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arXiv:quant-ph/0104058 · Physical Review A

Mathematical structure of entanglement catalysis

Sumit Daftuar, M. Klimesh

Published Sep 18, 2001• 61 citations
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Abstract

The majorization relation has been shown to be useful in classifying which transformations of jointly held quantum states are possible using local operations and classical communication. In some cases, a direct transformation between two states is not possible, but it becomes possible in the presence of another state (known as a catalyst); this situation is described mathematically by the trumping relation, an extension of majorization. The structure of the trumping relation is not nearly as well understood as that of majorization. We give an introduction to this subject and derive some results. Most notably, we show that the dimension of the required catalyst is, in general, unbounded; there is no integer k such that it suffices to consider catalysts of dimension k or less in determining which states can be catalyzed into a given state. We also show that almost all bipartite entangled states are potentially useful as catalysts.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.64.042314

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The majorization relation has been shown to be useful in classifying which transformations of jointly held quantum states are possible using local operations and classical communication. In some cases, a direct transformation between two states is not possible, but it becomes possible in the presence of another state (known as a catalyst); this situation is described mathematically by the trumping relation, an extension of majorization. The structure of the trumping relation is not nearly as well understood as that of majorization. We give an introduction to this subject and derive some results. Most notably, we show that the dimension of the required catalyst is, in general, unbounded; there is no integer k such that it suffices to consider catalysts of dimension k or less in determining which states can be catalyzed into a given state. We also show that almost all bipartite entangled states are potentially useful as catalysts.
Entanglement catalysis is a phenomenon that usually enhances the conversion probability in the transformation of entangled states by the temporary involvement of another entangled state (so-called catalyst), where after the process is completed the catalyst is returned to the same state. For some pairs of bipartite pure entangled states, catalysis enables a transformation with unit probability of success, in which case the respective Schmidt coefficients of the states are said to satisfy the trumping relation, a mathematical relation which is an extension of the majorization relation. This paper provides all necessary and sufficient conditions for the trumping and two other associated relations. Using these conditions, the least upper bound of conversion probabilities using catalysis is also obtained. Moreover, best conversion ratios achievable with catalysis are found for transformations involving many copies of states.
Entanglement catalysis allows one to convert certain entangled states into others by the temporary involvement of another entangled state (so-called catalyst), where after the conversion the catalyst is returned to the same state. For bipartite pure entangled states that can be transformed in this way with unit probability, the respective Schmidt coefficients are said to satisfy the trumping relation, a mathematical relation which is an extension of the majorization relation. This article provides all necessary and sufficient conditions for the trumping relation in terms of the Schmidt coefficients. The coefficients should satisfy strict inequalities for the entropy of entanglement and for power means excluding the special power 1.
Given probability vectors x and y, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the existence of a probability vector z such that xominusz is majorized by yominusz. This is of interest because the "catalytic majorization" relation is known to be useful in classifying which transformations of jointly held pure quantum states are possible using local operations and classical communication when an additional jointly held state may be specified to facilitate the transformation without being consumed
The transformation of an initial bipartite pure state into a target one by means of local operations and classical communication and entangled-assisted by a catalyst defines a partial order between probability vectors. This partial order, so-called trumping majorization, is based on tensor products and the majorization relation. Here, we aim to study order properties of trumping majorization. We show that the trumping majorization partial order is indeed a lattice for four dimensional probability vectors and two dimensional catalysts. In addition, we show that the subadditivity and supermodularity of the Shannon entropy on the majorization lattice are inherited by the trumping majorization lattice. Finally, we provide a suitable definition of distance for four dimensional probability vectors.
Catalysis refers to the possibility of performing an otherwise impossible local state transformation by sharing an additional state, i.e. a catalyst, which is returned at the end of the protocol. There is a stronger version, known as supercatalysis, in which the borrowed catalyst is returned in an enhanced form, i.e. more entangled. However, this phenomenon has remained little explored. In this work we introduce the supercatalytic entanglement gain as a figure of merit taking values in [0,1] that quantifies the performance of the protocol (with 0 corresponding to the standard case of catalysis and 1 representing the maximal possible gain) and we study in which cases it can be greater than zero and which strategies can maximize it. While it turns out that every catalytic transformation can be implemented in a supercatalytic fashion with entanglement gain equal to 1 if the state that is borrowed is chosen appropriately, other choices can make the gain strictly less than 1 and even 0. In fact, we prove that a large class of catalytic transformations are not fully supercatalyzable, i.e. there is at least one choice of catalyst for which the entanglement gain vanishes. On the other hand, the construction that shows that supercatalysis is always possible with maximal gain uses artificially highly entangled catalysts. For this reason, we also study minimal supercatalysis, where the entanglement content of the borrowed state is constrained in a precise and natural way. While we consider a scenario where we prove it is impossible to have entanglement gain equal to 1 in this case, we show that there exist minimal supercatalytic transformations with gain as close to 1 as desired. We also explore several examples and observe that, although choosing a catalyst with the least possible entanglement is often an optimal strategy for minimal supercatalysis, this is not necessarily always the case.