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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

The controlled SWAP test for entanglement of mixed quantum states

Ruiqi Zhang, Yue-Di Qu, Shu‐Qian Shen, Ming Li, Jing Wang

Published Mar 2, 2024• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Quantum entanglement plays a key role in the field of quantum computing and quantum communication. The controlled SWAP test has been used to detect pure state entanglement ( Foulds S. et al. Quantum Sci. Technol. , 6 (2021) 035002; Beckey J. L. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. , 127 (2021) 140501). In this paper, we investigate that quantum circuits for controlled SWAP test can be used to detect the entanglement of multipartite mixed state. Based on the measured probability, we propose entanglement criteria for detecting multipartite entanglement and genuine entanglement of pure states. In addition, we give representation of the entanglement measures based on the measured probability of the controlled SWAP tests. Numerical examples are used to illustrate the efficiency of the entanglement criteria.

DOI
10.1209/0295-5075/ad2f5a

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Abstract Quantum entanglement plays a key role in the field of quantum computing and quantum communication. The controlled SWAP test has been used to detect pure state entanglement ( Foulds S. et al. Quantum Sci. Technol. , 6 (2021) 035002; Beckey J. L. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. , 127 (2021) 140501). In this paper, we investigate that quantum circuits for controlled SWAP test can be used to detect the entanglement of multipartite mixed state. Based on the measured probability, we propose entanglement criteria for detecting multipartite entanglement and genuine entanglement of pure states. In addition, we give representation of the entanglement measures based on the measured probability of the controlled SWAP tests. Numerical examples are used to illustrate the efficiency of the entanglement criteria.
Abstract Quantum entanglement is essential to the development of quantum computation, communications, and technology. The controlled SWAP test, widely used for state comparison, can be adapted to an efficient and useful test for entanglement of a pure state. Here we show that the test can evidence the presence of entanglement (and further, genuine n-qubit entanglement), can distinguish entanglement classes, and that the concurrence of a two-qubit state is related to the test’s output probabilities. We also propose a multipartite measure of entanglement that acts similarly for n-qubit states. The average number of copies of the test state required to detect entanglement decreases for larger systems, to four on average for many (n ≳ 8) qubits for maximally entangled states. For non-maximally entangled states, the number of copies required to detect entanglement increases with decreasing entanglement. Furthermore, the results are robust to second order when typical small errors are introduced to the state under investigation.
The controlled SWAP test for detecting and quantifying entanglement applied to pure qubit states is robust to small errors in the states and efficient for large multi-qubit states (Foulds et al . 2021 Quantum Sci. Technol . 6 , 035002 (doi: 10.1088/2058-9565/abe458 )). We extend this, and the related measure concentratable entanglement (CE), to enable important practical applications in quantum information processing. We investigate the lower bound of concentratable entanglement given in (Beckey et al . 2023 Phys. Rev. A 107 , 062425 (doi: 10.1103/physreva.107.062425 )) and conjecture an upper bound of the mixed-state concentratable entanglement that is robust to c-SWAP test errors. Since experimental states are always slightly mixed, our work makes the c-SWAP test and CE measure suitable for application in experiments to characterize entanglement. We further present the CE of some key higher-dimensional states such as qudit states and entangled optical states to validate the CE as a higher-dimensional measure of entanglement. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The quantum theory of light’.
Quantum entanglement is an essential resource for quantum technologies, and the controlled swap test provides a versatile tool for its detection and quantification. Here, we propose a SWAP-based entanglement witness that applies to arbitrary two-qubit states - both pure and mixed - and provides a lower bound on the concurrence. The method is resource-efficient, robust to noise, and platform-independent. As an example, we validate the approach on a room-temperature photonic chip, where the swap test is carried out using only linear and well-established integrated optical components. The robustness of the method against photonic-hardware noise is also analysed. Our results establish a simple and reliable tool for entanglement witnessing.
Multipartite entanglement plays an essential role in both quantum information science and many-body physics. Because of the exponentially large dimension and complex geometric structure of the state space, the detection of entanglement in many-body systems is extremely challenging in reality. Conventional means, like entanglement witness and entropy criterion, either highly depend on the prior knowledge of the studied systems or the detection capability is relatively weak. In this Letter, we propose a framework for designing multipartite entanglement criteria based on permutation moments, which have an effective implementation with either the generalized control-swap quantum circuits or the random unitary techniques. As an example, in the bipartite scenario, we develop an entanglement criterion that can detect bound entanglement and show strong detection capability in the multiqubit Ising model with a long-range XY Hamiltonian. In the multipartite case, the permutation-moment-based criteria can detect entangled states that are not detectable by any criteria extended from the bipartite case. Our framework also shows potential in entanglement quantification and entanglement structure detection.
Bounds analogous to entropic uncertainty relations allow one to design practical tests to detect quantum entanglement by a collective measurement performed on several copies of the state analyzed. This approach, initially worked out for pure states only [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 150502 (2011)], is extended here for mixed quantum states. We define collectibility for any mixed states of a multipartite system. Deriving bounds for collectibility for positive partially transposed states of given purity provides insight into the structure of entangled quantum states. In the case of two qubits the application of complementary measurements and coincidence based detections leads to a test of entanglement of pseudopure states.
Quantum entanglement is the fundamental hallmark of quantum mechanics and a core resource for realizing long-distance quantum communication and scalable linear quantum computing. Accordingly, the precise detection and quantitative quantification of entanglement constitute a foundational and critical problem in quantum information theory. To date, researchers have proposed numerous sufficient conditions for entanglement detection as well as a variety of entanglement measures to characterize the entanglement strength of quantum states; nevertheless, efficient and direct measurement schemes for core entanglement parameters remain underdeveloped. Based on unitary transformations and auxiliary measurements, this paper proposes a set of quantum circuit schemes capable of directly measuring the bipartite concurrence and the tripartite 3-tangle entanglement measure. By introducing auxiliary qubits and constructing specific controlled unitary operations, the proposed scheme maps the analytical expressions of the two entanglement measures onto the measurement probabilities of output states from quantum circuits. It enables efficient and direct quantitative measurement of bipartite and tripartite entanglement without performing full quantum state tomography. This work provides a feasible technical route for the experimental characterization of entanglement properties and lays a groundwork for the practical deployment of multipartite entanglement resources in quantum information processing.