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arXiv:quant-ph/0607167 · New Journal of Physics

Quantitative entanglement witnesses

Jens Eisert, Fernando G. S. L. Brandão, K M R Audenaert

Published Mar 2, 2007• 216 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Entanglement witnesses provide tools to detect entanglement in experimental situations without the need of having full tomographic knowledge about the state. If one estimates in an experiment an expectation value smaller than zero, one can directly infer that the state has been entangled, or specifically multi-partite entangled, in the first place. In this paper, we emphasize that all these tests—based on the very same data—give rise to quantitative estimates in terms of entanglement measures: 'If a test is strongly violated, one can also infer that the state was quantitatively very much entangled'. We consider various measures of entanglement, including the negativity, the entanglement of formation, and the robustness of entanglement, in the bipartite and multipartite setting. As examples, we discuss several experiments in the context of quantum state preparation that have recently been performed.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/9/3/046

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Entanglement witnesses provide tools to detect entanglement in experimental situations without the need of having full tomographic knowledge about the state. If one estimates in an experiment an expectation value smaller than zero, one can directly infer that the state has been entangled, or specifically multi-partite entangled, in the first place. In this paper, we emphasize that all these tests—based on the very same data—give rise to quantitative estimates in terms of entanglement measures: 'If a test is strongly violated, one can also infer that the state was quantitatively very much entangled'. We consider various measures of entanglement, including the negativity, the entanglement of formation, and the robustness of entanglement, in the bipartite and multipartite setting. As examples, we discuss several experiments in the context of quantum state preparation that have recently been performed.
We present a method to estimate entanglement measures in experiments. We show how a lower bound on a generic entanglement measure can be derived from the measured expectation values of any finite collection of entanglement witnesses. Hence witness measurements are given a quantitative meaning without the need of further experimental data. We apply our results to a recent multiphoton experiment [M. Bourennane, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 087902 (2004)], giving bounds on the entanglement of formation and the geometric measure of entanglement in this experiment.
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.
So-called direct measurements of entanglement are collective measurements on multiple copies of a (bipartite or multipartite) quantum system that directly provide one with a value for some entanglement measure, such as the concurrence for bipartite states. Multiple copies are needed since the entanglement of a mixed state is not a linear function of the density matrix. The procedures proposed and implemented so far make certain assumptions about the states generated. This feature distinguishes direct measurements from standard entanglement verification tests such as Bell inequalities, entanglement witnesses, and quantum-state tomography, which make no such assumptions. I discuss how a direct measurement can be turned into a quantitative entanglement verification test without such assumptions by exploiting a recent theorem by Renner [Nature Phys. 3, 645 (2007)10.1038/nphys684].
Entanglement is an essential resource in quantum information science [1] and its presence in any quantum system can be experimentally detected through entanglement witness operators [2]. In particular, measuring a negative expectation value of a witness with high statistical confidence provides a necessary and sufficient condition to confirm the generation of a genuine multipartite [3] and/or d-level entangled state [4]. In recent years, the experimental generation of complex quantum states has intensified the need for witnesses that are capable of detecting such systems and are experimentally optimal at the same time. This means that the witness should require the least measurement effort (in terms of number and complexity of the measurement settings), include only projections on single qudits, while at the same time possessing a high noise tolerance (Fig. 1a). However, "experimentally-friendly" witnesses capable of accomplishing these tasks have not been derived yet.
Recently, a proper genuine multipartite entanglement measure has been found for three-qubit pure states [see Xie and Eberly, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 040403 (2021)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.127.040403], but capturing useful entanglement measures for mixed states has remained an open challenge. So far, it requires not only a full tomography in experiments, but also huge calculational labor. A leading proposal was made by Gühne, Reimpell, and Werner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 110502 (2007)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.98.110502], who used expectation values of entanglement witnesses to describe a lower bound estimation of entanglement. We provide here an extension that also gives genuine upper bounds of entanglement. This advance requires only the expectation value of any Hermitian operator. Moreover, we identify a class of operators A_{1} that not only give good estimates, but also require a remarkably small number of experimental measurements. In this Letter, we define our approach and illustrate it by estimating entanglement measures for a number of pure and mixed states prepared in our recent experiments.
The focal point of this thesis is strongly based on quantum entanglement within Quantum Information Science. We provide an indepth analysis of entanglement quantification in both bipartite and multipartite quantum systems, with an emphasis on many-body entanglement. We examine the definitions of entanglement, introduce several entanglement measures, and examine the challenges in expanding these measures to multipartite scenarios. For bipartite systems, we detail entropy-based measures such as von Neumann and Rényi entropies, the entanglement spectrum and important algebraic metrics such as negativity and concurrence. We then elaborate on multipartite entanglement, introducing modern measures and detection techniques including geometric and global entanglement measurements, generalised multipartite concurrence, multipartite negativity, fidelity-based entanglement benchmarks, and entanglement witnesses. Some examples include Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ), and the W states to illustrate the distinction between biseparable and truly multi-partite-entangled states, as well as the SLOCC classification of families of entangled states. We also briefly introduce practical ways of measuring entanglement, such as the SWAP test, quantum state tomography for experimental estimation of entanglement and consequently randomised measurements. We apply these measures to specific quantum states (GHZ, W , graph states, and random states), analysing how entanglement evolves under operations and how different metrics capture distinct features of multi-qubit entanglement. Finally, we conclude with a summary of findings, a discussion of current limitations such as scalability of measures. The thesis is organised into five chapters: Introduction, Entanglement, Multipartite Entanglement Measures, Negativity vs. Three-Tangle, and Conclusion.