At the heart of the curious phenomenon of quantum entanglement lies the relation between the whole and its parts. In my thesis, I explore different aspects of this theme in the multipartite setting by drawing connections to concepts from statistics, graph theory, and quantum error-correcting codes: first, I address the case when joint quantum states are determined by their few-body parts and by Jaynes’ maximum entropy principle. This can be seen as an extension of the notion of entanglement, with less complex states already being determined by their few-body marginals. Second, I address the conditions for certain highly entangled multipartite states to exist. In particular, I present the solution of a long-standing open problem concerning the existence of an absolutely maximally entangled state on seven qubits. This sheds light on the algebraic properties of pure quantum states, and on the conditions that constrain the sharing of entanglement amongst multiple particles. Third, I investigate Ulam’s graph reconstruction problems in the quantum setting, and obtain legitimacy conditions of a set of states to be the reductions of a joint graph state. Lastly, I apply and extend the weight enumerator machinery from quantum error correction to investigate the existence of codes and highly entangled states in higher dimensions. This clarifies the physical interpretation of the weight enumerators and of the quantum MacWilliams identity, leading to novel applications in multipartite entanglement.
At the heart of the curious phenomenon of quantum entanglement lies the relation between the whole and its parts. In my thesis, I explore different aspects of this theme in the multipartite setting by drawing connections to concepts from statistics, graph theory, and quantum error-correcting codes: first, I address the case when joint quantum states are determined by their few-body parts and by Jaynes’ maximum entropy principle. This can be seen as an extension of the notion of entanglement, with less complex states already being determined by their few-body marginals. Second, I address the conditions for certain highly entangled multipartite states to exist. In particular, I present the solution of a long-standing open problem concerning the existence of an absolutely maximally entangled state on seven qubits. This sheds light on the algebraic properties of pure quantum states, and on the conditions that constrain the sharing of entanglement amongst multiple particles. Third, I investigate Ulam’s graph reconstruction problems in the quantum setting, and obtain legitimacy conditions of a set of states to be the reductions of a joint graph state. Lastly, I apply and extend the weight enumerator machinery from quantum error correction to investigate the existence of codes and highly entangled states in higher dimensions. This clarifies the physical interpretation of the weight enumerators and of the quantum MacWilliams identity, leading to novel applications in multipartite entanglement.
Abstract Provided a complete set of putative k -body reductions of a multipartite quantum state, can one determine if a joint state exists? We derive necessary conditions for this to be true. In contrast to what is known as the quantum marginal problem, we consider a setting where the labeling of the subsystems is unknown. The problem can be seen in analogy to Ulam’s reconstruction conjecture in graph theory. The conjecture—still unsolved—claims that every graph on at least three vertices can uniquely be reconstructed from the set of its vertex-deleted subgraphs. When considering quantum states, we demonstrate that the non-existence of joint states can, in some cases, already be inferred from a set of marginals having the size of just more than half of the parties. We apply these methods to graph states, where many constraints can be evaluated by knowing the number of stabilizer elements of certain weights that appear in the reductions. This perspective links with constraints that were derived in the context of quantum error-correcting codes and polynomial invariants. Some of these constraints can be interpreted as monogamy-like relations that limit the correlations arising from quantum states. Lastly, we provide an answer to Ulam’s reconstruction problem for generic quantum states.
Provided a complete set of putative k-body reductions of a multipartite quantum state, can one determine if a joint state exists? We derive necessary conditions for this to be true. In contrast to what is known as the quantum marginal problem, we consider a setting where the labeling of the subsystems is unknown. The problem can be seen in analogy to Ulam's reconstruction conjecture in graph theory. The conjecture—still unsolved—claims that every graph on at least three vertices can uniquely be reconstructed from the set of its vertex-deleted subgraphs. When considering quantum states, we demonstrate that the non-existence of joint states can, in some cases, already be inferred from a set of marginals having the size of just more than half of the parties. We apply these methods to graph states, where many constraints can be evaluated by knowing the number of stabilizer elements of certain weights that appear in the reductions. This perspective links with constraints that were derived in the context of quantum error-correcting codes and polynomial invariants. Some of these constraints can be interpreted as monogamy-like relations that limit the correlations arising from quantum states. Lastly, we provide an answer to Ulam's reconstruction problem for generic quantum states.
Clarifying the relation between the whole and its parts is crucial for many problems in science. In quantum mechanics, this question manifests itself in the quantum marginal problem, which asks whether there is a global pure quantum state for some given marginals. This problem arises in many contexts, ranging from quantum chemistry to entanglement theory and quantum error correcting codes. In this paper, we prove a correspondence of the marginal problem to the separability problem. Based on this, we describe a sequence of semidefinite programs which can decide whether some given marginals are compatible with some pure global quantum state. As an application, we prove that the existence of multiparticle absolutely maximally entangled states for a given dimension is equivalent to the separability of an explicitly given two-party quantum state. Finally, we show that the existence of quantum codes with given parameters can also be interpreted as a marginal problem, hence, our complete hierarchy can also be used.
