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Ll. Masanes

Publications and source records attributed to Ll. Masanes.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2014

Full security of quantum key distribution from no-signaling constraints

We analyze a cryptographic protocol for generating a distributed secret key from correlations that violate a Bell inequality by a sufficient amount, and prove its security against eavesdroppers, constrained only by the assumption that any information accessible to them must be compatible with the non-signaling principle. The claim holds with respect to the state-of-the-art security definition used in cryptography, known as universally-composable security. The non-signaling assumption only refers to the statistics of measurement outcomes depending on the choices of measurements; hence security is independent of the internal workings of the devices --- they do not even need to follow the laws of quantum theory. This is relevant for practice as a correct and complete modeling of realistic devices is generally impossible. The techniques developed are general and can be applied to other Bell inequality-based protocols. In particular, we provide a scheme for estimating Bell-inequality violations when the samples are not independent and identically distributed.

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arXiv2010

Unified Framework for Correlations in Terms of Local Quantum Observables

We provide a unified framework for nonsignalling quantum and classical multipartite correlations, allowing all to be written as the trace of some local (quantum) measurements multiplied by an operator. The properties of this operator define the corresponding set of correlations.We then show that if the theory is such that all local quantum measurements are possible, one obtains the correlations corresponding to the extension of Gleason's Theorem to multipartite systems. Such correlations coincide with the quantum ones for one and two parties, but we prove the existence of a gap for three or more parties.

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arXiv2008

Useful entanglement can be extracted from all nonseparable states

We consider entanglement distillation from a single-copy of a multipartite state, and instead of rates we analyze the "quality" of the distilled entanglement. This "quality" is quantified by the fidelity with the GHZ-state. We show that each not fully-separable state $σ$ can increase the "quality" of the entanglement distilled from other states, no matter how weakly entangled is $σ$. We also generalize this to the case where the goal is distilling states different than the GHZ. These results provide new insights on the geometry of the set of separable states and its dual (the set of entanglement witnesses).

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arXiv2007

The quantum Chernoff bound as a measure of distinguishability between density matrices: application to qubit and Gaussian states

Hypothesis testing is a fundamental issue in statistical inference and has been a crucial element in the development of information sciences. The Chernoff bound gives the minimal Bayesian error probability when discriminating two hypotheses given a large number of observations. Recently the combined work of Audenaert et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 160501] and Nussbaum and Szkola [quant-ph/0607216] has proved the quantum analog of this bound, which applies when the hypotheses correspond to two quantum states. Based on the quantum Chernoff bound, we define a physically meaningful distinguishability measure and its corresponding metric in the space of states; the latter is shown to coincide with the Wigner-Yanase metric. Along the same lines, we define a second, more easily implementable, distinguishability measure based on the error probability of discrimination when the same local measurement is performed on every copy. We study some general properties of these measures, including the probability distribution of density matrices, defined via the volume element induced by the metric, and illustrate their use in the paradigmatic cases of qubits and Gaussian infinite-dimensional states.

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arXiv2006

The Quantum Chernoff Bound

We consider the problem of discriminating two different quantum states in the setting of asymptotically many copies, and determine the optimal strategy that minimizes the total probability of error. This leads to the identification of the quantum Chernoff bound, thereby solving a long standing open problem. The bound reduces to the classical Chernoff bound when the quantum states under consideration commute. The quantum Chernoff bound is the natural symmetric distance measure between quantum states because of its clear operational meaning and because of the fact that it does not seem to share the undesirable features of other distance measures like the fidelity, the trace norm and the relative entropy.

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arXiv2006

Asymptotic violation of Bell inequalities and distillability

A multipartite quantum state violates a Bell inequality asymptotically if, after jointly processing by general local operations an arbitrarily large number of copies of it, the result violates the inequality. In the bipartite case we show that asymptotic violation of the CHSH-inequality is equivalent to distillability. Hence, bound entangled states do not violate it. In the multipartite case we consider the complete set of full-correlation Bell inequalities with two dichotomic observables per site, also called WWZB-inequalities. We show that asymptotic violation of any of these inequalities by a multipartite state implies that pure-state entanglement can be distilled from it, although the corresponding distillation protocol may require that some of the parties join into several groups. We also obtain the extreme points of the set of distributions generated by measuring $N$ quantum systems with two dichotomic observables per site. It is shown that when considering the violation of any Bell inequality after preprocessing, either deterministic LOCC or stochastic local operations (without communication) is enough.

