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arXiv:quant-ph/0005014 · Physical Review A

Optimization of entanglement witnesses

Maciej Lewenstein, Barbara Kraus, J. I. Cirac, Paweł Horodecki

Published Oct 16, 2000• 684 citations
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Abstract

An entanglement witness (EW) is an operator that allows the detection of entangled states. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for such operators to be optimal, i.e., to detect entangled states in an optimal way. We show how to optimize general EW, and then we particularize our results to the nondecomposable ones; the latter are those that can detect positive partial transpose entangled states (PPTES's). We also present a method to systematically construct and optimize this last class of operators based on the existence of ``edge'' PPTES's, i.e., states that violate the range separability criterion [Phys. Lett. A 232, 333 (1997)] in an extreme manner. This method also permits a systematic construction of nondecomposable positive maps (PM's). Our results lead to a sufficient condition for entanglement in terms of nondecomposable EW's and PM's. Finally, we illustrate our results by constructing optimal EW acting on $H={C}^{2}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{C}^{4}.$ The corresponding PM's constitute examples of PM's with minimal ``qubit'' domains, or---equivalently---minimal Hermitian conjugate codomains.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.62.052310

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An entanglement witness (EW) is an operator that allows the detection of entangled states. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for such operators to be optimal, i.e., to detect entangled states in an optimal way. We show how to optimize general EW, and then we particularize our results to the nondecomposable ones; the latter are those that can detect positive partial transpose entangled states (PPTES's). We also present a method to systematically construct and optimize this last class of operators based on the existence of edge'' PPTES's, i.e., states that violate the range separability criterion [Phys. Lett. A 232, 333 (1997)] in an extreme manner. This method also permits a systematic construction of nondecomposable positive maps (PM's). Our results lead to a sufficient condition for entanglement in terms of nondecomposable EW's and PM's. Finally, we illustrate our results by constructing optimal EW acting on $H={C}^{2}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{C}^{4}.$ The corresponding PM's constitute examples of PM's with minimal qubit'' domains, or---equivalently---minimal Hermitian conjugate codomains.
We examine various notions related to the optimality for entanglement witnesses arising from Choi-type positive linear maps. We found examples of optimal entanglement witnesses which are nondecomposable but are not ``nondecomposable optimal entanglement witnesses'' in the sense of Lewenstein, Kraus, Cirac, and Horodecki [Phys. Rev. A 62, 052310 (2000)]. We suggest using the terms PPTES witness and optimal PPTES witness in place of ``nondecomposable entanglement witness'' and ``nondecomposable optimal entanglement witnesses'' in order to avoid possible confusion. Here, PPTES refers entangled states with positive partial transposes. We also found examples of nonextremal optimal entanglement witnesses which are indecomposable.
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Entanglement witnesses (EWs) are a versatile tool in the verification of entangled states. The framework of mirrored EW doubles the power of a given EW by introducing its twin-a mirrored EW-whereby two EWs related by mirroring can bound the set of separable states more efficiently. In this work, we investigate the relation between the EWs and its mirrored ones, and present a conjecture which claims that the mirrored operator obtained from an optimal EW is either a positive operator or a decomposable EW, which implies that positive-partial-transpose entangled states, also known as the bound entangled states, cannot be detected. This conjecture is reached by studying numerous known examples of optimal EWs. However, the mirrored EWs obtained from the non-optimal ones can be non-decomposable as well. We also show that mirrored operators obtained from the extremal decomposable witnesses are positive semi-definite. Interestingly, the witnesses that violate the well known conjecture of Structural Physical Approximation, do satisfy our conjecture. The intricate relation between these two conjectures is discussed and it reveals a novel structure of the separability problem.
Abstract An entanglement witness (EW) is a Hermitian operator that can distinguish an entangled state from all separable states. We developed and implemented a numerical method based on machine learning to create multipartite EW. Using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm, we construct EW's based on local orthogonal observables in the form of a hyperplane that separates the separable region from the entangled state for two, three, and four qubits Bell-diagonal mixed states which can be generalized to a multipartite mixed state. One of the important features of this method is that the EW s are optimal and are completely tangent to the separable region. Also, we generate non-decomposable EW's that can detect positive partial transpose entangled states (PPTES).
We present a systematic investigation of the spectral properties of entanglement witnesses (EWs). Specifically, we analyze the infimum and supremum of the largest eigenvalue, the smallest eigenvalue, the negativity (defined as the absolute value of the sum of negative eigenvalues), and the squared Frobenius norm of a unit-trace (normalized) entanglement witness, along with the conditions under which these values are attained. Our study provides distinct characterizations for decomposable (DEWs) and nondecomposable entanglement witnesses (NDEWs). While these two classes share many spectral similarities, we reveal a fundamental divergence by proving that the infimum of the smallest eigenvalue can be attained by DEWs, yet remains strictly unattainable for all NDEWs. We apply the results to provide necessary conditions for an EW to possess a mirrored EW. Furthermore, we demonstrate the superior detection capability of NDEWs by proving that any non-positive-partial-transpose state beyond the two-qubit and qubit-qutrit systems can be detected by an NDEW.