Chapter 9 introduces the framework of static quantum resource theories, which provide a structured approach for studying different types of quantum resources like entanglement and coherence. The chapter begins by laying out the structure of quantum resource theories, defining what constitutes a quantum resource and how it can be quantified, manipulated, and converted. The text discusses the role of free states and free operations in resource theories, as they form the basis for comparing resources. It introduces state-based resource theories, which focus on the resource content of quantum states, and affine resource theories, which are used to study various interconversions of quantum resources. Resource witnesses, a key concept, are explored as tools to detect the presence of a resource within a quantum state.
Chapter 9 introduces the framework of static quantum resource theories, which provide a structured approach for studying different types of quantum resources like entanglement and coherence. The chapter begins by laying out the structure of quantum resource theories, defining what constitutes a quantum resource and how it can be quantified, manipulated, and converted. The text discusses the role of free states and free operations in resource theories, as they form the basis for comparing resources. It introduces state-based resource theories, which focus on the resource content of quantum states, and affine resource theories, which are used to study various interconversions of quantum resources. Resource witnesses, a key concept, are explored as tools to detect the presence of a resource within a quantum state.
Quantum physics currently provides our deepest description of nature. To understand precisely how it differs from classical physics is not only of foundational interest, but also important to advance technology: the advent of quantum information has led to the insight that certain quantum phenomena, e.g., entanglement and coherence, are resources which enable us to solve practical tasks that are unsolvable within the realm of classical physics. But how can we quantify quantum resources and how do we decide which resource is relevant for a specific operational advantage in quantum cryptography, quantum computation, or quantum metrology? How can we employ these resources optimally? Addressing these questions is the motivation for the development of quantum resource theories, a mathematically rigorous framework that allows us to investigate a specific quantum phenomenon as a resource. Formally, such theories emerge from restrictions which are imposed in addition to the laws of quantum mechanics. A prominent example is the restriction to local operations and classical communication, which singles out entanglement as a resource. Typically, such theories describe the value of quantum states, i.e., static resources. An important question in such theories concerns their structure as determined by the restriction under consideration, which is analyzed for coherence theory on qubits in this thesis. Only recently, so-called dynamical resource theories that quantify the value of operations were proposed, which are advantageous for several reasons: they include resource theories of states as special cases, allow us to quantify additional quantum properties such as the detection or usage of static resources, which will be a main topic of this thesis, and are more natural from an operational perspective. But are different types of dynamical resources present in quantum operations related? For the case of dynamical coherence and entanglement, it will be shown that there is not only a quantitative, but also a qualitative connection.
Chapter 10 delves into the quantification of quantum resources, an essential aspect of quantum resource theories that determines the value of quantum states for specific applications. It begins by defining resource measures and investigating their fundamental properties such as monotonicity under free operations and convexity. The chapter discusses distance-based resource measures, which quantify how far a given quantum state is from the set of free states. Such measures often utilize divergences and metrics explored in earlier chapters. Techniques to compute the relative entropy of a resource are also covered. To refine resource measures, the chapter introduces the concept of smoothing, which considers small deviations from the ideal state to make the measures more robust against perturbations. This approach is crucial in single-shot scenarios where finite resources are available. Furthermore, the chapter examines resource monotones and support functions, offering a comprehensive framework for the theoretical and practical assessment of quantum resources.
Quantum resource theories provide a unifying framework to quantify, compare, and manipulate quantum resources under well-defined operational constraints. Here, we consider any resource theory where the set of free states can be expressed as a convex combination of a set of quantum states, referred to as extremal states and name them as polytopic quantum resource theories (PQRT). These include some of the most studied resource theories, such as coherence and magic. We formulate a novel tensorial representation of PQRTs that reveals the underlying geometry of these theories and provides insight into the origin of the resources. We further address a fundamental question in resource theories that when two theories should be regarded as physically equivalent, and to this purpose we introduce notions of homomorphism and isomorphism that compare both the structure of free states and the allowed transformations. Using the tools we develop, we find results revealing the geometrical and structural foundations of such theories. Interestingly, we find that all polytopic resource theories with a fixed number of pure extremal points are equivalent under a physical map, up to normalisation. Additionally, we introduce linearly independent polytopic resource theories (resource theory of ``basis-non-convexity''), where the set of extremal free states forms a basis of the quantum density operators. We further study the categorical structures of PQRTs beyond single systems.
It was recently realized that many quantum phenomena, such as entanglement or non-locality, can be expressed in the framework of quantum resource theories (QRTs) as resources that can be expended to perform tasks. This approach has revolutionized our understanding of these phenomena and has provided a framework to rigorously characterize them, quantify them, and study the question of convertibility of resources within them. Moreover, this framework has enabled the discovery of similar structures common to many QRTs, and thus offered a better and deeper understanding of the phenomena they describe. Most of the research that has been done so far in the area of QRTs has been concerned with resource theories of states, that is, where the objects in the QRT are static resources that are divided among free and resource states. Free operations, defined as quantum channels that do not generate resources, are used to transform these states. However, this concept can be generalized to include dynamical resources, or non-free operations. We call the resource theories that arise from this, QRTs of quantum processes. This thesis introduces different QRTs of quantum processes that we call QRTs of non-projectiveness. More precisely, these are QRTs where projective measurements are considered free. There are different resource theories that arise based on exactly which additional operations are allowed and whether quantum measurements are described with a classical output, a quantum output, or both. This research looks into four such QRTs of non-projectiveness.
One of the main goals of any resource theory such as entanglement, quantum thermodynamics, quantum coherence, and asymmetry, is to find necessary and sufficient conditions that determine whether one resource can be converted to another by the set of free operations. Here we find such conditions for a large class of quantum resource theories which we call affine resource theories. Affine resource theories include the resource theories of athermality, asymmetry, and coherence, but not entanglement. Remarkably, the necessary and sufficient conditions can be expressed as a family of inequalities between resource monotones (quantifiers) that are given in terms of the conditional min-entropy. The set of free operations is taken to be (1) the maximal set (i.e., consists of all resource nongenerating quantum channels) or (2) the self-dual set of free operations (i.e., consists of all resource nongenerating maps for which the dual map is also resource nongenerating). As an example, we apply our results to quantum thermodynamics with Gibbs preserving operations, and several other affine resource theories. Finally, we discuss the applications of these results to resource theories that are not affine and, along the way, provide the necessary and sufficient conditions that a quantum resource theory consists of a resource destroying map.
Any quantum resource theory is based on free states and free operations, i.e., states and operations which can be created and performed at no cost. In the resource theory of coherence free states are diagonal in some fixed basis, and free operations are those which cannot create coherence for some particular experimental realization. Recently, some problems of this approach have been discussed, and new sets of operations have been proposed to resolve these problems. As an example for such a problem, a quantum operation can be incoherent in one particular experimental realization, but it still can create large amount of coherence in another. This problem is resolved by the framework of genuine quantum coherence. Here, we investigate this concept further and study other more general sets of operations which cannot create coherence in any experimental realization. We analyze in detail the mathematical structure of this class of maps and use this to study possible state transformations under these operations. We show that deterministic manipulation is severely limited, even in the asymptotic settings. In particular, this framework does not have a unique golden unit, i.e., there is no single state from which all other states can be created deterministically with the free operations. On the other hand, we show that these theories allow for a richer structure in what comes to stochastic manipulation of states. In particular, we determine the optimal probability of conversion among pure states with genuinely incoherent operations. Still, the aforementioned limitations suggest that any reasonably powerful resource theory of coherence must contain free operations which can potentially create coherence in some experimental realization.