The characterization of quantum discord (QD) and geometric discord (GD) has mostly concentrated on two-qubit states since the minimization in both discords is a daunting task for high-dimensional states. Numerical calculations of both discords are carried out for a generic bipartite state. When one-dimensional orthogonal projectors for a local measurement on n-dimensional Hilbert space are realized by the generators and the Euler angles of SU (n), the optimal measurements have a figure of merit that includes n(n - 1) Euler parameters. As an representative example, such projectors and two kinds of algorithms are used to estimate both discords for two-qutrit mixed states in recent literature. The generalized negativity as a measure of quantum entanglement is calculated for reference purposes. For those states with one parameter the discords and the negativity respectively display the nonlinear and the linear function of the parameter, with different turning points. However, they are positively correlated in the suitable ranges of the parameter for those states. The hierarchy of those quantities is discussed as well. Those shed new light on the understanding of QDs and quantum entanglement of mixed states in high-dimensions.
The characterization of quantum discord (QD) and geometric discord (GD) has mostly concentrated on two-qubit states since the minimization in both discords is a daunting task for high-dimensional states. Numerical calculations of both discords are carried out for a generic bipartite state. When one-dimensional orthogonal projectors for a local measurement on n-dimensional Hilbert space are realized by the generators and the Euler angles of SU (n), the optimal measurements have a figure of merit that includes n(n - 1) Euler parameters. As an representative example, such projectors and two kinds of algorithms are used to estimate both discords for two-qutrit mixed states in recent literature. The generalized negativity as a measure of quantum entanglement is calculated for reference purposes. For those states with one parameter the discords and the negativity respectively display the nonlinear and the linear function of the parameter, with different turning points. However, they are positively correlated in the suitable ranges of the parameter for those states. The hierarchy of those quantities is discussed as well. Those shed new light on the understanding of QDs and quantum entanglement of mixed states in high-dimensions.
Quantum discord, a kind of quantum correlation, is defined as the difference between quantum mutual information and classical correlation in a bipartite system. It has been discussed so far for small systems with only a few independent parameters. We extend here to a much broader class of states when the second party is of arbitrary dimension d, so long as the first, measured, party is a qubit. We present two formulae to calculate quantum discord, the first relating to the original entropic definition and the second to a recently proposed geometric distance measure which leads to an analytical formulation. The tracing over the qubit in the entropic calculation is reduced to a very simple prescription. And, when the d-dimensional system is a so-called X state, the density matrix having non-zero elements only along the diagonal and anti-diagonal so as to appear visually like the letter X, the entropic calculation can be carried out analytically. Such states of the full bipartite qubit-qudit system may be named "extended X states", whose density matrix is built of four block matrices, each visually appearing as an X. The optimization involved in the entropic calculation is generally over two parameters, reducing to one for many cases, and avoided altogether for an overwhelmingly large set of density matrices as our numerical investigations demonstrate. Our results also apply to states of a N-qubit system, where "extended X states" consist of (2^(N+2) - 1) states, larger in number than the (2^(N+1) - 1) of X states of N qubits. While these are still smaller than the total number (2^(2N) - 1) of states of N qubits, the number of parameters involved is nevertheless large. In the case of N = 2, they encompass the entire 15-dimensional parameter space, that is, the extended X states for N = 2 represent the full qubit-qubit system.
It has been proven that the quantum discord is a more general tool to capture non-classical correlation than quantum entanglement, because there is a non-zero quantum discord in several mixed states that could not be measured by quantum entanglement. But because of optimization part in formulating quantum discord, it is very difficult and nearly impossible to find quantum discord for some quantum states. So people proposed geometric quantum discord, which in a bipartite state could be describe as the distance of the states from the closest zero-discord state. To understand better geometric quantum discord, this paper is devoted to compare it with quantum discord and measurement induced non-locality that is in some sense dual to the geometric quantum discord. As studying the quantum correlation experimentally is one of the important thing in quantum information processing, so as our example for illustrating the difference of geometric quantum discord, quantum discord and measurement induced non-locality, our quantum system is a dimer (two spin-1/2 particles) in multiple quantum nuclear magnetic resonance.
