We investigate the decoherence dynamics of a class of multi-particle entangled states - graph states - when subjected to individual noise processes. Recent analytical results for Pauli noise channels are summarized here. The power of this technique is demonstrated by making numerical calculations of entanglement for a relatively large system, which would be extremely tedious by brute force techniques alone. The results are numerically extended to linear graph states subjected to the generalized amplitude damping noise channel, which is an important case of a non-pauli noise channel. For small system sizes of linear graph states, the exact entanglement together with the lower and upper bounds are plotted. It is shown that in the limit of an in¯nite heat bath all these bounds coincide to give the exact entanglement decay.
We investigate the decoherence dynamics of a class of multi-particle entangled states - graph states - when subjected to individual noise processes. Recent analytical results for Pauli noise channels are summarized here. The power of this technique is demonstrated by making numerical calculations of entanglement for a relatively large system, which would be extremely tedious by brute force techniques alone. The results are numerically extended to linear graph states subjected to the generalized amplitude damping noise channel, which is an important case of a non-pauli noise channel. For small system sizes of linear graph states, the exact entanglement together with the lower and upper bounds are plotted. It is shown that in the limit of an in¯nite heat bath all these bounds coincide to give the exact entanglement decay.
We consider graph states of an arbitrary number of particles undergoing generic decoherence. We present methods to obtain lower and upper bounds for the system's entanglement in terms of that of considerably smaller subsystems. For an important class of noisy channels, namely, the Pauli maps, these bounds coincide and thus provide the exact analytical expression for the entanglement evolution. All of the results apply also to (mixed) graph-diagonal states and hold true for any convex entanglement monotone. Since any state can be locally depolarized to some graph-diagonal state, our method provides a lower bound for the entanglement decay of any arbitrary state. Finally, this formalism also allows for the direct identification of the robustness under size scaling of graph states in the presence of decoherence, merely by inspection of their connectivities.
A general method for the study of the entanglement evolution of graph states under the action of Pauli maps was recently proposed in Cavalcanti et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 030502 (2009)]. This method is based on lower and upper bounds to the entanglement of the entire state as a function only of the state of a (typically) considerably smaller subsystem undergoing an effective noise process related to the original map. This provides a huge decrease in the size of the matrices involved in the calculation of entanglement in these systems. In the present paper we elaborate on this method in detail and generalize it to other natural situations not described by Pauli maps. Specifically, for Pauli maps we introduce an explicit formula for the characterization of the resulting effective noise. Beyond Pauli maps, we show that the same ideas can be applied to the case of thermal reservoirs at arbitrary temperature. In the latter case, we discuss how to optimize the bounds as a function of the noise strength. We illustrate our ideas with explicit exemplary results for several different graphs and particular decoherence processes. The limitations of the method are also discussed.
We investigate entanglement properties of multipartite states under the influence of decoherence. We show that the lifetime of (distillable) entanglement for Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) -type superposition states decreases with the size of the system, while for a class of other states---namely, all graph states with constant degree---the lifetime is independent of the system size. We show that these results are largely independent of the specific decoherence model and are in particular valid for all models which deal with individual couplings of particles to independent environments, described by some quantum optical master equation of Lindblad form. For GHZ states, we derive analytic expressions for the lifetime of distillable entanglement and determine when the state becomes fully separable. For all graph states, we derive lower and upper bounds on the lifetime of entanglement. The lower bound is based on a specific distillation protocol, while upper bounds are obtained by showing that states resulting from decoherence in general become nondistillable or even separable after a finite time. This is done using different methods, namely, (i) the map describing the decoherence process (e.g., the action of a thermal bath on the system) becomes entanglement breaking, (ii) the resulting state becomes separable, and (iii) the partial transposition with respect to certain partitions becomes positive. To this aim, we establish a method to calculate the spectrum of the partial transposition for all mixed states which are diagonal in a graph-state basis. We also consider entanglement between different groups of particles and determine the corresponding lifetimes as well as the change of the kind of entanglement with time. This enables us to investigate the behavior of entanglement under rescaling and in the limit of large number of particles $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\infty}}$. Finally we investigate the lifetime of encoded quantum superposition states and show that one can define an effective time in the encoded system which can be orders of magnitude smaller than the physical time. This provides an alternative view on quantum error correction and examples of states whose lifetime of entanglement (between groups of particles) in fact increases with the size of the system.
