Multipartite entanglement is the premier resource for quantum technologies. Yet, its exact quantification in the laboratory is notoriously challenging, typically requiring the full knowledge of high dimensional quantum states. Here, we construct observable bounds to multipartite entanglement for systems of arbitrary size, which are functions of the local and global state purities, and correlation functions. First, we derive experimentally accessible upper and lower limits to both the bipartite entanglement of formation and the squashed entanglement of bipartite systems, by leveraging cornerstone results of quantum information theory: the entropy strong subadditivity inequality and the Koashi-Winter monogamy relation. Then, we convert them into bounds to the entanglement up to degree k for arbitrary states, and to the genuine k-partite entanglement, by employing a recently proposed method. Finally, we analytically and numerically test these results, by bounding the multipartite entanglement of several relevant states and mixtures, including the important classes of GHZ, Dicke, W states, and random pure states.
We construct a simplex for multipartite qubit states of even number
n of qubits, which has the same geometry concerning separability, mixedness, kind of entanglement, amount of entanglement, and nonlocality as the bipartite qubit states. We derive the entanglement of the class of states which can be described by only three real parameters with the help of a multipartite measure for all discrete systems. We prove that the bounds on this measure are optimal for the whole class of states and that it reveals that the states possess only
n-partite entanglement and not, e.g., bipartite entanglement. We then show that this
n-partite entanglement can be increased by stochastic local operations and classical communication to the purest maximal entangled states. However, pure
n-partite entanglement cannot be distilled; consequently all entangled states in the simplex are
n-partite bound entangled. We study also Bell inequalities and find the same geometry as for bipartite qubits. Moreover, we show how the (hidden) nonlocality for all
n-partite bound entangled states can be revealed.
Based on the quantitative complementarity relations, we analyze thoroughly the properties of multipartite quantum correlation and entanglement in four-qubit pure states. It is found that, unlike the three-qubit case, the single residual correlation and the genuine correlations of three and four qubits are unable to quantify entanglement appropriately. More interestingly, from our qualitative and numerical analysis, it is conjectured that the sum of all residual correlations is a good quantity for characterizing the multipartite entanglement in the system.
We consider pure quantum states of N>>1 spins or qubits and study the average entanglement that can be localized between two separated spins by performing local measurements on the other individual spins. We show that all classical correlation functions provide lower bounds to this localizable entanglement, which follows from the observation that classical correlations can always be increased by doing appropriate local measurements on the other qubits. We analyze the localizable entanglement in familiar spin systems and illustrate the results on the hand of the Ising spin model, in which we observe characteristic features for a quantum phase transition such as a diverging entanglement length.