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arXiv:quant-ph/0007098 · Physical Review Letters

Local Distinguishability of Multipartite Orthogonal Quantum States

Jonathan Walgate, Anthony J. Short, Lucién Hardy, Vlatko Vedral

Published Dec 4, 2000• 474 citations
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Abstract

We consider one copy of a quantum system prepared in one of two orthogonal pure states, entangled or otherwise, and distributed between any number of parties. We demonstrate that it is possible to identify which of these two states the system is in by means of local operations and classical communication alone. The protocol we outline is both completely reliable and completely general; it will correctly distinguish any two orthogonal states 100% of the time.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.85.4972

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We consider one copy of a quantum system prepared in one of two orthogonal pure states, entangled or otherwise, and distributed between any number of parties. We demonstrate that it is possible to identify which of these two states the system is in by means of local operations and classical communication alone. The protocol we outline is both completely reliable and completely general; it will correctly distinguish any two orthogonal states 100% of the time.
In the topic of perfect local distinguishability of orthogonal multipartite quantum states, most results obtained so far pertain to bipartite systems whose subsystems are of specific dimensions. In contrast very few results for bipartite systems whose subsystems are of arbitrary dimensions, are known. This is because a rich variety of (algebraic or geometric) structure is exhibited by different sets of orthogonal states owing to which it is difficult to associate some common property underlying them all, i.e., a common property that would play a crucial role in the local distinguishability of these states. In this Rapid Communication, I propose a framework for the distinguishability by one-way local operations and classical communication (1-LOCC) of sets of orthogonal bipartite states in a ${d}_{A}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{d}_{B}$ bipartite system, where dA,dB{d}_{A},{d}_{B}dA​,dB​ are the dimensions of both subsytems, labeled as AAA and BBB. I show that if the ithi\mathrm{th}ith party (where i=A,Bi=A,Bi=A,B) can initiate a 1-LOCC protocol to perfectly distinguish among a set of orthogonal bipartite states, then the information of the existence of such a 1-LOCC protocol lies in a subspace of ${d}_{i}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{d}_{i}$ Hermitian matrices, denoted by ${\mathcal{T}}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}^{(i)}$, and that the method to extract this information (of the existence of this 1-LOCC protocol) from ${\mathcal{T}}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}^{(i)}$ depends on the value of $\mathrm{dim}{\mathcal{T}}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}^{(i)}$. In this way one can give sweeping results for the 1-LOCC (in)distinguishability of all sets of orthogonal bipartite states corresponding to certain values of $\mathrm{dim}{\mathcal{T}}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}^{(i)}$. Thus I propose that the value of $\mathrm{dim}{\mathcal{T}}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}^{(i)}$ gives the common underlying property based on which sweeping results for the 1-LOCC (in)distinguishability of orthogonal bipartite quantum states can be made.
For general quantum systems, many sets of locally indistinguishable orthogonal quantum states have been constructed so far. However, it is interesting how much entanglement resources are sufficient and/or necessary to distinguish these states by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Here we first present a method to locally distinguish a set of orthogonal product states in $5\ensuremath{\bigotimes}5$ by using two copies of $2\ensuremath{\bigotimes}2$ maximally entangled states. Then we generalize the distinguishing method for a class of orthogonal product states in $d\ensuremath{\bigotimes}d$ (ddd is odd). Furthermore, for a class of nonlocality of orthogonal product states in $d\ensuremath{\bigotimes}d$ ($d\ensuremath{\ge}5$), we prove that these states can be distinguished by LOCC with two copies of $2\ensuremath{\bigotimes}2$ maximally entangled states. Finally, for some multipartite orthogonal product states, we also present a similar method to locally distinguish these states with multiple copies of $2\ensuremath{\bigotimes}2$ maximally entangled states. These results also reveal the phenomenon of less nonlocality with more entanglement.
In a seminal work [PRL85.4972], Walgate, Short, Hardy, and Vedral prove in finite dimensions that for every pair of pure multipartite orthogonal quantum states, there exists a one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC) protocol that perfectly distinguishes the pair. We extend this result to infinite dimensions with a simpler proof. For states on CdA×dA⊗CdB×dB\mathbb{C}^{d_A \times d_A} \otimes \mathbb{C}^{d_B \times d_B}CdA​×dA​⊗CdB​×dB​, we strengthen this existence result by constructing an O(dA2dB2)O(d_A^2 d_B^2)O(dA2​dB2​)-time algorithm that specifies such a perfect one-way LOCC protocol. Finally, we establish the equivalence between Walgate et al.'s result and the fact that the one-shot environment-assisted classical capacity of every quantum channel is at least 1 bit per channel use, thereby clarifying the literature on these notions. At the core of all of these results is the fact that every operator with vanishing trace admits a basis where its diagonal entries are all zero.
It is known that many sets of orthogonal quantum states, which cannot be distinguished perfectly by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), have been constructed. However, these discussions have left the following open question: How many entanglement resources are necessary and/or sufficient for this task to be possible with LOCC? In this paper, we present a local discrimination protocol which uses entanglement more efficiently than teleportation to distinguish one class of orthogonal product states in 3⊗3⊗3. Then, we generalize it for 3⊗3⊗...⊗3 quantum systems which has 3n parties. For the open question, our results offer rather general insight into why entanglement is useful for such tasks, and present a better understanding of the relationship between entanglement and nonlocality.
In this paper, we study the distinguishability of multipartite quantum states by separable operations. We first present a necessary and sufficient condition for a finite set of orthogonal quantum states to be distinguishable by separable operations. An analytical version of this condition is derived for the case of(D-1) pure states, whereDis the total dimension of the state space under consideration. A number of interesting consequences of this result are then carefully investigated. Remarkably, we show there exists a large class of 2 otimes 2 separable operations not being realizable by local operations and classical communication. Before our work, only a class of 3 otimes 3 nonlocal separable operations was known [Bennett , Phys. Rev. A 59, 1070 (1999)]. We also show that any basis of the orthogonal complement of a multipartite pure state is indistinguishable by separable operations if and only if this state cannot be a superposition of one or two orthogonal product states, i.e., has an orthogonal Schmidt number not less than three, thus generalize the recent work about indistinguishable bipartite subspaces [Watrous, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 080505 (2005)]. Notably, we obtain an explicit construction of indistinguishable subspaces of dimension 7 (or 6) by considering a composite quantum system consisting of two qutrits (resp., three qubits), which is slightly better than the previously known indistinguishable bipartite subspace with dimension 8.
We consider one copy of a quantum system prepared with equal prior probability in one of two nonorthogonal entangled states of multipartite distributed among separated parties. We demonstrate that these two states can be optimally distinguished in the sense of conclusive discrimination by local operations and classical communications alone. This proves strictly the conjecture that Virmani et al. confirmed numerically and analytically. Generally the optimal protocol requires local POVM operations which are explicitly constructed. The result manifests that distinguishable information is obtained only and completely at the last operation and all prior operations give no information about that state.