Reversible state transformations under entanglement nonincreasing operations give rise to entanglement measures. It is well known that asymptotic local operations and classical communication (LOCC) are required to get a simple operational measure of bipartite pure state entanglement. For bipartite mixed states and multipartite pure states it is likely that a more powerful class of operations will be needed. To this end more powerful versions of state transformations (or reducibilities), namely, LOCCq (asymptotic LOCC with a sublinear amount of quantum communication) and CLOCC (asymptotic LOCC with catalysis) have been considered in the literature. In this paper we show that LOCCq state transformations are only as powerful as asymptotic LOCC state transformations for multipartite pure states. The basic tool we use is multipartite entanglement gambling: Any pure multipartite entangled state can be transformed to an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pair shared by some pair of parties and any irreducible m-party pure state $(m>~2)$ can be used to create any other state (pure or mixed) using LOCC. We consider applications of multipartite entanglement gambling to multipartite distillability and to characterizations of multipartite minimal entanglement generating sets. We briefly consider generalizations of this result to mixed states by defining the class of cat-distillable states, i.e., states from which cat states $(|{0}^{\ensuremath{\bigotimes}m}〉+|{1}^{\ensuremath{\bigotimes}m}〉)$ may be distilled.
Reversible state transformations under entanglement nonincreasing operations give rise to entanglement measures. It is well known that asymptotic local operations and classical communication (LOCC) are required to get a simple operational measure of bipartite pure state entanglement. For bipartite mixed states and multipartite pure states it is likely that a more powerful class of operations will be needed. To this end more powerful versions of state transformations (or reducibilities), namely, LOCCq (asymptotic LOCC with a sublinear amount of quantum communication) and CLOCC (asymptotic LOCC with catalysis) have been considered in the literature. In this paper we show that LOCCq state transformations are only as powerful as asymptotic LOCC state transformations for multipartite pure states. The basic tool we use is multipartite entanglement gambling: Any pure multipartite entangled state can be transformed to an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pair shared by some pair of parties and any irreducible m-party pure state (m>2) can be used to create any other state (pure or mixed) using LOCC. We consider applications of multipartite entanglement gambling to multipartite distillability and to characterizations of multipartite minimal entanglement generating sets. We briefly consider generalizations of this result to mixed states by defining the class of cat-distillable states, i.e., states from which cat states (∣0\ensuremath⨂m〉+∣1\ensuremath⨂m〉) may be distilled.
Hoping to simplify the classification of pure entangled states of multi $(m)\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{e}$ quantum systems, we study exactly and asymptotically (in n) reversible transformations among nth tensor powers of such states (i.e., n copies of the state shared among the same m parties) under local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC). For exact transformations, we show that two states whose marginal one-party entropies agree are either locally unitarily equivalent or else LOCC incomparable. In particular we show that two tripartite Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states are LOCC incomparable to three bipartite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) states symmetrically shared among the three parties. Asymptotic transformations yield a simpler classification than exact transformations; for example, they allow all pure bipartite states to be characterized by a single parameter---their partial entropy---which may be interpreted as the number of EPR pairs asymptotically interconvertible to the state in question by LOCC transformations. We show that $m\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{e}$ pure states having an $m\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{w}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{y}$ Schmidt decomposition are similarly parametrizable, with the partial entropy across any nontrivial partition representing the number of standard quantum superposition or ``cat'' states $|{0}^{\ensuremath{\bigotimes}m}〉+|{1}^{\ensuremath{\bigotimes}m}〉$ asymptotically interconvertible to the state in question. For general $m\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{e}$ states, partial entropies across different partitions need not be equal, and since partial entropies are conserved by asymptotically reversible LOCC operations, a multicomponent entanglement measure is needed, with each scalar component representing a different kind of entanglement, not asymptotically interconvertible to the other kinds. In particular we show that the m=4 cat state is not isentropic to, and therefore not asymptotically interconvertible to, any combination of bipartite and tripartite states shared among the four parties. Thus, although the m=4 cat state can be prepared from bipartite EPR states, the preparation process is necessarily irreversible, and remains so even asymptotically. For each number of parties m we define a minimal reversible entanglement generating set (MREGS) as a set of states of minimal cardinality sufficient to generate all $m\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{e}$ pure states by asymptotically reversible LOCC transformations. Partial entropy arguments provide lower bounds on the size of the MREGS, but for m>2 we know no upper bounds. We briefly consider several generalizations of LOCC transformations, including transformations with some probability of failure, transformations with the catalytic assistance of states other than the states we are trying to transform, and asymptotic LOCC transformations supplemented by a negligible [o(n)] amount of quantum communication.
Understanding multipartite entanglement is a key goal in quantum information. Entanglement in pure states can be characterized by considering transformations under local operations assisted by classical communication (LOCC). However, it has been shown that, for $n\ensuremath{\ge}5$ parties, multipartite pure states are generically isolated, i.e., they can be neither reached nor transformed under LOCC. Nonetheless, in any real laboratory, one never deterministically transforms a pure initial state exactly to a pure target state. Instead, one transforms a mixed state near the initial state to an ensemble that is on average close to the target state. This motivates studying approximate LOCC transformations. After reviewing in detail the known results in the bipartite case, we present the gaps that remain open in the multipartite case. While the analysis of the multipartite setting is much more technically involved due to the existence of different stochastic LOCC (SLOCC) classes, certain features simplify in the approximate setting. In particular, we show that it is sufficient to consider pure initial states, that it is sufficient to consider LOCC protocols with finitely many rounds of communication, and that approximate transformations can be approximated by ensemble transformations within an SLOCC class. Then we formally define a hierarchy of different forms of approximate transformations that are relevant from a physical point of view. Whereas this hierarchy collapses in the bipartite case, we show that this is not the case for the multipartite setting, which is fundamentally richer. To wit, we show that optimal multipartite approximate transformations are not generally deterministic, that ensemble transformations within an SLOCC class can achieve a higher fidelity than deterministic transformations within an SLOCC class, and that there are approximate transformations with no deterministic transformations nearby.
