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arXiv:quant-ph/0004020 · Physical Review A

Multipartite pure-state entanglement and the generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states

Shengjun Wu, Yongde Zhang

Published Dec 12, 2000• 36 citations
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Abstract

We show that not all four-party pure states are Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) reducible (i.e., can be generated reversibly from a combination of two-, three-, and four-party maximally entangled states by local quantum operations and classical communication asymptotically). We also present some properties of the relative entropy of entanglement for those three-party pure states that are GHZ reducible, and then we relate these properties to the additivity of the relative entropy of entanglement.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.63.012308

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We show that not all four-party pure states are Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) reducible (i.e., can be generated reversibly from a combination of two-, three-, and four-party maximally entangled states by local quantum operations and classical communication asymptotically). We also present some properties of the relative entropy of entanglement for those three-party pure states that are GHZ reducible, and then we relate these properties to the additivity of the relative entropy of entanglement.
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We provide evidence that three-party entanglement signals in holography obey a relation that is not satisfied by generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. Using proposed holographic duals for these entanglement signals, we provide a geometric argument establishing this relation. This is the first known inequality on the structure of pure three-party holographic states, and shows that time-symmetric holographic states can never have purely GHZ-like entanglement. We also discuss similar relations for four parties.
For a multipartite system, we sort out all possible entanglements, each of which is among a set of subsystems. Each entanglement can be measured by a generalized relative entropy of entanglement, which is conserved on average under reversible local operations and classical communication (LOCC) defined for all the parties. Then we derive a series of inequalities of different entanglements that have to be satisfied by any pure state which can be generated by reversible LOCC from the set of all GHZ-like states.
The first characterization of mixed-state entanglement was achieved for two-qubit states in Werner's seminal work [Phys. Rev. A 40, 4277 (1989)]. A physically important extension concerns mixtures of a pure entangled state [such as the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state] and the unpolarized state. These mixed states serve as benchmark for the robustness of multipartite entanglement. They share the symmetries of the GHZ state. We call such states GHZ symmetric. Here we give a complete description of the entanglement in the family of three-qubit GHZ-symmetric states and, in particular, of the three-qubit generalized Werner states. Our method relies on the appropriate parametrization of the states and on the invariance of entanglement properties under general local operations. An application is the definition of a symmetrization witness for the entanglement class of arbitrary three-qubit states.
We present a family of tripartite entangled states that, in an asymptotical sense, can be reversibly converted into Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) states, shared by parties B and C, and tripartite Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. Thus we show that a bipartite and a genuine tripartite entanglement can be reversibly combined in a tripartite state. For such states the corresponding fractions of GHZ and EPR states represent a complete quantification of their (asymptotical) entanglement resources. More generally, we show that AB, AC, and BC EPR entanglement and GHZ entanglement can be reversibly combined in a single tripartite state. Finally, we generalize this result to any number of parties.