Entanglement is a useful resource because some global operations cannot be locally implemented using classical communication. We prove a number of results about what is and what is not locally possible. We focus on orthogonal states, which can always be globally distinguished. We establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for a general set of 2 x 2 quantum states to be locally distinguishable, and for a general set of 2 x n quantum states to be distinguished given an initial measurement of the qubit. These results reveal a fundamental asymmetry to nonlocality, which is the origin of "nonlocality without entanglement," and we present a very simple proof of this phenomenon.
Entanglement is a useful resource because some global operations cannot be locally implemented using classical communication. We prove a number of results about what is and what is not locally possible. We focus on orthogonal states, which can always be globally distinguished. We establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for a general set of 2 x 2 quantum states to be locally distinguishable, and for a general set of 2 x n quantum states to be distinguished given an initial measurement of the qubit. These results reveal a fundamental asymmetry to nonlocality, which is the origin of "nonlocality without entanglement," and we present a very simple proof of this phenomenon.
Quantum nonlocality is usually associated with entangled states by their violations of Bell-type inequalities. However, even unentangled systems, whose parts may have been prepared separately, can show nonlocal properties. In particular, a set of product states is said to exhibit "quantum nonlocality without entanglement" if the states are locally indistinguishable; i.e., it is not possible to optimally distinguish the states by any sequence of local operations and classical communication. Here, we present a stronger manifestation of this kind of nonlocality in multiparty systems through the notion of local irreducibility. A set of multiparty orthogonal quantum states is defined to be locally irreducible if it is not possible to locally eliminate one or more states from the set while preserving orthogonality of the postmeasurement states. Such a set, by definition, is locally indistinguishable, but we show that the converse does not always hold. We provide the first examples of orthogonal product bases on C^{d}⊗C^{d}⊗C^{d} for d=3, 4 that are locally irreducible in all bipartitions, where the construction for d=3 achieves the minimum dimension necessary for such product states to exist. The existence of such product bases implies that local implementation of a multiparty separable measurement may require entangled resources across all bipartitions.
Local distinguishability of orthogonal quantum states is an area of active research in quantum information theory. However, most of the relevant results are about local distinguishability in bipartite Hilbert space and very little is known about the multipartite case. In this paper we present a generic method to construct a completable n-partite $(n\ensuremath{\ge}3)$ product basis with only 2n members, which exhibits nonlocality without entanglement with n parties, each holding a system of any finite dimension. We give an effective proof of the nonlocality of the completable multipartite product basis. In addition, we construct another incomplete multipartite product basis with a smaller number of members that cannot be distinguished by local operations and classical communication in a ${d}_{1}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{d}_{2}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}\ensuremath{\cdots}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{d}_{n}$ quantum system, where $n\ensuremath{\ge}3$ and ${d}_{i}\ensuremath{\ge}2$ for i=1,2,...,n. The results can lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon of nonlocality without entanglement in any multipartite quantum system.
For general bipartite quantum systems, many sets of locally indistinguishable orthogonal product states have been constructed so far. Here, we first present a general method to construct multipartite orthogonal product states in ${d}_{1}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{d}_{2}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}\ensuremath{\cdots}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{d}_{n}({d}_{1,2,\ensuremath{\cdots},n}\ensuremath{\ge}3,n\ensuremath{\ge}4)$ by using some locally indistinguishable bipartite orthogonal product states. And we prove that these multipartite orthogonal quantum states cannot be distinguished by local operations and classical communication. Furthermore, in ${d}_{1}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{d}_{2}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}\ensuremath{\cdots}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{d}_{n}({d}_{1,2,\ensuremath{\cdots},n}\ensuremath{\ge}3,n\ensuremath{\ge}5)$, we give a general method to construct a much smaller number of locally indistinguishable multipartite orthogonal product states for even and odd n separately. In addition, we also present a general method to construct complete orthogonal product bases for the multipartite quantum systems. Our results demonstrate the phenomenon of nonlocality without entanglement for the multipartite quantum systems.
We consider the relation between the orthogonality and the distinguishability of a set of arbitrary states (including multipartite states). It is shown that if a set of arbitrary states can be distinguished by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), each of the states can be written as a linear combination of product vectors such that all product vectors of one of the states are orthogonal to the other states. With this result we then prove a simple necessary condition for LOCC distinguishability of a class of orthogonal states. These conclusions may be useful in discussing the distinguishability of orthogonal quantum states further, understanding the essence of nonlocality and discussing the distillation of entanglement.
I consider the deterministic distinguishability of a set of orthogonal, bipartite states when only a single copy is available and the parties are restricted to local operations and classical communication, but with the additional requirement that entanglement must be preserved in the process. Several general theorems aimed at characterizing sets of states with which the parties can succeed in such a task are proven. These include (i) a maximum for the number of states when the Schmidt rank of every outcome must be at least a given minimum, (ii) an upper bound (equal to the dimension of Hilbert space if entanglement need not be preserved) for the sum over Schmidt ranks of the initial states when only one-way classical communication is allowed, and (iii) separately, a necessary and a sufficient condition on the states such that their original Schmidt ranks can always be preserved. Two additional theorems explicitly demonstrate a trade-off between the extent to which the set of states fill Hilbert space, as measured by their Schmidt ranks, and how refined the parties must make their measurements, an important factor in determining the Schmidt rank the state can retain after it has been identified. It is shown that our bound on the sum of Schmidt ranks can be exceeded if two-way communication is permitted, and this includes the case that entanglement need not be preserved, so that this sum can exceed the dimension of Hilbert space. Such questions, concerning how the various results are affected by the resources used by the parties (amount of classical communication and types of local operations), are addressed for each theorem. This subject is closely related to the problem of locally purifying an entangled state from a mixed state, which is of direct relevance to teleportation and dense coding using a mixed-state resource. In an appendix, I give an extremely simple and transparent proof of ``nonlocality without entanglement,'' a phenomenon originally discussed by Bennett and co-workers several years ago.
We consider a general version of the phenomenon of more nonlocality with less entanglement within the framework of the unambiguous (i.e., conclusive) quantum state discrimination problem under local quantum operations and classical communication. We show that although the phenomenon was obtained before for two qutrits, it can also be observed for two qubits, whereas still being at the single-copy level. We establish that the phenomenon is intrinsically connected to the concept of unextendible entangled bases in the two-qubit case. In the process, we demonstrate a hierarchy of nonlocality among sets of two-qubit orthogonal pure states where the ``nonlocality'' is in the sense of a difference between global and local abilities of quantum state discrimination. We present a complete characterization of two-qubit pure orthogonal state sets of cardinality three with respect to their nonlocality in terms of unambiguous local distinguishability, the status for other cardinalities being already known. The results are potentially useful for secure quantum communication technologies with an optimal amount of resources.