arXiv subjects

Fernando G. S. L. Brandao

Publications and source records attributed to Fernando G. S. L. Brandao.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

An area law for entanglement from exponential decay of correlations

Area laws for entanglement in quantum many-body systems give useful information about their low-temperature behaviour and are tightly connected to the possibility of good numerical simulations. An intuition from quantum many-body physics suggests that an area law should hold whenever there is exponential decay of correlations in the system, a property found, for instance, in non-critical phases of matter. However, the existence of quantum data-hiding state--that is, states having very small correlations, yet a volume scaling of entanglement--was believed to be a serious obstruction to such an implication. Here we prove that notwithstanding the phenomenon of data hiding, one-dimensional quantum many-body states satisfying exponential decay of correlations always fulfil an area law. To obtain this result we combine several recent advances in quantum information theory, thus showing the usefulness of the field for addressing problems in other areas of physics.

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arXiv2013

Remarks on the equivalence of full additivity and monotonicity for the entanglement cost

We analyse the relationship between the full additivity of the entanglement cost and its full monotonicity under local operations and classical communication. We show that the two properties are equivalent for the entanglement cost. The proof works for the regularization of any convex, subadditive, and asymptotically continuous entanglement monotone, and hence also applies to the asymptotic relative entropy of entanglement.

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arXiv2013

Quantitative entanglement witnesses

Entanglement witnesses provide tools to detect entanglement in experimental situations without the need of having full tomographic knowledge about the state. If one estimates in an experiment an expectation value smaller than zero, one can directly infer that the state has been entangled, or specifically multi-partite entangled, in the first place. In this article, we emphasize that all these tests - based on the very same data - give rise to quantitative estimates in terms of entanglement measures: "If a test is strongly violated, one can also infer that the state was quantitatively very much entangled". We consider various measures of entanglement, including the negativity, the entanglement of formation, and the robustness of entanglement, in the bipartite and multipartite setting. As examples, we discuss several experiments in the context of quantum state preparation that have recently been performed.

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arXiv2013

Entanglement quantifiers and phase transitions

By the topological argument that the identity matrix is surrounded by a set of separable states follows the result that if a system is entangled at thermal equilibrium for some temperature, then it presents a phase transition (PT) where entanglement can be viewed as the order parameter. However, analyzing different entanglement measures in the 2-qubit context, we see that different entanglement quantifiers can indicate different orders for the same PT. Examples are given for different Hamiltonians. Moving to the multipartite context we show necessary and sufficient conditions for a family of entanglement monotones to attest quantum phase transitions.

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arXiv2013

Entanglement distillation by extendible maps

It is known that from entangled states that have positive partial transpose it is not possible to distill maximally entangled states by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). A long-standing open question is whether maximally entangled states can be distilled from every state with a non-positive partial transpose. In this paper we study a possible approach to the question consisting of enlarging the class of operations allowed. Namely, instead of LOCC operations we consider k-extendible operations, defined as maps whose Choi-Jamiolkowski state is k-extendible. We find that this class is unexpectedly powerful - e.g. it is capable of distilling EPR pairs even from product states. We also perform numerical studies of distillation of Werner states by those maps, which show that if we raise the extension index k simultaneously with the number of copies of the state, then the class of k-extendible operations is not that powerful anymore and provide a better approximation to the set of LOCC operations.

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arXiv2013

Correlated entanglement distillation and the structure of the set of undistillable states

We consider entanglement distillation under the assumption that the input states are allowed to be correlated among each other. We hence replace the usually considered independent and identically-distributed hypothesis by the weaker assumption of merely having identical reductions. We find that whether a state is then distillable or not is only a property of these reductions, and not of the correlations that are present in the input state. This is shown by establishing an appealing relation between the set of copy-correlated undistillable states and the standard set of undistillable states: The former turns out to be the convex hull of the latter. As an example of the usefulness of our approach to the study of entanglement distillation, we prove a new activation result, which generalizes earlier findings: it is shown that for every entangled state and every positive integer k, there exists a copy-correlated k-undistillable state such that their tensor product is single-copy distillable. Finally, the relation of our results to the conjecture about the existence of bound entangled states with a non-positive partial transpose is discussed.

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arXiv2013

Are all maximally entangled states pure?

We study if all maximally entangled states are pure through several entanglement monotones. In the bipartite case, we find that the same conditions which lead to the uniqueness of the entropy of entanglement as a measure of entanglement, exclude the existence of maximally mixed entangled states. In the multipartite scenario, our conclusions allow us to generalize the idea of monogamy of entanglement: we establish the \textit{polygamy of entanglement}, expressing that if a general state is maximally entangled with respect to some kind of multipartite entanglement, then it is necessarily factorized of any other system.