The investigation of quantum discord has mostly focused on two-qubit systems due to the complicated minimization involved in quantum discord for high-dimensional states. In this work, three geometric discords are studied for the thermal state in a two-qutrit system with various couplings, external magnetic fields, and temperatures as well, where the entanglement measured in terms of the generalized negativity is calculated for reference. It is shown that three geometric discords are more robust against temperature and magnetic field than the entanglement negativity. However, all four quantities exhibit a similar behavior at lower temperature and weak magnetic field. Remarkably, three geometric discords at finite temperature reveal the phenomenon of double sudden changes at different magnetic fields while the negativity does not. Moreover, the hierarchy among three discords is discussed. Those adjustable discords with the varied coupling, temperature, and magnetic field are useful for the understanding of quantum correlations in high-dimensional states and quantum information processing.
Quantum discord, as introduced by Ollivier and Zurek (2001 Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 017901), is a measure of the discrepancy between quantum versions of two classically equivalent expressions for mutual information and is found to be useful in quantification and application of quantum correlations in mixed states. It is viewed as a key resource present in certain quantum communication tasks and quantum computational models without containing much entanglement. An early step toward the quantification of quantum discord in a quantum state was by Dakic et al (2010 Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 190502) who introduced a geometric measure of quantum discord and derived an explicit formula for any two-qubit state. Recently, Luo and Fu (2010 Phys. Rev. A 82 034302) introduced a generic form of the geometric measure of quantum discord for a bipartite quantum state. We extend these results and find generic forms of the geometric measure of quantum discord and total quantum correlations in a general N -partite quantum state. Further, we obtain computable exact formulas for the geometric measure of quantum discord and total quantum correlations in an N -qubit quantum state. The exact formulas for the N -qubit quantum state can be used to get experimental estimates of the quantum discord and the total quantum correlation.
The minimal Bures distance of a quantum state of a bipartite system AB to the set of classical states for subsystem A defines a geometric measure of quantum discord. When A is a qubit, we show that this geometric quantum discord is given in terms of the eigenvalues of a (2 n B ) × (2 n B ) Hermitian matrix, n B being the Hilbert space dimension of the other subsystem B . As a first application, we calculate the geometric discord for the output state of the DQC1 algorithm. We find that it takes its highest value when the unitary matrix from which the algorithm computes the trace has its eigenvalues uniformly distributed on the unit circle modulo a symmetry with respect to the origin. As a second application, we derive an explicit formula for the geometric discord of a two-qubit state ρ with maximally mixed marginals and compare it with other measures of quantum correlations. We also determine the closest classical states to ρ.
Quantum entanglement plays a key role in quantum information and quantum computation and thus attracts much attention in many branches of physics both in theory and in experiment. But recent studies revealed that some separable states (non-entangled state) may speed up certain tasks over their classical counterparts and may also possess certain kinds of quantum correlations. For example, geometric quantum discord, which is a more general quantum correlation measure than entanglement, can be nonzero for some separable states. From a practical point of view, it is proposed that the geometric quantum discord be responsible for the power of many quantum information processing tasks. In order to capture such correlations, Ollivier and Zurek introduced quantum discord, which measures the discrepancy between two natural yet different quantum analogues of two classically equivalent expressions of mutual information. However, the calculation of quantum discord is based on numerical maximization procedure, and there are few analytical expressions even for a two-qubit state. In order to obtain the analytical results of quantum discord, a geometric measure of quantum discord which measures the quantum correlations through the minimum Hilbert-Schmidt distance between the given state and zero discord state is introduced. Geometric quantum discord is defined as an effective measure of quantum correlation, and the geometric quantum discord through the minimal distance between the quantum state and the set of zero-discord states in a bipartite quantum system can be worked out. In this paper, by using the geometric quantum discord measurement method, the geometric quantum discord in Tavis-Cummings model is investigated, and the influences of the initial state purity, entanglement degree, dipole-dipole coupling intensity between two atoms, and field in the Fock state on the evolution characteristic of geometric quantum discord are analyzed. The results show that the geometric quantum discord appears periodically. It initially decreases to a minimum value, and then turns out to be increased for different initial states. The rigorous analysis and numerical results reveal that when we take a suitable initial state, the geometric quantum discord of two atoms can be kept in correlation. When the atoms are in the different initial states, the quantum properties of the system are significant. The photon number of the field can lead the quantum discord to be weakened. Geometric quantum discord can be increased by increasing the cavity photon number and the dipole-dipole coupling intensity. Geometric quantum discord can be enhanced obviously by increasing the strength of the dipole-dipole coupling interaction. The conclusions may conduce to the understanding of quantum correlation for the other systems from the view of geometric quantum discord.