We studied pure state transformations using local operations assisted by finitely many rounds of classical communication (LOCCIN) [C. Spee, J. I. de Vicente, D. Sauerwein, and B. Kraus [Phys. Rev. Lett. (to be published)], arXiv:1606.04418]. Here, we present the details of some of the proofs and generalize the construction of examples of state transformations via LOCCIN which require a probabilistic step. However, we also present explicit examples of SLOCC classes where any separable transformation can be realized by a protocol in which each step is deterministic (all-det-LOCCIN). Such transformations can be considered as natural generalizations of bipartite transformations. Furthermore, we provide examples of pure state transformations which are possible via separable transformations, but not via LOCCIN. We also analyze an interesting genuinely multipartite effect which we call locking or unlocking the power of other parties. This means that one party can prevent or enable the implementation of LOCC transformations by other parties. Moreover, we investigate the maximally entangled set restricted to LOCCIN and show how easily computable bounds on some entanglement measures can be derived by restricting to LOCCIN.
Entanglement is one of the fundamental features of quantum information science.\nThough bipartite entanglement has been analyzed thoroughly in theory and shown to\nbe an important resource in quantum computation and communication protocols, the\ntheory of entanglement shared between more than two parties, which is called multipartite\nentanglement, is still not complete. Specifically, the classification of multipartite\nentanglement and the transformation property between different multipartite states by\nlocal operators and classical communications (LOCC) are two fundamental questions in\nthe theory of multipartite entanglement.\nIn this thesis, we present results related to the LOCC transformation between multipartite\nentangled states. Firstly, we investigate the bounds on the LOCC transformation\nprobability between multipartite states, especially the GHZ class states. By analyzing\nthe involvement of 3-tangle and other entanglement measures under weak two-outcome\nmeasurement, we derive explicit upper and lower bound on the transformation probability\nbetween GHZ class states. After that, we also analyze the transformation between\nN-party W type states, which is a special class of multipartite entangled states that\nhas an explicit unique expression and a set of analytical entanglement monotones. We\npresent a necessary and sufficient condition for a known upper bound of transformation\nprobability between two N-party W type states to be achieved.\nWe also further investigate a novel entanglement transformation protocol, the random\ndistillation, which transforms multipartite entanglement into bipartite entanglement\nii\nshared by a non-deterministic pair of parties. We find upper bounds for the random distillation\nprotocol for general N-party W type states and find the condition for the upper\nbounds to be achieved. What is surprising is that the upper bounds correspond to entanglement\nmonotones that can be increased by Separable Operators (SEP), which gives\nthe first set of analytical entanglement monotones that can be increased by SEP.\nFinally, we investigate the idea of a new class of multipartite entangled states, the\nAbsolutely Maximal Entangled (AME) states, which is characterized by the fact that\nany bipartition of the states would give a maximal entangled state between the two sets.\nThe relationship between AME states and Quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols is\nexhibited and the application of AME states in novel quantum communication protocols\nis also explored.
Understanding multipartite entanglement is vital, as it underpins a wide range of phenomena across physics. The study of transformations of states via Local Operations assisted by Classical Communication (LOCC) allows one to quantitatively analyse entanglement, as it induces a partial order in the Hilbert space. However, it has been shown that, for systems with fixed local dimensions, this order is generically trivial, which prevents relating multipartite states to each other with respect to any entanglement measure. In order to obtain a non-trivial partial ordering, we study a physically motivated extension of LOCC: multi-state LOCC. Here, one considers simultaneous LOCC transformations acting on a finite number of entangled pure states. We study both multipartite and bipartite multi-state transformations. In the multipartite case, we demonstrate that one can change the stochastic LOCC (SLOCC) class of the individual initial states by only applying Local Unitaries (LUs). We show that, by transferring entanglement from one state to the other, one can perform state conversions not possible in the single copy case; provide examples of multipartite entanglement catalysis; and demonstrate improved probabilistic protocols. In the bipartite case, we identify numerous non-trivial LU transformations and show that the source entanglement is not additive. These results demonstrate that multi-state LOCC has a much richer landscape than single-state LOCC.
The study of state transformations under local operations and classical communication (LOCC) plays a crucial role in entanglement theory. While this has been long ago characterized for pure bipartite states, the situation is drastically different for systems of more parties: generic pure qudit states cannot be obtained from nor transformed to any state (i.e., they are isolated), which contains a different amount of entanglement. We consider here the question of LOCC convertibility for permutation-symmetric pure states of an arbitrary number of parties and local dimension, a class of clear interest both for physical and mathematical reasons and for which the aforementioned result does not apply given that it is a zero-measure subset in the state space. While it turns out that generic n-qubit symmetric states are also isolated, we consider particular families for which we can determine to be, on the contrary, endowed with a rich local stabilizer, a necessary requirement for LOCC convertibility to be possible. This allows us to identify classes in which LOCC transformations among permutation-symmetric states are possible. Notwithstanding, we provide several results that indicate severe obstructions to LOCC convertibility in general even within these highly symmetrical classes. In the course of the study of LOCC transformations, we also characterize the local symmetries of symmetric states.