We investigate entanglement purification protocols based on hashing, where a large number of noisy entangled pairs is jointly processed to obtain a reduced number of perfect, noiseless copies. While hashing and breeding protocols are the only purific
ation protocols that asymptotically obtain a nonzero yield, they are not applicable in a realistic scenario if local gates and measurements are imperfect. We show that such problems can be overcome by a compact measurement-based implementation, yielding entanglement purification schemes with nonzero yield that are applicable also in noisy scenarios, with tolerable noise per particle of several percent. We also generalize these findings to multiparty purification protocols for arbitrary graph states.
We investigate measurement-based entanglement purification protocols (EPP) in the presence of local noise and imperfections. We derive a universal, protocol-independent threshold for the required quality of the local resource states, where we show th
at local noise per particle of up to 24% is tolerable. This corresponds to an increase of the noise threshold by almost an order of magnitude, based on the joint measurement-based implementation of sequential rounds of few-particle EPP. We generalize our results to multipartite EPP, where we encounter similarly high error thresholds.
We introduce measurement-based quantum repeaters, where small-scale measurement-based quantum processors are used to perform entanglement purification and entanglement swapping in a long-range quantum communication protocol. In the scheme, pre-prepar
ed entangled states stored at intermediate repeater stations are coupled with incoming photons by simple Bell-measurements, without the need of performing additional quantum gates or measurements. We show how to construct the required resource states, and how to minimize their size. We analyze the performance of the scheme under noise and imperfections, with focus on small-scale implementations involving entangled states of few qubits. We find measurement-based purification protocols with significantly improved noise thresholds. Furthermore we show that already resource states of small size suffice to significantly increase the maximal communication distance. We also discuss possible advantages of our scheme for different set-ups.
In our recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 230502 (2009)] we showed that the partition function of all classical spin models, including all discrete standard statistical models and all Abelian discrete lattice gauge theories (LGTs), can be expressed a
s a special instance of the partition function of a 4-dimensional pure LGT with gauge group Z_2 (4D Z_2 LGT). This provides a unification of models with apparently very different features into a single complete model. The result uses an equality between the Hamilton function of any classical spin model and the Hamilton function of a model with all possible k-body Ising-type interactions, for all k, which we also prove. Here, we elaborate on the proof of the result, and we illustrate it by computing quantities of a specific model as a function of the partition function of the 4D Z_2 LGT. The result also allows one to establish a new method to compute the mean-field theory of Z_2 LGTs with d > 3, and to show that computing the partition function of the 4D Z_2 LGT is computationally hard (#P hard). The proof uses techniques from quantum information.
Quantum computation offers a promising new kind of information processing, where the non-classical features of quantum mechanics can be harnessed and exploited. A number of models of quantum computation exist, including the now well-studied quantum c
ircuit model. Although these models have been shown to be formally equivalent, their underlying elementary concepts and the requirements for their practical realization can differ significantly. The new paradigm of measurement-based quantum computation, where the processing of quantum information takes place by rounds of simple measurements on qubits prepared in a highly entangled state, is particularly exciting in this regard. In this article we discuss a number of recent developments in measurement-based quantum computation in both fundamental and practical issues, in particular regarding the power of quantum computation, the protection against noise (fault tolerance) and steps toward experimental realization. Moreover, we highlight a number of surprising connections between this field and other branches of physics and mathematics.
We show that the partition function of all classical spin models, including all discrete Standard Statistical Models and all abelian discrete Lattice Gauge Theories (LGTs), can be expressed as a special instance of the partition function of the 4D Z_
2 LGT. In this way, all classical spin models with apparently very different features are unified in a single complete model, and a physical relation between all models is established. As applications of this result, we present a new method to do mean field theory for abelian discrete LGTs with d>3, and we show that the computation of the partition function of the 4D Z_2 LGT is a computationally hard (#P-hard) problem. We also extend our results to abelian continuous models, where we show the approximate completeness of the 4D Z_2 LGT. All results are proven using quantum information techniques.
We prove that the 2D Ising model is complete in the sense that the partition function of any classical q-state spin model (on an arbitrary graph) can be expressed as a special instance of the partition function of a 2D Ising model with complex inhomo
geneous couplings and external fields. In the case where the original model is an Ising or Potts-type model, we find that the corresponding 2D square lattice requires only polynomially more spins w.r.t the original one, and we give a constructive method to map such models to the 2D Ising model. For more general models the overhead in system size may be exponential. The results are established by connecting classical spin models with measurement-based quantum computation and invoking the universality of the 2D cluster states.
We give a review on entanglement purification for bipartite and multipartite quantum states, with the main focus on theoretical work carried out by our group in the last couple of years. We discuss entanglement purification in the context of quantum
communication, where we emphasize its close relation to quantum error correction. Various bipartite and multipartite entanglement purification protocols are discussed, and their performance under idealized and realistic conditions is studied. Several applications of entanglement purification in quantum communication and computation are presented, which highlights the fact that entanglement purification is a fundamental tool in quantum information processing.
