Concurrence is a widely used entanglement measure of bipartite mixed states. We propose to consider the concurrence as being defined by a quadratic form on the space of self-adjoint operators. The square root of this form determines the values of the concurrence on the pure states, while the values on the mixed states are obtained as the largest convex extension, the convex roof. This viewpoint admits a generalization. Namely, the space of self-adjoint operators and the convex cone of positive semidefinite operators contained therein can be replaced by an arbitrary real vector space containing a convex cone. Then the concurrence is determined on the extreme rays of the cone by the square root of a quadratic form, and on the rest of the cone by the convex roof. We compute this generalized concurrence in the case when the cone is a second order cone. This enables us to compute the concurrence of arbitrary bipartite mixed states of rank 2. As an application, we compute the concurrences of the density matrices of all graphs with two edges or with three edges forming a triangle. We also consider the problem of maximizing the concurrence on the set of mixed states having a fixed spectrum.
Concurrence is a widely used entanglement measure of bipartite mixed states. We propose to consider the concurrence as being defined by a quadratic form on the space of self-adjoint operators. The square root of this form determines the values of the concurrence on the pure states, while the values on the mixed states are obtained as the largest convex extension, the convex roof. This viewpoint admits a generalization. Namely, the space of self-adjoint operators and the convex cone of positive semidefinite operators contained therein can be replaced by an arbitrary real vector space containing a convex cone. Then the concurrence is determined on the extreme rays of the cone by the square root of a quadratic form, and on the rest of the cone by the convex roof. We compute this generalized concurrence in the case when the cone is a second order cone. This enables us to compute the concurrence of arbitrary bipartite mixed states of rank 2. As an application, we compute the concurrences of the density matrices of all graphs with two edges or with three edges forming a triangle. We also consider the problem of maximizing the concurrence on the set of mixed states having a fixed spectrum.
The quantification of multipartite entanglement remains a long-standing open challenge in quantum information theory with major implications for quantum foundations and quantum technologies. In the context of three-qubit pure states, the concurrence triangle underlies geometric interpretations for a variety of multipartite entanglement measures. In particular, the concurrence fill, which is proportional to the square root of the area of the concurrence triangle, has been shown to be a valid measure of genuine tripartite entanglement. As a result, there is now significant interest in extending the concurrence triangle and concurrence fill to three-qubit mixed states. In this work, we show that any rank-2 three-qubit mixed state can be visualized in terms of concurrence prisms associated with their pure state decompositions. Thus, the concurrence fill of the mixed state obtained through convex-roof extension is proportional to the total prism fill area, defined as the square root of the base area times the height, associated with the prisms minimized over all pure state decompositions. We then consider three-qubit mixed states that are incoherent mixtures of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) and W states and analytically perform their convex-roof extension to obtain a closed-form expression for the concurrence fill of these rank-2 mixtures. Finally, we apply the geometric picture of concurrence prisms to these mixtures and their pure state decomposition corresponding to minimum concurrence fill as a tool for visualization.
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.
We present a study of extremal entanglement witnesses on a bipartite composite quantum system. We define the cone of witnesses as the dual of the set of separable density matrices, thus [Formula: see text] when [Formula: see text] is a witness and [Formula: see text] is a pure product state, [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text]. The set of witnesses of unit trace is a compact convex set, uniquely defined by its extremal points. The expectation value [Formula: see text] as a function of vectors [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] is a positive semidefinite biquadratic form. Every zero of [Formula: see text] imposes strong real-linear constraints on f and [Formula: see text]. The real and symmetric Hessian matrix at the zero must be positive semidefinite. Its eigenvectors with zero eigenvalue, if such exist, we call Hessian zeros. A zero of [Formula: see text] is quadratic if it has no Hessian zeros, otherwise it is quartic. We call a witness quadratic if it has only quadratic zeros, and quartic if it has at least one quartic zero. A main result we prove is that a witness is extremal if and only if no other witness has the same, or a larger, set of zeros and Hessian zeros. A quadratic extremal witness has a minimum number of isolated zeros depending on dimensions. If a witness is not extremal, then the constraints defined by its zeros and Hessian zeros determine all directions in which we may search for witnesses having more zeros or Hessian zeros. A finite number of iterated searches in random directions, by numerical methods, leads to an extremal witness which is nearly always quadratic and has the minimum number of zeros. We discuss briefly some topics related to extremal witnesses, in particular the relation between the facial structures of the dual sets of witnesses and separable states. We discuss the relation between extremality and optimality of witnesses, and a conjecture of separability of the so-called structural physical approximation (SPA) of an optimal witness. Finally, we discuss how to treat the entanglement witnesses on a complex Hilbert space as a subset of the witnesses on a real Hilbert space.
We study extremal entanglement witnesses on a bipartite quantum system. We define the cone of witnesses as the dual of the set of separable density matrices, thus TrΩρ≥0 when Ω is a witness and ρ a pure product state, ρ=ψψ† with ψ=ϕ⊗χ. The set of witnesses of unit trace is a compact convex set, defined by its extremal points. The expectation value f(ϕ,χ)=TrΩρ as a function of ϕ and χ is a nonnegative biquadratic form. Every zero of f(ϕ,χ) imposes real-linear constraints on f and Ω. The Hessian matrix at the zero must be nonnegative. Its eigenvectors with zero eigenvalue, if any, we call Hessian zeros. A zero of f(ϕ,χ) is quadratic if it has no Hessian zeros, otherwise it is quartic. We call a witness quadratic if it has only quadratic zeros, and quartic otherwise. We prove that a witness is extremal if and only if no other witness has the same, or a larger, set of zeros and Hessian zeros. A quadratic extremal witness has a minimum number of isolated zeros depending on dimensions. If a witness is not extremal, the constraints defined by its zeros and Hessian zeros determine all directions in which to search for witnesses having more zeros or Hessian zeros. A finite number of iterated searches in random directions lead to an extremal witness which is usually quadratic with the minimum number of zeros. We discuss some topics related to extremal witnesses, in particular the relation between the facial structures of the dual sets of witnesses and separable states. We discuss the relation between extremality and optimality of witnesses, and a conjecture of separability of the structural physical approximation (SPA) of an optimal witness. We discuss how to treat the entanglement witnesses on a complex Hilbert space as witnesses on a real Hilbert space.
Abstract Genuine entanglement is the strongest form of multipartite entanglement. Genuinely entangled pure states contain entanglement in every bipartition and as such can be regarded as a valuable resource in the protocols of quantum information processing. A recent direction of research is the construction of genuinely entangled subspaces (GESs)—the class of subspaces consisting entirely of genuinely entangled pure states. In this paper we present methods of construction of such subspaces including those of maximal possible dimension. The approach is based on the composition of bipartite entangled subspaces and quantum channels of certain types. The examples include maximal subspaces for systems of three qubits, four qubits, three qutrits. We also provide lower bounds on two entanglement measures for mixed states, the concurrence and the convex-roof extended negativity, which are directly connected with the projection on GESs.
We present observable lower bounds for several bipartite entanglement measures including entanglement of formation, geometric measure of entanglement, concurrence, convex-roof extended negativity, and G concurrence. The lower bounds facilitate estimates of these entanglement measures for arbitrary finite-dimensional bipartite states. Moreover, these lower bounds can be calculated analytically from the expectation value of a single observable. Based on our results, we use several real experimental measurement data to get lower bounds of entanglement measures for these experimentally realized states. In addition, we also study the relations between entanglement measures.