Recycling qubits for the generation of Bell nonlocality between independent sequential observers

There is currently much interest in the recycling of entangled systems, for use in quantum information protocols by sequential observers. In this work, we study the sequential generation of Bell nonlocality via recycling one or both components of two-qubit states. We first give a description of two-valued qubit measurements in terms of measurement bias, strength, and reversibility, and derive useful tradeoff relations between them. Then, we derive one-sided monogamy relations that support the recent Conjecture in [S. Cheng {it et al.}, arXiv:2102.11574], that if the first pair of observers violate Bell nonlocality then a subsequent independent pair cannot. We also answer a question raised in [P. J. Brown and R. Colbeck, Phys. Rev. Lett. textbf{125}, 090401 (2020)], by showing that the conditions given therein for the recycling of one qubit by an arbitrarily large number of observers are sufficient but not necessary. Finally, we find that it is possible to share Bell nonlocality between multiple pairs of independent observers on both sides, if sufficiently many pairs of qubits are shared. Our results are based on a formalism that is applicable to more general problems in recycling entanglement, and hence is expected to aid progress in this field.

Limitations on sharing Bell nonlocality between sequential pairs of observers

We give strong analytic and numerical evidence that, under mild measurement assumptions, two qubits cannot both be recycled to generate Bell nonlocality between multiple independent observers on each side. This is surprising, as under the same assumptions it is possible to recycle just one of the qubits an arbitrarily large number of times [P. J. Brown and R. Colbeck, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 090401 (2020)]. We derive corresponding one-sided monogamy relations that rule out two-sided recycling for a wide range of parameters, based on a general tradeoff relation between the strengths and maximum reversibilities of qubit measurements. We also show if the assumptions are relaxed to allow sufficiently biased measurement selections, then there is a narrow range of measurement strengths that allows two-sided recycling for two observers on each side, and propose an experimental test. Our methods may be readily applied to other types of quantum correlations, such as steering and entanglement, and hence to general information protocols involving sequential measurements.

Monogamy relations for nonclassical correlations of multi-qubit states

Nonclassical correlations have been found useful in many quantum information processing tasks, and various measures have been proposed to quantify these correlations. In this work, we mainly study one of nonclassical correlations, called measurement-induced nonlocality (MIN). First, we establish a close connection between this nonlocal effect and the Bell nonlocality for two-qubit states. Then, we derive a tight monogamy relation of MIN for any pure three-qubit state and provide an alternative way to obtain similar monogamy relations for other nonclassical correlation measures, including squared negativity, quantum discord, and geometric quantum discord. Finally, we find that the tight monogamy relation of MIN is violated by some mixed three-qubit states, however, a weaker monogamy relation of MIN for mixed states and even multi-qubit states is still obtained.