We derive a framework for quantifying entanglement in multipartite and high dimensional systems using only correlations in two unbiased bases. We furthermore develop such bounds in cases where the second basis is not characterized beyond being unbiased, thus enabling entanglement quantification with minimal assumptions. Furthermore, we show that it is feasible to experimentally implement our method with readily available equipment and even conservative estimates of physical parameters.
In this contribution we relate two different key concepts: mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) and entanglement; in particular we focus on bound entanglement, i.e. highly mixed states which cannot be distilled by local operations and classical communications. For a certain class of states --for which the state-space forms a magic simplex-- we analyze the set of bound entangled states detected by the MUB criterion for different dimensions d and number of particles n. We find that the geometry is similar for different d and n, consequently, the MUB criterion opens possibilities to investigate the typicality of PPT-bound and multipartite bound entanglement deeper and provides a simple experimentally feasible tool to detect bound entanglement.
Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) provide a standard tool in the verification of quantum states, especially when harnessing a complete set for optimal quantum state tomography. In this work, we investigate the detection of entanglement via inequivalent sets of MUBs, with a particular focus on unextendible MUBs. These are bases for which an additional unbiased basis cannot be constructed and, consequently, are unsuitable for quantum state verification. Here, we show that unextendible MUBs, as well as other inequivalent sets in higher dimensions, can be more effective in the verification of entanglement. Furthermore, we provide an efficient and systematic method to search for inequivalent MUBs and show that such sets occur regularly within the Heisenberg-Weyl MUBs, as the dimension increases. Our findings are particularly useful for experimentalists since adding optimal MUBs to an experimental setup enables a step-by-step approach to detect a larger class of entangled states.
Two equivalent ways of looking for mutually unbiased bases are discussed in this note. The passage from the search for d+1 mutually unbiased bases in C(d) to the search for d(d+1) vectors in C(d*d) satisfying constraint relations is clarified. Symmetric informationally complete positive-operator-valued measures are briefly discussed in a similar vein.
When used in quantum state estimation, projections onto mutually unbiased bases have the ability to maximize information extraction per measurement and to minimize redundancy. We present the first experimental demonstration of quantum state tomography of two-qubit polarization states to take advantage of mutually unbiased bases. We demonstrate improved state estimation as compared to standard measurement strategies and discuss how this can be understood from the structure of the measurements we use. We experimentally compared our method to the standard state estimation method for three different states and observe that the infidelity was up to 1.84+/-0.06 times lower using our technique than it was using standard state estimation methods.
We derive new inequalities for the probabilities of projective measurements in mutually unbiased bases of a qudit system. These inequalities lead to wider ranges of validity and tighter bounds on entropic uncertainty inequalities previously derived in the literature.