Characterizing large noisy multiparty quantum states using genuine multipartite entanglement is a challenging task. In this paper, we calculate lower bounds of genuine multipartite entanglement localized over a chosen multiparty subsystem of multiqubit stabilizer states in the noiseless and noisy scenarios. In the absence of noise, adopting a graph-based technique, we perform the calculation for arbitrary graph states as representatives of the stabilizer states and show that the graph operations required for the calculation have a polynomial scaling with the system size. As demonstrations, we compute the localized genuine multipartite entanglement over subsystems of large graphs having linear, ladder, and square structures. We also extend the calculation for graph states subjected to single-qubit Markovian or non-Markovian Pauli noise on all qubits and demonstrate, for a specific lower bound of the localizable genuine multipartite entanglement corresponding to a specific Pauli measurement setup, the existence of a critical noise strength beyond which all of the postmeasured states are biseparable. The calculation is also useful for arbitrary large stabilizer states under noise due to the local unitary connection between stabilizer states and graph states. We demonstrate this by considering a toric code defined on a square lattice and computing a lower bound of localizable genuine multipartite entanglement over a nontrivial loop of the code. Similar to the graph states, we show the existence of the critical noise strength in this case also and discuss its interesting features.
Graph states are entangled states that are essential for quantum information processing. As experimental advances enable the realization of large-scale graph states, efficient fidelity estimation methods are crucial for assessing their robustness against noise. However, calculations of exact fidelity become intractable for large systems due to the exponential growth in the number of stabilizers. In this work, we show that the fidelity between any ideal graph state and its noisy counterpart under IID Pauli noise can be mapped to the partition function of a classical spin system, enabling efficient computation via statistical mechanical techniques. Using this approach, we analyze the fidelity for regular graph states under depolarizing noise and uncover the emergence of phase transitions in fidelity between the pure-state regime and the noise-dominated regime. Specifically, in 2D, phase transitions occur only when the degree satisfies d ≥ 6 , while in 3D they already appear at d ≥ 5 . However, for graph states with excessively high degree, such as fully connected graphs, the phase transition disappears. Robustness of graph states against noise is thus determined by their connectivity and spatial dimensionality. Graph states with lower degree and/or dimensionality, which exhibit a smooth crossover, demonstrate greater robustness, while highly connected or higher-dimensional graph states are more fragile. Extreme connectivity, as the fully connected graph state possesses, restores robustness. Furthermore, we show that the fidelity can be rewritten in the form of the partition function of a constraint-percolation problem. Within this picture, we discuss the qualitative difference between 2D regular graph states with d = 6 and d = 5 regarding the presence or absence of a phase transition, as well as the suppressed critical behavior of fully connected graph states.
One of the greatest challenges in the fields of quantum information processing and quantum technologies is the detailed coherent control over each and every constituent of quantum systems with an ever increasing number of particles. Within this endeavor, harnessing of many-body entanglement against the detrimental effects of the environment is a major pressing issue. Besides being an important concept from a fundamental standpoint, entanglement has been recognized as a crucial resource for quantum speed-ups or performance enhancements over classical methods. Understanding and controlling many-body entanglement in open systems may have strong implications in quantum computing, quantum simulations of many-body systems, secure quantum communication or cryptography, quantum metrology, our understanding of the quantum-to-classical transition, and other important questions of quantum foundations. In this paper we present an overview of recent theoretical and experimental efforts to underpin the dynamics of entanglement under the influence of noise. Entanglement is thus taken as a dynamic quantity on its own, and we survey how it evolves due to the unavoidable interaction of the entangled system with its surroundings. We analyze several scenarios, corresponding to different families of states and environments, which render a very rich diversity of dynamical behaviors. In contrast to single-particle quantities, like populations and coherences, which typically vanish only asymptotically in time, entanglement may disappear at a finite time. In addition, important classes of entanglement display an exponential decay with the number of particles when subject to local noise, which poses yet another threat to the already-challenging scaling of quantum technologies. Other classes, however, turn out to be extremely robust against local noise. Theoretical results and recent experiments regarding the difference between local and global decoherence are summarized. Control and robustness- enhancement techniques, scaling laws, statistical and geometrical aspects of multipartite-entanglement decay are also reviewed; all in order to give a broad picture of entanglement dynamics in open quantum systems addressed to both theorists and experimentalists inside and outside the field of quantum information.