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arXiv2013

Entangled inputs cannot make imperfect quantum channels perfect

Entangled inputs can enhance the capacity of quantum channels, this being one of the consequences of the celebrated result showing the non-additivity of several quantities relevant for quantum information science. In this work, we answer the converse question (whether entangled inputs can ever render noisy quantum channels have maximum capacity) to the negative: No sophisticated entangled input of any quantum channel can ever enhance the capacity to the maximum possible value; a result that holds true for all channels both for the classical as well as the quantum capacity. This result can hence be seen as a bound as to how "non-additive quantum information can be". As a main result, we find first practical and remarkably simple computable single-shot bounds to capacities, related to entanglement measures. As examples, we discuss the qubit amplitude damping and identify the first meaningful bound for its classical capacity.

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arXiv2013

Robust Device Independent Randomness Amplification

In randomness amplification a slightly random source is used to produce an improved random source. Perhaps surprisingly, a single source of randomness cannot be amplified at all classically. However, the situation is different if one considers correlations allowed by quantum mechanics as an extra resource. Here we present a protocol that amplifies Santha-Vazirani sources arbitrarily close to deterministic into fully random sources. The protocol is device independent, depending only on the observed statistics of the devices and on the validity of the no-signaling principle between different devices. It improves previously-known protocols in two respects. First the protocol is tolerant to noise so that even noisy quantum-mechanical systems give rise to good devices for the protocol. Second it is simpler, being based on the violation of a four-party Bell inequality and on the XOR as a hash function. As a technical tool we prove a new de Finetti theorem where the subsystems are selected from a Santha-Vazirani source.

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arXiv2013

A smooth entropy approach to quantum hypothesis testing and the classical capacity of quantum channels

We use the smooth entropy approach to treat the problems of binary quantum hypothesis testing and the transmission of classical information through a quantum channel. We provide lower and upper bounds on the optimal type II error of quantum hypothesis testing in terms of the smooth max-relative entropy of the two states representing the two hypotheses. Using then a relative entropy version of the Quantum Asymptotic Equipartition Property (QAEP), we can recover the strong converse rate of the i.i.d. hypothesis testing problem in the asymptotics. On the other hand, combining Stein's lemma with our bounds, we obtain a stronger ($\ep$-independent) version of the relative entropy-QAEP. Similarly, we provide bounds on the one-shot $\ep$-error classical capacity of a quantum channel in terms of a smooth max-relative entropy variant of its Holevo capacity. Using these bounds and the $\ep$-independent version of the relative entropy-QAEP, we can recover both the Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland theorem about the optimal direct rate of a memoryless quantum channel with product state encoding, as well as its strong converse counterpart.

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arXiv2013

Exponential Quantum Speed-ups are Generic

A central problem in quantum computation is to understand which quantum circuits are useful for exponential speed-ups over classical computation. We address this question in the setting of query complexity and show that for almost any sufficiently long quantum circuit one can construct a black-box problem which is solved by the circuit with a constant number of quantum queries, but which requires exponentially many classical queries, even if the classical machine has the ability to postselect. We prove the result in two steps. In the first, we show that almost any element of an approximate unitary 3-design is useful to solve a certain black-box problem efficiently. The problem is based on a recent oracle construction of Aaronson and gives an exponential separation between quantum and classical bounded-error with postselection query complexities. In the second step, which may be of independent interest, we prove that linear-sized random quantum circuits give an approximate unitary 3-design. The key ingredient in the proof is a technique from quantum many-body theory to lower bound the spectral gap of local quantum Hamiltonians.

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arXiv2012

Faithful Squashed Entanglement

Squashed entanglement is a measure for the entanglement of bipartite quantum states. In this paper we present a lower bound for squashed entanglement in terms of a distance to the set of separable states. This implies that squashed entanglement is faithful, that is, strictly positive if and only if the state is entangled. We derive the bound on squashed entanglement from a bound on quantum conditional mutual information, which is used to define squashed entanglement and corresponds to the amount by which strong subadditivity of von Neumann entropy fails to be saturated. Our result therefore sheds light on the structure of states that almost satisfy strong subadditivity with equality. The proof is based on two recent results from quantum information theory: the operational interpretation of the quantum mutual information as the optimal rate for state redistribution and the interpretation of the regularised relative entropy of entanglement as an error exponent in hypothesis testing. The distance to the set of separable states is measured by the one-way LOCC norm, an operationally-motivated norm giving the optimal probability of distinguishing two bipartite quantum states, each shared by two parties, using any protocol formed by local quantum operations and one-directional classical communication between the parties. A similar result for the Frobenius or Euclidean norm follows immediately. The result has two applications in complexity theory. The first is a quasipolynomial-time algorithm solving the weak membership problem for the set of separable states in one-way LOCC or Euclidean norm. The second concerns quantum Merlin-Arthur games. Here we show that multiple provers are not more powerful than a single prover when the verifier is restricted to one-way LOCC operations thereby providing a new characterisation of the complexity class QMA.

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arXiv2011

Detection of Multiparticle Entanglement: Quantifying the Search for Symmetric Extensions

We provide quantitative bounds on the characterisation of multiparticle separable states by states that have locally symmetric extensions. The bounds are derived from two-particle bounds and relate to recent studies on quantum versions of de Finetti's theorem. We discuss algorithmic applications of our results, in particular a quasipolynomial-time algorithm to decide whether a multiparticle quantum state is separable or entangled (for constant number of particles and constant error in the LOCC or Frobenius norm). Our results provide a theoretical justification for the use of the Search for Symmetric Extensions as a practical test for multiparticle entanglement.

