Extreme points of sets of absolutely separable and positive partial transpose states

Lin Chen, Dragomir Ž. Djoković

Woo Chan Kim, Seung-Hyeok Kye

Anh T. Tran

A quantum state is called absolutely separable (resp. absolutely positive partial transpose (APPT)) if it remains separable (resp. positive partial transpose (PPT)) under any global unitary transformation. It is known that the set of all absolutely separable states is a subset of the set of all APPT states. Moreover, these two sets are identical for qubit-qudit systems. In this note, we give an upper bound for the purity of APPT bipartite states (and therefore for the purity of absolutely separable bipartite states). For qubit-qudit systems, this upper bound becomes the maximum purity of APPT (and absolutely separable) states.

Song, Zhiwei, Lin Chen

The absolutely separable (resp. PPT) states remain separable (resp. positive partial transpose) under any global unitary operation. We present a compact form of the extreme points in the sets of absolutely separable states and PPT states in two-qubit and qubit-qudit systems. The results imply that each extreme point has at most three distinct eigenvalues. We establish a necessary and sufficient condition for determining extreme points of the set of absolutely PPT states in two-qutrit and qutrit-qudit systems, expressed as solvable linear equations. We also demonstrate that any extreme point in qutrit-qudit system has at most seven distinct eigenvalues. We introduce the concept of robustness of nonabsolute separability. It quantifies the minimal amount by which a state needs to mix with other states such that the overall state is absolutely separable. We show that the robustness satisfies positivity, invariance under unitary transformation, monotonicity and convexity, so it is a good measure within the resource theory of nonabsolute separability. Analytical expressions for this measure are given for pure states in arbitrary system and rank-two mixed states in two-qubit system.

Satyabrata Adhikari

Nalan Wang, Lin Chen, Zhiwei Song

Whether the sets of absolutely separable (AS) and absolutely two-qutrit positive-partial-transpose (AP) states are the same has been an open problem in entanglement theory for decades. Since they are both convex sets, we investigate the boundary and extreme points of full-rank two-qutrit AP states with exactly three distinct eigenvalues. We show that every boundary point is an extreme point, with exactly one exception. We explicitly characterize the expressions of such points, each of which turns out to contain at most one parameter in some intervals. When the parameter approaches the ends of intervals, most points become the known extreme points of exactly two distinct eigenvalues. We present our results by tables and figures.