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arXiv:quant-ph/0311184

A Note on Quantum Separability

Lawrence M. Ioannou, B. C. Travaglione

Published Nov 26, 2003• 0 citations
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Abstract

This short note describes a method to tackle the (bipartite) quantum separability problem. The method can be used for solving the separability problem in an experimental setting as well as in the purely mathematical setting. The idea is to invoke the following characterization of entangled states: A state is entangled if and only if there exists an entanglement witness that detects it. The method is basically a search for an entanglement witness that detects the given state.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0311184

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•Jan 1, 2004•3 citations
This short note describes a method to tackle the (bipartite) quantum separability problem. The method can be used for solving the separability problem in an experimental setting as well as in the purely mathematical setting. The idea is to invoke the following characterization of entangled states: A state is entangled if and only if there exists an entanglement witness that detects it. The method is basically a search for an entanglement witness that detects the given state.
Determining whether a quantum state is separable or entangled is a problem of fundamental importance in quantum information science. It has recently been shown that this problem is NP-hard, suggesting that an efficient, general solution does not exist. There is a highly inefficient ``basic algorithm'' for solving the quantum separability problem which follows from the definition of a separable state. By exploiting specific properties of the set of separable states, we introduce a classical algorithm that solves the problem significantly faster than the ``basic algorithm,'' allowing a feasible separability test where none previously existed, e.g., in $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}3$-dimensional systems. Our algorithm also provides a unique tool in the experimental detection of entanglement.
Ever since entanglement was identified as a computational and cryptographic resource, effort has been made to find an efficient way to tell whether a given density matrix represents an unentangled, or separable, state. Essentially, this is the quantum separability problem. Chapters 1 to 3 motivate a new interior-point algorithm which, given the expected values of a subset of an orthogonal basis of observables of an otherwise unknown quantum state, searches for an entanglement witness in the span of the subset of observables. When all the expected values are known, the algorithm solves the separability problem. In Chapter 4, I give the motivation for the algorithm and show how it can be used in a particular physical scenario to detect entanglement (or decide separability) of an unknown quantum state using as few quantum resources as possible. I then explain the intuitive idea behind the algorithm and relate it to the standard algorithms of its kind. I end the chapter with a comparison of the complexities of the algorithms surveyed in Chapter 3. Finally, in Chapter 5, I present the details of the algorithm and discuss its performance relative to standard methods.
We focus on determining the separability of an unknown bipartite quantum state $\ensuremath{\rho}$ by invoking a sufficiently large subset of all possible entanglement witnesses given the expected value of each element of a set of mutually orthogonal observables. We review the concept of an entanglement witness from the geometrical point of view and use this geometry to show that the set of separable states is not a polytope and to characterize the class of entanglement witnesses (observables) that detect entangled states on opposite sides of the set of separable states. All this serves to motivate a classical algorithm which, given the expected values of a subset of an orthogonal basis of observables of an otherwise unknown quantum state, searches for an entanglement witness in the span of the subset of observables. The idea of such an algorithm, which is an efficient reduction of the quantum separability problem to a global optimization problem, was introduced by [Ioannou et al., Phys. Rev. A 70, 060303(R)], where it was shown to be an improvement on the naive approach for the quantum separability problem (exhaustive search for a decomposition of the given state into a convex combination of separable states). The last section of the paper discusses in more generality such algorithms, which, in our case, assume a subroutine that computes the global maximum of a real function of several variables. Despite this, we anticipate that such algorithms will perform sufficiently well on small instances that they will render a feasible test for separability in some cases of interest (e.g., in $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}3$ dimensional systems).
With an aim to detect the genuine entanglement of a mixed state at the nearby pure state, we reflect a practicable approach concerning the construction of witness and express expectations to detect separable, bipartite states, and multiqubit entangled states. We introduce the related concept of the density matrix, multiqubit state, entangled state entanglement witness, etc. In addition, we give unambiguous definitions of separable states, entangled states, and genuinely entangled states. Therefore, we are able to detect the genuine entanglement of a mixed state at the nearby pure state employing the witness that is constructed for the multiqubit states.
This thesis deals with methods of the detection of entanglement.After recalling some facts and definitions concerning entanglement and separability, we investigate two methods of the detection of entanglement.In the first part of this thesis we consider so-called entanglement witnesses, mainly in view of the detection of multipartite entanglement.Entanglement witnesses are observables for which a negative expectation value indicates entanglement.We first present a simple method to construct these witnesses.Since witnesses are nonlocal observables, they are not easy to measure in a real experiment.However, as we will show, one can circumvent this problem by decomposing the witness into several local observables which can be measured separately.We calculate the local decompositions for several interesting witnesses for two, three and four qubits.Local decompositions can be optimized in the number of measurement settings which are needed for an experimental implementation.We present a method to prove that a given local decomposition is optimal and discuss with this the optimality of our decompositions.Then we present another method of designing witnesses which are by construction measurable with local measurements.Finally, we shortly report on experiments where some of the witnesses derived in this part have been used to detect three-and four-partite entanglement of polarized photons.The second part of this thesis deals with separability criteria which are written in terms of uncertainty relations.There are two different formulations of uncertainty relations since one can measure the uncertainty of an observable by its variance as well as by entropic quantities.We show that both formulations are useful tools for the derivation of separability criteria for finite-dimensional systems and investigate the resulting criteria.Our results in this part exhibit also some more fundamental properties of entanglement: We show how known separability criteria for infinitedimensional systems can be translated to finite-dimensional systems.Furthermore, we prove that any entropic uncertainty relation on one part of the system gives rise to a separability criterion on the composite system.