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Journal of Mathematical Physics

A combinatorial approach for studying local operations and classical communication transformations of multipartite states

Sudhir Kumar Singh, Sudebkumar Prasant Pal, Somesh Kumar, R. Srikanth

Published Dec 1, 2005• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We develop graph theoretic methods for analyzing maximally entangled pure states distributed between a number of different parties. We introduce a technique called bicolored merging, based on the monotonicity feature of entanglement measures, for determining combinatorial conditions that must be satisfied for any two distinct multiparticle states to be comparable under local operations and classical communication. We present several results based on the possibility or impossibility of comparability of pure multipartite states. We show that there are exponentially many such entangled multipartite states among n agents. Further, we discuss a new graph theoretic metric on a class of multipartite states, and its implications.

DOI
10.1063/1.2142840

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We develop graph theoretic methods for analyzing maximally entangled pure states distributed between a number of different parties. We introduce a technique called bicolored merging, based on the monotonicity feature of entanglement measures, for determining combinatorial conditions that must be satisfied for any two distinct multiparticle states to be comparable under local operations and classical communication. We present several results based on the possibility or impossibility of comparability of pure multipartite states. We show that there are exponentially many such entangled multipartite states among n agents. Further, we discuss a new graph theoretic metric on a class of multipartite states, and its implications.
We develop graph theoretic methods for analysing maximally entangled pure states distributed between a number of different parties. We introduce a technique called {\it bicolored merging}, based on the monotonicity feature of entanglement measures, for determining combinatorial conditions that must be satisfied for any two distinct multiparticle states to be comparable under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We present several results based on the possibility or impossibility of comparability of pure multipartite states. We show that there are exponentially many such entangled multipartite states among nnn agents. Further, we discuss a new graph theoretic metric on a class of multi-partite states, and its implications.
Entanglement is one of the fundamental features of quantum information science.\nThough bipartite entanglement has been analyzed thoroughly in theory and shown to\nbe an important resource in quantum computation and communication protocols, the\ntheory of entanglement shared between more than two parties, which is called multipartite\nentanglement, is still not complete. Specifically, the classification of multipartite\nentanglement and the transformation property between different multipartite states by\nlocal operators and classical communications (LOCC) are two fundamental questions in\nthe theory of multipartite entanglement.\nIn this thesis, we present results related to the LOCC transformation between multipartite\nentangled states. Firstly, we investigate the bounds on the LOCC transformation\nprobability between multipartite states, especially the GHZ class states. By analyzing\nthe involvement of 3-tangle and other entanglement measures under weak two-outcome\nmeasurement, we derive explicit upper and lower bound on the transformation probability\nbetween GHZ class states. After that, we also analyze the transformation between\nN-party W type states, which is a special class of multipartite entangled states that\nhas an explicit unique expression and a set of analytical entanglement monotones. We\npresent a necessary and sufficient condition for a known upper bound of transformation\nprobability between two N-party W type states to be achieved.\nWe also further investigate a novel entanglement transformation protocol, the random\ndistillation, which transforms multipartite entanglement into bipartite entanglement\nii\nshared by a non-deterministic pair of parties. We find upper bounds for the random distillation\nprotocol for general N-party W type states and find the condition for the upper\nbounds to be achieved. What is surprising is that the upper bounds correspond to entanglement\nmonotones that can be increased by Separable Operators (SEP), which gives\nthe first set of analytical entanglement monotones that can be increased by SEP.\nFinally, we investigate the idea of a new class of multipartite entangled states, the\nAbsolutely Maximal Entangled (AME) states, which is characterized by the fact that\nany bipartition of the states would give a maximal entangled state between the two sets.\nThe relationship between AME states and Quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols is\nexhibited and the application of AME states in novel quantum communication protocols\nis also explored.
