Modules and extremal completely positive maps

E. Haapasalo, Teiko Heinosaari, Juha-Pekka Pellonpää

We will consider completely positive maps defined on tensor products of von Neumann algebras and taking values in the algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space and particularly certain convex subsets of the set of such maps. We show that when one of the marginal maps of such a map is an extreme point, then the marginals uniquely determine the map. We will further prove that when both of the marginals are extreme, then the whole map is extreme. We show that this general result is the common source of several well-known results dealing with, e.g., jointly measurable observables. We also obtain new insight especially in the realm of quantum instruments and their marginal observables and channels.

Alexander Müller‐Hermes

It is a well-known result due to Størmer [Acta Math. 110, 233–278 (1963)] that every positive qubit map is decomposable into a sum of a completely positive map and a completely copositive map. Here, we generalize this result to tensor squares of qubit maps. Specifically, we show that any positive tensor product of a qubit map with itself is decomposable. This solves a recent conjecture by Filippov and Magadov [J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 50(5), 055301 (2017)]. We contrast this result with examples of non-decomposable positive maps arising as the tensor product of two distinct qubit maps or as the tensor square of a decomposable map from a qubit to a ququart. To show our main result, we reduce the problem to Pauli diagonal maps. We then characterize the cone of decomposable ququart Pauli diagonal maps by determining all 252 extremal rays of ququart Pauli diagonal maps that are both completely positive and completely copositive. These extremal rays split into three disjoint orbits under a natural symmetry group, and two of these orbits contain only entanglement breaking maps. Finally, we develop a general combinatorial method to determine the extremal rays of Pauli diagonal maps that are both completely positive and completely copositive between multi-qubit systems using the ordered spectra of their Choi matrices. Classifying these extremal rays beyond ququarts is left as an open problem.

Jaromı́r Fiurášek

We derive an extremal equation for an optimal completely positive map, which most closely approximates a given transformation between pure quantum states. Moreover, we also obtain an upper bound on the maximal mean fidelity that can be attained by the optimal approximate transformation. The developed formalism is applied to a universal-NOT gate, quantum cloning machines, quantum entanglers, and a qubit \ensuremath{\vartheta} shifter.