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Linear and Multilinear Algebra

Positive maps of second-order cones

Roland Hildebrand

Published Oct 10, 2007• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Let and let be the n-dimensional second-order cone, or Lorentz cone. A linear map M from to is called positive if M[Lm]⊂Ln . The set of positive maps forms a convex cone, the positive cone. Its dual cone, the separable cone, is the convex hull of tensor products x⊗y, where x∈Ln , y∈Lm . The structure of the positive and the separable cones is the subject of the present contribution. We study the action of the automorphism group of the positive cone and provide a complete classification of its orbits by constructing explicitly canonical forms. This enables us to identify and to classify the extreme rays of the positive cone, as well as their dual counterparts, the largest faces of the separable cone. We also characterize positive maps which are scalable to doubly stochastic ones.

DOI
10.1080/03081080701251280

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Let and let be the n-dimensional second-order cone, or Lorentz cone. A linear map M from to is called positive if M[Lm]⊂Ln . The set of positive maps forms a convex cone, the positive cone. Its dual cone, the separable cone, is the convex hull of tensor products x⊗y, where x∈Ln , y∈Lm . The structure of the positive and the separable cones is the subject of the present contribution. We study the action of the automorphism group of the positive cone and provide a complete classification of its orbits by constructing explicitly canonical forms. This enables us to identify and to classify the extreme rays of the positive cone, as well as their dual counterparts, the largest faces of the separable cone. We also characterize positive maps which are scalable to doubly stochastic ones.
Linear maps between finite-dimensional ordered vector spaces with orders induced by proper cones C A and C B are called entanglement breaking if their partial application sends the maximal tensor product K ⊗ max C A into the minimal tensor product K ⊗ min C B for any proper cone K . We study the larger class of Lorentz-entanglement breaking maps where K is restricted to be a Lorentz cone of any dimension, i.e., any cone over a Euclidean ball. This class of maps appeared recently in the study of asymptotic entanglement annihilation and it is dual to the linear maps factoring through Lorentz cones. Our main results establish connections between these classes of maps and operator ideals studied in the theory of Banach spaces. For operators u : X → Y between finite-dimensional normed spaces X and Y we consider so-called central maps which are positive with respect to the cones C A = C X and C B = C Y . We show how to characterize when such a map factors through a Lorentz cone and when it is Lorentz-entanglement breaking by using the Hilbert-space factorization norm γ 2 and its dual ⁎ γ 2 ⁎ . We also study the class of Lorentz-entanglement annihilating maps whose local application sends the Lorentzian tensor product C A ⊗ L C A into the minimal tensor product C B ⊗ min C B . When C A is a cone over a finite-dimensional normed space and C B is a Lorentz cone itself, the central maps of this kind can be characterized by the 2-summing norm π 2 . Finally, we prove interesting connections between these classes of maps for general cones, and we identify examples with particular properties, e.g., cones with an analogue of the 2-summing property.
Drawing on results of Choi, Størmer and Woronowicz, we present a nearly complete characterization of certain important classes of positive maps. In particular, we construct a general class of positive linear maps acting between two matrix algebras ℬ( ) and ℬ( ), where and are finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. It turns out that elements of this class are characterized by operators from the dual cone of the set of all separable states on ℬ( ⊗ ). Subsequently, the relation between entanglements and positive maps is described. Finally, a new characterization of the cone ℬ( ) + ⊗ℬ( ) + is given.
Motivated by the importance of the purification principle in quantum theory and generalized probabilistic theories, we study purifications using only the geometry of a finite-dimensional proper convex cone. We prove an existence theorem for indecomposable cones and intermediate tensor cones containing the maximally entangled state; in particular, every interior point of an indecomposable homogeneous cone admits a purification. This applies to Lorentz cones, for example. We also give a criterion for uniqueness up to local automorphisms. On the boundary, we show that if every proper face of CCC is simplicial, then only pure points can admit purifications, and we demonstrate that this conclusion fails in the presence of non-simplicial faces. Examples involving positive semidefinite cones, Lorentz cones, kkk-positive maps, PPT tensors, and polyhedral cones illustrate both existence and non-uniqueness phenomena.
Let L_n be the n-dimensional Lorentz cone. A linear map M from R^m to R^n is called Lorentz-positive if M[L_m] is contained in L_n. We extend the notion of concurrence, which was initially introduced to quantify the entanglement of bipartite density matrices, to Lorentz-positive maps and provide an explicite formula for it. This allows us to obtain formulae for the concurrence of arbitrary positive operators taking 2 x 2 complex hermitian matrices as input and consequently of arbitrary bipartite density matrices of rank 2. Namely, let P: H(2) \to H(d) be a positive operator, and let λ_1,...,λ_4 be the generalized eigenvalues of the pencil σ_2(P(X)) - λdet X, in decreasing order, where σ_2 is the second symmetric function of the spectrum. Then the concurrence is given by the expression C(P;X) = 2\sqrt{σ_2(P(X)) - λ_2 det X}. As an application, we compute the concurrences of the density matrices of all graphs with 2 edges. Similar results apply for a function which we call I-fidelity, with the second largest generalized eigenvalue λ_2 replaced by the smallest eigenvalue λ_4.