Understanding multipartite entanglement is a key goal in quantum information. Entanglement in pure states can be characterized by considering transformations under local operations assisted by classical communication (LOCC). However, it has been shown that, for $n\ensuremath{\ge}5$ parties, multipartite pure states are generically isolated, i.e., they can be neither reached nor transformed under LOCC. Nonetheless, in any real laboratory, one never deterministically transforms a pure initial state exactly to a pure target state. Instead, one transforms a mixed state near the initial state to an ensemble that is on average close to the target state. This motivates studying approximate LOCC transformations. After reviewing in detail the known results in the bipartite case, we present the gaps that remain open in the multipartite case. While the analysis of the multipartite setting is much more technically involved due to the existence of different stochastic LOCC (SLOCC) classes, certain features simplify in the approximate setting. In particular, we show that it is sufficient to consider pure initial states, that it is sufficient to consider LOCC protocols with finitely many rounds of communication, and that approximate transformations can be approximated by ensemble transformations within an SLOCC class. Then we formally define a hierarchy of different forms of approximate transformations that are relevant from a physical point of view. Whereas this hierarchy collapses in the bipartite case, we show that this is not the case for the multipartite setting, which is fundamentally richer. To wit, we show that optimal multipartite approximate transformations are not generally deterministic, that ensemble transformations within an SLOCC class can achieve a higher fidelity than deterministic transformations within an SLOCC class, and that there are approximate transformations with no deterministic transformations nearby.
Local operations assisted by classical communication (LOCC) constitute the free operations in entanglement theory. Hence, the determination of LOCC transformations is crucial for the understanding of entanglement. We characterize here almost all LOCC transformations among pure multipartite multilevel states. Combined with the analogous results for qubit states shown by Gour \emph{et al.} [J. Math. Phys. 58, 092204 (2017)], this gives a characterization of almost all local transformations among multipartite pure states. We show that nontrivial LOCC transformations among generic, fully entangled, pure states are almost never possible. Thus, almost all multipartite states are isolated. They can neither be deterministically obtained from local-unitary-inequivalent (LU-inequivalent) states via local operations, nor can they be deterministically transformed to pure, fully entangled LU-inequivalent states. In order to derive this result, we prove a more general statement, namely, that, generically, a state possesses no nontrivial local symmetry. We discuss further consequences of this result for the characterization of optimal, probabilistic single copy and probabilistic multi-copy LOCC transformations and the characterization of LU-equivalence classes of multipartite pure states.
Computations in a distributed environment comprising a network of spatially separated nodes may require the exchange of classical and quantum information. The amount of classical communication may be reduced in such computations by using multipartite entanglement. Following the combinatorial approach developed in [25, 27], we study entanglement configurations over a set of nodes, where each entanglement configuration is a collection of multipartite entanglement (CAT or GHZ) states shared within different combinations of subsets of nodes. The main problem is to determine whether LOCC transformations can generate an entanglement configuration B from another entanglement configuration A, written as B < LOCC A. We characterize the resulting partial order introduced on unitarily equivalent classes of entanglement configurations due to LOCC transformations. This study includes the communication complexity of generating higher cardinality multipartite CAT states from smaller sized CAT state configurations. We also study classes of incomparable entanglement configurations where no pair (A, B) of configurations satisfies A < LOCC B. This leads us to investigate certain combinatorial properties of hypergraphs and hypertrees following initial results in [25, 27]. We study the unique reconstruction of vertex labelled r‐uniform hypertrees on n vertices, where r ⩽ n is a constant, and each hyperedge has the same number r, of vertices. We conclude by discussing several problems and open questions in the context of entanglement configurations.
We exactly evaluate a number of multipartite entanglement measures for a class of graph states, including d -dimensional cluster states ( d = 1,2,3), the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger states, and some related mixed states. The entanglement measures that we consider are continuous, 'distance from separable states' measures, including the relative entropy, the so-called geometric measure, and robustness of entanglement. We also show that for our class of graph states these entanglement values give an operational interpretation as the maximal number of graph states distinguishable by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), as well as supplying a tight bound on the fixed letter classical capacity under LOCC decoding.