In quantum information theory, the state space of a multipartite quantum system is modeled by a tensor product. In the tensor-product space $\C^{d_1}\otimes\cdots\otimes\C^{d_p}$, a nonzero vector is a \emph{product state} if it can be written as
∣φ1⟩⊗⋯⊗∣φp⟩ with $\ket{\varphi_j}\in\C^{d_j}\setminus\{0\}$. An \emph{unextendible product basis} (UPB) is a finite family of pairwise orthogonal product states such that no nonzero product state is orthogonal to all of them. UPBs play a key role in investigating quantum entanglement and nonlocal phenomena. Finding a smallest UPB is a natural extremal problem: it asks how few pairwise orthogonal product states suffice to prevent any further product state from being added. The general minimum-size problem for UPBs has been studied for over two decades since the seminal work of Alon and Lovász.
Let
fm(d1,…,dp) be the minimum cardinality of a UPB in the space, and let
fLB(d1,…,dp)=1+∑j=1p(dj−1) be the natural lower bound. Alon and Lovász determined exactly when
fm attains the lower bound
fLB, but the obstructed multipartite cases remained open in general.
We prove a stabilization theorem: for every non-all-qubit system with
p≥3, whenever the natural lower bound
fLB is unattainable, the true minimum is exactly
fLB+1. Precisely, if the number of even local dimensions
di is positive and even, and at least one local dimension is greater than two, then
fm(d1,…,dp)=fLB(d1,…,dp)+1. The proof is built on a unified graph-theoretic framework. Our result, together with earlier work, settles the minimum size problem for UPBs in all finite quantum systems.
We investigate the problem of constructing unextendible product bases in the qubit case - that is, when each local dimension equals 2. The cardinality of the smallest unextendible product basis is known in all qubit cases except when the number of parties is a multiple of 4 greater than 4 itself. We construct small unextendible product bases in all of the remaining open cases, and we use graph theory techniques to produce a computer-assisted proof that our constructions are indeed the smallest possible.
Unextendible product bases (UPBs) provide a versatile tool with various applications across different areas of quantum information theory. Their comprehensive characterization is thus of great importance and has been a subject of vital interest for over two decades now. An open question asks about the existence of UPBs, which are genuinely unextendible, i.e., they are not extendible even with biproduct vectors. In other words, the problem is to verify whether there exist genuinely entangled subspaces (GESs), subspaces composed solely of genuinely multiparty entangled states, complementary to UPBs. We solve this problem in the negative for many sizes of UPBs in different multipartite scenarios. In particular, in the all-important case of equal local dimensions, we show that there are always forbidden cardinalities for such UPBs, including the minimal ones corresponding to GESs of the maximal dimensions.
It has remained an open question whether a genuinely unextendible product basis (GUPB) exists. We resolve this problem by constructing an explicit three-qutrit GUPB of cardinality fourteen in the smallest tripartite Hilbert space in which a GUPB can exist. Together with the nonexistence of three-qutrit GUPBs of cardinality less than fourteen, our construction proves that fourteen is the minimum cardinality. A padding procedure further extends the construction to all tripartite systems whose local dimensions are at least three. As applications, the normalized projector onto the thirteen-dimensional orthogonal complement of the three-qutrit GUPB is positive under partial transposition and bound entangled across every bipartition, while the GUPB exhibits strong quantum nonlocality without entanglement.
Abstract Unextendible product basis is an important object in quantum information theory and features a broad spectrum of applications, ranging from quantum nonlocality to quantum cryptography. A generalized concept called uncompletable product basis also attracts much attention. In this paper, we find some unextendible product bases that are uncompletable product bases in every bipartition, which answers a 19 year-old open question proposed by DiVincenzo et al (2003 Commun. Math. Phys. 238 379–410). As a consequence, we connect such unextendible product bases to local hiding of information, positive-partial-transpose entangled states and genuinely entangled states. Furthermore, we give a sufficient condition for the existence of an unextendible product basis that is still unextendible in every bipartition, and the existence of such a UPB is another open question proposed by Demianowic et al (2018 Phys. Rev. A 98 012313). Our results advance the understanding of the geometry of unextendible product bases.