Quantum entanglement of pure states is usually quantified via the entanglement entropy, the von Neumann entropy of the reduced state. Entanglement entropy is closely related to entanglement distillation, a process for converting quantum states into singlets, which can then be used for various quantum technological tasks. The relation between entanglement entropy and entanglement distillation has been known only for the asymptotic setting, and the meaning of entanglement entropy in the single-copy regime has so far remained open. Here we close this gap by considering entanglement catalysis. We prove that entanglement entropy completely characterizes state transformations in the presence of entangled catalysts. Our results imply that entanglement entropy quantifies the amount of entanglement available in a bipartite pure state to be used for quantum information processing, giving asymptotic results an operational meaning also in the single-copy setup.
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