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arXiv2006

All entangled states are useful for information processing

The question whether all entangled states can be used as a nonclassical resource has remained open so far. Here we provide a conclusive answer to this problem for the case of systems shared by two parties. We show that any entangled state $σ$ can enhance the teleportation power of some other state. This holds even if the state $σ$ is bound entangled.

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arXiv2005

Extremal quantum correlations for N parties with two dichotomic observables per site

Consider a scenario where $N$ separated quantum systems are measured, each with one among two possible dichotomic observables. Assume that the $N$ events corresponding to the choice and performance of the measurement in each site are space-like separated. In the present paper, the correlations among the measurement outcomes that arise in this scenario are analyzed. It is shown that all extreme points of this convex set are attainable by measuring $N$-qubit pure-states with projective observables. This result allows the possibility of using known algorithms in order decide whether some correlations are achievable within quantum mechanics or not. It is also proven that if an $N$-partite state $ρ$ violates a given Bell inequality, then, $ρ$ can be transformed by stochastic local operations into an $N$-qubit state that violates the same Bell inequality by an equal or larger amount.

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arXiv2005

General properties of Nonsignaling Theories

This article identifies a series of properties common to all theories that do not allow for superluminal signaling and predict the violation of Bell inequalities. Intrinsic randomness, uncertainty due to the incompatibility of two observables, monogamy of correlations, impossibility of perfect cloning, privacy of correlations, bounds in the shareability of some states; all these phenomena are solely a consequence of the no-signaling principle and nonlocality. In particular, it is shown that for any distribution, the properties of (i) nonlocal, (ii) no arbitrarily shareable and (iii) positive secrecy content are equivalent.

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arXiv2004

Secrecy content of two-qubit states

We analyze the set of two-qubit states from which a secret key can be extracted by single-copy measurements plus classical processing of the outcomes. We introduce a key distillation protocol and give the corresponding necessary and sufficient condition for positive key extraction. Our results imply that the critical error rate derived by Chau, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 66}, 060302 (2002), for a secure key distribution using the six-state scheme is tight. Remarkably, an optimal eavesdropping attack against this protocol does not require any coherent quantum operation.

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arXiv2004

Multiple copy 2-state discrimination with individual measurements

We address the problem of non-orthogonal two-state discrimination when multiple copies of the unknown state are available. We give the optimal strategy when only fixed individual measurements are allowed and show that its error probability saturates the collective (lower) bound asymptotically. We also give the optimal strategy when adaptivity of individual von Neumann measurements is allowed (which requires classical communication), and show that the corresponding error probability is exactly equal to the collective one for any number of copies. We show that this strategy can be regarded as Bayesian updating.

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arXiv2003

Multipartite Bound Information exists and can be activated

We prove the conjectured existence of Bound Information, a classical analog of bound entanglement, in the multipartite scenario. We give examples of tripartite probability distributions from which it is impossible to extract any kind of secret key, even in the asymptotic regime, although they cannot be created by local operations and public communication. Moreover, we show that bound information can be activated: three honest parties can distill a common secret key from different distributions having bound information. Our results demonstrate that quantum information theory can provide useful insight for solving open problems in classical information theory.

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arXiv2003

Necessary and sufficient condition for quantum-generated correlations

We present a non-linear inequality that completely characterizes the set of correlation functions obtained from bipartite quantum systems, for the case in which measurements on each subsystem can be chosen between two arbitrary dichotomic observables. This necessary and sufficient condition is the maximal strengthening of Cirel'son's bound.

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arXiv2002

Time-optimal Hamiltonian simulation and gate synthesis using homogeneous local unitaries

Motivated by experimental limitations commonly met in the design of solid state quantum computers, we study the problems of non-local Hamiltonian simulation and non-local gate synthesis when only homogeneous local unitaries are performed in order to tailor the available interaction. Homogeneous (i.e. identical for all subsystems) local manipulation implies a more refined classification of interaction Hamiltonians than the inhomogeneous case, as well as the loss of universality in Hamiltonian simulation. For the case of symmetric two-qubit interactions, we provide time-optimal protocols for both Hamiltonian simulation and gate synthesis.

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