Most applications in quantum information processing make either explicit or implicit use of entanglement. It is thus important to have a good understanding of entanglement and the role it plays in these protocols. However, especially when it comes to multipartite entanglement, there still remain a lot of mysteries. This thesis is devoted to getting a better understanding of multipartite entanglement, and its role in various quantum information protocols.\n\nFirst, we investigate transformations between multipartite entangled states that only use local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We mostly focus on three qubit states in the GHZ class, and derive upper and lower bounds for the successful transformation probability between two states.\n\nWe then focus on absolutely maximally entangled (AME) states, which are highly entangled multipartite states that have the property that they are maximally entangled for any bipartition. With them as a resource, we develop new parallel teleportation protocols, which can then be used to implement quantum secret sharing (QSS) schemes. We further prove the existence of AME states for any number of parties, if the dimension of the involved quantum systems is chosen appropriately. An equivalence between threshold QSS schemes and AME states shared between an even number of parties is established, and further protocols are designed, such as constructing ramp QSS schemes and open-destination teleportation protocols with AME states as a resource.\n\nAs a framework to work with AME states, graph states are explored. They allow for efficient bipartite entanglement verification, which makes them a promising candidate for the description of AME states. We show that for all currently known AME states, absolutely maximally entangled graph states can be found, and we were even able to use graph states to find a new AME state for seven three-dimensional systems (qutrits). In addition, the implementation of QSS schemes from AME states can be conveniently described within the graph state formalism.\n\nFinally, we use the insight gained from entanglement in QSS schemes to derive necessary and sufficient conditions for quantum erasure channel and quantum error correction codes that satisfy the quantum Singleton bound, as these codes are closely related to ramp QSS schemes. This provides us with a very intuitive approach to codes for the quantum erasure channel, purely based on the entanglement required to protect information against losses by use of the parallel teleportation protocol.
Subsystems of composite quantum systems are described by reduced density matrices, or quantum marginals. Important physical properties often do not depend on the whole wave function but rather only on the marginals. Not every collection of reduced density matrices can arise as the marginals of a quantum state. Instead, there are profound compatibility conditions -- such as Pauli's exclusion principle or the monogamy of quantum entanglement -- which fundamentally influence the physics of many-body quantum systems and the structure of quantum information. The aim of this thesis is a systematic and rigorous study of the general relation between multipartite quantum states, i.e., states of quantum systems that are composed of several subsystems, and their marginals. In the first part, we focus on the one-body marginals of multipartite quantum states; in the second part, we study general quantum marginals from the perspective of entropy.
Quantum information science has grown from being a very small subfield in the 70s until being one of the most dynamic fields in physics, both in fundamentals and applications. In the theoretical section, perhaps the feature that has attracted most interest is the notion of entanglement, the ghostly relation between particles that dazzled Einstein and has provided fabulous challenges to build a coherent interpretation of quantum mechanics. While not completely solved, we have today learned enough to feel less uneasy with this fundamental problem, and the focus has shifted towards its potential powerful applications. Entanglement is now being studied from different perspectives as a resource for performing information processing tasks.\n\n\t\t\t\t With bipartite entanglement being largely understood nowadays, many questions remain unanswered in the multipartite case. The first part of this thesis deals with multipartite entanglement in different contexts. In the first chapters it is studied within the whole corresponding Hilbert space, and we investigate several entanglement measures searching for states that maximize them, including violations of Bell inequalities. Later, focus is shifted towards hamiltonians that have entangled ground states, and we investigate entanglement as a way to establish a distance between theories and we study frustration and methods to efficiently solve hamiltonians that exhibit it.\n\n\t\t\t\t In the practical section, the most promised upcoming technological advance is the advent of quantum computers. In the 90s some quantum algorithms improving the performance of all known classical algorithms for certain problems started to appear, while in the 2000s the first universal computers of few atoms began to be built, allowing implementation of those algorithms in small scales. The D-Wave machine already performs quantum annealing in thousands of qubits, although some controversy over the true quantumness of its internal workings surrounds it. Many countries in the planet are devoting large amounts of money to this field, with the recent European flagship and the involvement of the largest US technological companies giving reasons for optimism.\n\n\t\t\t\t The second part of this thesis deals with some aspects of quantum computation, starting with the creation of the field of cloud quantum computation with the appearance of the first computer available to the general public through internet, which we have used and analysed extensively. Also small incursions in quantum adiabatic computation and quantum thermodynamics are present in this second part.