In contrast to the seminal entanglement-separability paradigm widely used in quantum information theory, we introduce a quantum-classical dichotomy in order to classify and quantify statistical correlations in bipartite states. This is based on the idea that while in the classical description of nature measurements can be carried out without disturbance, in the quantum description, generic measurements often disturb the system and the disturbance can be exploited to quantify the quantumness of correlations therein. It turns out that certain separable states still possess correlations of a quantum nature and indicates that quantum correlations are more general than entanglement. The results are illustrated in the Werner states and the isotropic states, and are applied to quantify the quantum advantage of the model of quantum computation proposed by Knill and Laflamme [Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5672 (1998)].
In contrast to the seminal entanglement-separability paradigm widely used in quantum information theory, we introduce a quantum-classical dichotomy in order to classify and quantify statistical correlations in bipartite states. This is based on the idea that while in the classical description of nature measurements can be carried out without disturbance, in the quantum description, generic measurements often disturb the system and the disturbance can be exploited to quantify the quantumness of correlations therein. It turns out that certain separable states still possess correlations of a quantum nature and indicates that quantum correlations are more general than entanglement. The results are illustrated in the Werner states and the isotropic states, and are applied to quantify the quantum advantage of the model of quantum computation proposed by Knill and Laflamme [Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5672 (1998)].
In [S. L. Luo, Using measurement induced disturbance to characterize correlations as classical or quantum, Phys. Rev. A77 (2008) 022301], the author presented a statistical correlation measure for bipartite quantum states using measurement induced disturbance. In this paper, motivated by this correlation measure, we obtain some necessary conditions for [Formula: see text]-classical states in multipartite quantum systems, and obtain a relation between the set of [Formula: see text]-classical states and the set of [Formula: see text]-product states; Secondly, we introduce a class of correlation measures based on trace distance using measurement induced disturbance in order to quantify the strength of correlation for non-[Formula: see text]-classical states; Lastly, we introduce the concept of quantum channel with respect to [Formula: see text]-partition, it is simply denoted by identical-[Formula: see text]-channel, and furthermore discuss the influences of the correlation measure under identical-[Formula: see text]-channel.
Quantum channels, in general, will disturb quantum states and will lead to decoherence (i.e., information leakage to the environment). For bipartite systems, local channels often cause more decoherence for global states than for local states due to correlations. Intuitively, the difference between these two kinds of decoherence (i.e., global and local ones) may be regarded as a quantifier characterizing certain aspects of correlations in the global bipartite states. Based on this idea, we introduce a quantifier of correlations (relative to a local channel) as the coherence difference and investigate its basic properties. We probe and quantify correlations relative to various channels including the unitary channels, the twirling channels, the projective measurements, and the weak measurements. In particular, we show that both product states and some natural classical-quantum states can be operationally characterized in terms of local channels: The product states are just those states with vanishing coherence difference relative to the twirling channel induced by the unitary group, whereas these natural classical-quantum states are just those states with vanishing coherence difference relative to the twirling channel induced by the subgroup of the unitary group that does not disturb the local states. We further illustrate the results by various examples.
Entanglement, and quantum correlation, are precious resources for quantum technologies implementation based on quantum information science, such as quantum communication, quantum computing, and quantum interferometry. Nevertheless, to our best knowledge, a directly or numerically computable measure for the entanglement of multipartite mixed states is still lacking. In this work, (i) we derive a measure of the degree of quantum correlation for mixed multipartite states. The latter possesses a closed-form expression valid in the general case unlike, to our best knowledge, all other known measures of quantum correlation. (ii) We further propose an entanglement measure, derived from this quantum correlation measure using a novel regularization procedure for the density matrix. Therefore, a comparison of the proposed measures, of quantum correlation and entanglement, allows one to distinguish between quantum correlation detached from entanglement and the one induced by entanglement and, hence, to identify separable but non-classical states. We have tested our quantum correlation and entanglement measures, on states well-known in literature: a general Bell diagonal state and the Werner states, which are easily tractable with our regularization procedure, and we have verified the accordance between our measures and the expected results for these states. Finally, we validate the two measures in two cases of multipartite states. The first is a generalization to three qubits of the Werner state, the second is a one-parameter three qubits mixed state interpolating between a bi-separable state and a genuine multipartite state, passing through a fully separable state.
Quantum correlations in a family of bipartite separable qubit-qutrit quantum-classical correlated states are investigated by using two popular measures, i.e., the original quantum discord (OQD) method by Ollivier and Zurek [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 (2001) 017901 ] and the measurement-induced disturbance (MID) method by Luo [ Phys. Rev. A 77 (2008) 022301 ]. It is found that both of them are functions of a parameter partially characterizing the concerned states, however, quantum correlations evaluated via the convenient MID method are somewhat overestimated.
Abstract In this paper we study quantum correlation (QC) swapping between two different kinds of quantum-correlated states. To be concrete, one is the famous Werner state while another is a kind of separable state. We employ measurement-induced disturbance (Luo 2008 Phys. Rev. A 77 02230) as the quantifier to characterize and quantify QC. We work out QCs in all the concerned states and concretely analyze their behaviors and properties such monotony features and thresholds. We find that a long-distance shared QC can be generated from two short-distance ones via intermediate measure. Moreover, the amount of the long-distance shared QC cannot reach that in the Werner state but that in the separable state.
Abstract Quantum information theory is built upon the realisation that quantum resources like coherence and entanglement can be exploited for novel or enhanced ways of transmitting and manipulating information, such as quantum cryptography, teleportation, and quantum computing. We now know that there is potentially much more than entanglement behind the power of quantum information processing. There exist more general forms of non-classical correlations, stemming from fundamental principles such as the necessary disturbance induced by a local measurement, or the persistence of quantum coherence in all possible local bases. These signatures can be identified and are resilient in almost all quantum states, and have been linked to the enhanced performance of certain quantum protocols over classical ones in noisy conditions. Their presence represents, among other things, one of the most essential manifestations of quantumness in cooperative systems, from the subatomic to the macroscopic domain. In this work we give an overview of the current quest for a proper understanding and characterisation of the frontier between classical and quantum correlations (QCs) in composite states. We focus on various approaches to define and quantify general QCs, based on different yet interlinked physical perspectives, and comment on the operational significance of the ensuing measures for quantum technology tasks such as information encoding, distribution, discrimination and metrology. We then provide a broader outlook of a few applications in which quantumness beyond entanglement looks fit to play a key role.