Entanglement is an essential ingredient for building a quantum network that can have many applications. Understanding how entanglement is distributed in a network is a crucial step to move forward. Here we study the conservation and distribution of Gaussian entanglement in a linear network using a new quantifier for bipartite entanglement. We show that the entanglement can be distributed through a beam-splitter in the same way as the transmittance and the reflectance. The requirements on the entangled states and the type of networks to satisfy this relation are presented explicitly. Our results provide a new quantification for quantum entanglement and further insights into the structure of entanglement in a network.
We study the entangled states that can be generated using two species of atoms trapped in independently movable, two-dimensional optical lattices. We show that using two sets of measurements it is possible to measure a set of entanglement witness operators distributed over arbitrarily large regions of the lattice, and use these witnesses to produce two-dimensional plots of the entanglement content of these states. We also discuss the influence of noise on the states and on the witnesses, as well as connections to ongoing experiments.
We introduce a Gaussian version of the entanglement of formation adapted to bipartite Gaussian states by considering decompositions into pure Gaussian states only. We show that this quantity is an entanglement monotone under Gaussian operations and provide a simplified computation for states of arbitrary many modes. For the case of one mode per site the remaining variational problem can be solved analytically. If the considered state is in addition symmetric with respect to interchanging the two modes, we prove additivity of the considered entanglement measure. Moreover, in this case and considering only a single copy, our entanglement measure coincides with the true entanglement of formation.
A Gaussian degree of entanglement for a symmetric two-mode Gaussian state can be defined as its distance to the set of all separable two-mode Gaussian states. The principal property that enables us to evaluate both Bures distance and relative entropy between symmetric two-mode Gaussian states is the diagonalization of their covariance matrices under the same beam-splitter transformation. The multiplicativity property of the Uhlmann fidelity and the additivity of the relative entropy allow one to finally deal with a single-mode optimization problem in both cases. We find that only the Bures-distance Gaussian entanglement is consistent with the exact entanglement of formation.
A comparison is made of various searching procedures, based upon different entanglement measures or entanglement indicators, for highly entangled multi-qubits states. In particular, our present results are compared with those recently reported by Brown et al. [J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 38 (2005) 1119]. The statistical distribution of entanglement values for the aforementioned multi-qubit systems is also explored.
We provide a rigorous treatment of the entanglement properties of two-mode Gaussian states in atmospheric channels by deriving and analyzing the input-output relations for the corresponding entanglement test. A key feature of such turbulent channels is a non-trivial dependence of the transmitted continuous-variable entanglement on coherent displacements of the quantum state of the input field. Remarkably, this allows one to optimize the entanglement certification by modifying local coherent amplitudes using a finite, but optimal amount of squeezing. In addition, we propose a protocol which, in principle, renders it possible to transfer the Gaussian entanglement through any turbulent channel over arbitrary distances. Therefore, our approach provides the theoretical foundation for advanced applications of Gaussian entanglement in free-space quantum communication.