No Arabic abstract
We show that partial transposition for pure and mixed two-particle states in a discrete $N$-dimensional Hilbert space is equivalent to a change in sign of a momentum-like variable of one of the particles in the Wigner function for the state. This generalizes a result obtained for continuous-variable systems to the discrete-variable system case. We show that, in principle, quantum mechanics allows measuring the expectation value of an observable in a partially transposed state, in spite of the fact that the latter may not be a physical state. We illustrate this result with the example of an isotropic state, which is dependent on a parameter $r$, and an operator whose variance becomes negative for the partially transposed state for certain values of $r$; for such $r$, the original states are entangled.
We first show that partial transposition for pure and mixed two-particle states in a discrete $N$-dimensional Hilbert space is equivalent to a change in sign of the momentum of one of the particles in the Wigner function for the state. We then show that it is possible to formulate an uncertainty relation for two-particle Hermitian operators constructed in terms of Schwinger operators, and study its role in detecting entanglement in a two-particle state: the violation of the uncertainty relation for a partially transposed state implies that the original state is entangled. This generalizes a result obtained for continuous-variable systems to the discrete-variable-system case. This is significant because testing entanglement in terms of an uncertainty relation has a physically appealing interpretation. We study the case of a Werner state, which is a mixed state constructed as a convex combination with a parameter $r$ of a Bell state $|Phi^{+} rangle$ and the completely incoherent state, $hat{rho}_r = r |Phi^{+} rangle langle Phi^{+}| + (1-r)frac{hat{mathbb{I}}}{N^2}$: we find that for $r_0 < r < 1$, where $r_0$ is obtained as a function of the dimensionality $N$, the uncertainty relation for the partially transposed Werner state is violated and the original Werner state is entangled.
We study the Weyl-Wigner transform in the case of discrete variables defined in a Hilbert space of finite prime-number dimensionality $N$. We define a family of Weyl-Wigner transforms as function of a phase parameter. We show that it is only for a specific value of the parameter that all the properties we have examined have a parallel with the case of continuous variables defined in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. A geometrical interpretation is briefly discussed.
Measurement uncertainty relations are lower bounds on the errors of any approximate joint measurement of two or more quantum observables. The aim of this paper is to provide methods to compute optimal bounds of this type. The basic method is semidefinite programming, which we apply to arbitrary finite collections of projective observables on a finite dimensional Hilbert space. The quantification of errors is based on an arbitrary cost function, which assigns a penalty to getting result $x$ rather than y, for any pair (x,y). This induces a notion of optimal transport cost for a pair of probability distributions, and we include an appendix with a short summary of optimal transport theory as needed in our context. There are then different ways to form an overall figure of merit from the comparison of distributions. We consider three, which are related to different physical testing scenarios. The most thorough test compares the transport distances between the marginals of a joint measurement and the reference observables for every input state. Less demanding is a test just on the states for which a true value is known in the sense that the reference observable yields a definite outcome. Finally, we can measure a deviation as a single expectation value by comparing the two observables on the two parts of a maximally entangled state. All three error quantities have the property that they vanish if and only if the tested observable is equal to the reference. The theory is illustrated with some characteristic examples.
A continuous-variable Bell inequality, valid for an arbitrary number of observers measuring observables with an arbitrary number of outcomes, was recently introduced in [Cavalcanti emph{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {bf 99}, 210405 (2007)]. We prove that any $n$-mode quantum state violating this inequality with quadrature measurements necessarily has a negative partial transposition. Our results thus establish the first link between nonlocality and bound entanglement for continuous-variable systems.
A quantum computing system is typically represented by a set of non-interacting (local) two-state systems - qubits. Many physical systems can naturally have more accessible states, both local and non-local. We show that the resulting non-local network of states connecting qubits can be efficiently addressed via continuous time quantum random walks, leading to substantial speed-up of multiqubit entanglement manipulations. We discuss a three-qubit Toffoli gate and a system of superconducting qubits as an illustration.