a linear superposition of product states. Such a superposition is called entangled if it cannot be factored into just one product. When only two particles are entangled, the stage is set for Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) discussions and Bell's proof that the EPR viewpoint contradicts quantum mechanics. If more than two particles are involved, new possibilities and phenomena arise. For example, the Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger (GHZ) disproof of EPR applies. Furthermore, as we point out, with three or more particles even entanglement itself can be an entangled property.
Via a multidimensional complementarity relation we derive an operational entanglement measure for any discrete quantum system, i.e., for any multidimensional and multipartite system. This measure admits a separation into different classes of entanglement obtained by using a flip operator 2,3,…,n times, defining a m-flip concurrence. This operator sum has the practical feature to allow one to calculate for mixed states bounds on this m-flip concurrence. Moreover, the information content of an n-partite multidimensional system admits a simple and intuitive interpretation in terms of single particle obtainable information, entanglement, and information due to lack of classical knowledge of the quantum state under investigation. Explicitly, the three qubit system is analyzed and, e.g., the physical difference in entanglement of the W state, the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, or a biseparable state is revealed.
In this thesis, we discuss several aspects of the characterization of entanglement in multipartite quantum systems, including detection, classification and quantification of entanglement. First, we discuss triqubit pure entanglement and propose a special true tripartite entanglement, the mixed entanglement, besides the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entanglement and the W entanglement. Then, based on quantitative complementarity relations, we draw entanglement Venn diagrams for triqubit pure states with different entanglements and introduce the total tangle Tau sup(T) to quantify total entanglement of triqubit pure states by defining the union I that is equivalent to the total tangle Tau sup(T) from the mathematical point of view. The generalizations of entanglement Venn diagrams and the union I to N-qubit pure states are also discussed. Finally, based on the ranks of reduced density matrices, we discuss the separability of multiparticle arbitrary -dimensional pure and mixed states, respectively.
We consider the problem to single out a particular state among 2n orthogonal pure states. As it turns out, in general the optimal strategy is not to measure the particles separately, but to consider joint properties of the n-particle system. The required number of propositions is n. There exist 2n! equivalent operational procedures to do so. We enumerate some configurations for three particles, in particular the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) and W states, which are specific cases of a unitary transformation. For the GHZ case, an explicit physical meaning of the projection operators is discussed.
Entanglement is one of most peculiar characteristic of Quantum Mechanics (probably the other most mentioned is the particle tunneling through a barrier) because it entails correlations that supersedes classical correlations. It is conceived as the genuine quantum characteristic by many researchers and quite recently it has emerged as a physical resource to produce non-classical task, like quantum teleportation, quantum cryptography and quantum information. Entanglement could be distributed (efficient quantum communication is equivalent to efficient entanglement distribution (Plenio & Virmani, 2007)), concentrated (given an amount of entanglement, equal to the full content of entanglement in n pairs of identical entangled pure state systems, it is possible, using local operations on each system, to concentrate the total amount of entanglement into a smaller number m, m < n, of maximally pure entangled state system (Bennett, et al.; 1996)) and used to perform many quantum information tasks useful to overcome technical restrictions present on classical communication. In this chapter, we review the entanglement of quantum mechanical systems. First, in Section 2, we give a characterization of entanglement in terms of its special features as resource and its mathematical structure. Then, in section 3, we review some of the Bell inequalities. In Sections 4 and 5, we review some of the most important entanglement measures published for two and three entangled systems. After that, in Section 6, we give a characterization of quantum gates and operators by its entanglement power, i. e. the amount of entanglement that they can produce when acting on an arbitrary state. Finally, in Section 7, we briefly review the experimental detection of entanglement.
The aspects of many particle systems, as far as their entanglement is concerned, is highlighted. To this end we briefly review the bipartite measures of entanglement and the entanglement of pairs both for systems of distinguishable and indistinguishable particles. The analysis of these quantities in macroscopic systems shows that close to quantum phase transitions, the entanglement of many particles typically dominates that of pairs. This leads to an analysis of a method to construct many-body entanglement measures. SL-invariant measures are a generalization to quantities as the concurrence, and can be obtained with a formalism containing two (actually three) orthogonal antilinear operators. The main drawback of this antilinear framework, namely to measure these quantities in the experiment, is resolved by a formula linking the antilinear formalism to an equivalent linear framework.