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arXiv2011

One-shot rates for entanglement manipulation under non-entangling maps

We obtain expressions for the optimal rates of one- shot entanglement manipulation under operations which generate a negligible amount of entanglement. As the optimal rates for entanglement distillation and dilution in this paradigm, we obtain the max- and min-relative entropies of entanglement, the two logarithmic robustnesses of entanglement, and smoothed versions thereof. This gives a new operational meaning to these entanglement measures. Moreover, by considering the limit of many identical copies of the shared entangled state, we partially recover the recently found reversibility of entanglement manipu- lation under the class of operations which asymptotically do not generate entanglement.

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arXiv2011

A quasipolynomial-time algorithm for the quantum separability problem

We present a quasipolynomial-time algorithm for solving the weak membership problem for the convex set of separable, i.e. non-entangled, bipartite density matrices. The algorithm decides whether a density matrix is separable or whether it is eps-away from the set of the separable states in time exp(O(eps^-2 log |A| log |B|)), where |A| and |B| are the local dimensions, and the distance is measured with either the Euclidean norm, or with the so-called LOCC norm. The latter is an operationally motivated norm giving the optimal probability of distinguishing two bipartite quantum states, each shared by two parties, using any protocol formed by quantum local operations and classical communication (LOCC) between the parties. We also obtain improved algorithms for optimizing over the set of separable states and for computing the ground-state energy of mean-field Hamiltonians. The techniques we develop are also applied to quantum Merlin-Arthur games, where we show that multiple provers are not more powerful than a single prover when the verifier is restricted to LOCC protocols, or when the verification procedure is formed by a measurement of small Euclidean norm. This answers a question posed by Aaronson et al (Theory of Computing 5, 1, 2009) and provides two new characterizations of the complexity class QMA, a quantum analog of NP. Our algorithm uses semidefinite programming to search for a symmetric extension, as first proposed by Doherty, Parrilo and Spedialieri (Phys. Rev. A, 69, 022308, 2004). The bound on the runtime follows from an improved de Finetti-type bound quantifying the monogamy of quantum entanglement, proved in (arXiv:1010.1750). This result, in turn, follows from a new lower bound on the quantum conditional mutual information and the entanglement measure squashed entanglement.

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arXiv2010

A reversible theory of entanglement and its relation to the second law

We consider the manipulation of multipartite entangled states in the limit of many copies under quantum operations that asymptotically cannot generate entanglement. As announced in [Brandao and Plenio, Nature Physics 4, 8 (2008)], and in stark contrast to the manipulation of entanglement under local operations and classical communication, the entanglement shared by two or more parties can be reversibly interconverted in this setting. The unique entanglement measure is identified as the regularized relative entropy of entanglement, which is shown to be equal to a regularized and smoothed version of the logarithmic robustness of entanglement. Here we give a rigorous proof of this result, which is fundamentally based on a certain recent extension of quantum Stein's Lemma proved in [Brandao and Plenio, Commun. Math. 295, 791 (2010)], giving the best measurement strategy for discriminating several copies of an entangled state from an arbitrary sequence of non-entangled states, with an optimal distinguishability rate equal to the regularized relative entropy of entanglement. We moreover analyse the connection of our approach to axiomatic formulations of the second law of thermodynamics.

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arXiv2010

A Generalization of Quantum Stein's Lemma

We present a generalization of quantum Stein's Lemma to the situation in which the alternative hypothesis is formed by a family of states, which can moreover be non-i.i.d.. We consider sets of states which satisfy a few natural properties, the most important being the closedness under permutations of the copies. We then determine the error rate function in a very similar fashion to quantum Stein's Lemma, in terms of the quantum relative entropy. Our result has two applications to entanglement theory. First it gives an operational meaning to an entanglement measure known as regularized relative entropy of entanglement. Second, it shows that this measure is faithful, being strictly positive on every entangled state. This implies, in particular, that whenever a multipartite state can be asymptotically converted into another entangled state by local operations and classical communication, the rate of conversion must be non-zero. Therefore, the operational definition of multipartite entanglement is equivalent to its mathematical definition.

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arXiv2009

On Hastings' counterexamples to the minimum output entropy additivity conjecture

Hastings recently reported a randomized construction of channels violating the minimum output entropy additivity conjecture. Here we revisit his argument, presenting a simplified proof. In particular, we do not resort to the exact probability distribution of the Schmidt coefficients of a random bipartite pure state, as in the original proof, but rather derive the necessary large deviation bounds by a concentration of measure argument. Furthermore, we prove non-additivity for the overwhelming majority of channels consisting of a Haar random isometry followed by partial trace over the environment, for an environment dimension much bigger than the output dimension. This makes Hastings' original reasoning clearer and extends the class of channels for which additivity can be shown to be violated.

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