arXiv subjects

Riccardo Castellano

Publications and source records attributed to Riccardo Castellano.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The entropic coherence is a necessary resource for non-energy preserving gates

We consider the task of implementing non-energy preserving gates (NEPG) on a finite-dimensional system S via an energy-preserving interaction with an external battery B. We prove that the entropic coherence of the battery (an instance of the relative entropy of resource) is a necessary resource for this task, and find a lower bound on its minimum amount that has to be present in the battery to be able to implement NEPGs with a fixed desired precision. An immediate corollary is that any finite-dimensional battery is doomed to a certain minimal error in the gate implementation task. Moreover, under assumptions on the density of energy levels in the battery Hamiltonian, our main results imply additional lower bounds on the minimal amount of energy and quantum Fisher information required to implement any gate. We show that these bounds can be stronger than the universal bounds previously established in the literature.

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arXiv2026

Exact requirements for battery-assisted qubit gates

We consider the implementation of a unitary gate on a qubit system S via a global energy-preserving operation acting on S and an auxiliary system B that can be seen as a battery. We derive a simple, asymptotically exact expression for the implementation error as a function of the battery state, which we refer to as the it Unitary Defect. Remarkably, this quantity is independent of the specific gate being implemented, highlighting a universal property of the battery itself. We show that minimizing the unitary defect, under given physical constraints on the battery state, is mathematically equivalent to solving a Lagrangian optimization problem, often corresponding to finding the ground state of a one-dimensional quantum system. Using this mapping, we identify optimal battery states that achieve the highest precision under constraints on energy, squared energy, number of levels and Quantum Fisher Information. Overall, our results provide an efficient method for establishing bounds on the physical requirements needed to implement a unitary gate via energy-preserving operations and for determining the corresponding optimal protocols.

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arXiv2026

Superactivation of genuine multipartite Bell nonlocality from two-party entanglement

Characterizing the relation between entanglement and Bell nonlocality is a long-standing open problem, notably challenging in the multipartite case. Here we investigate the effect of superactivation of genuine multipartite nonlocality. Specifically, we show that starting from multipartite states that feature only two-party entanglement (hence almost fully separable), it is possible to obtain GMNL in the many-copy regime. This represents the weakest possible resource for GMNL superactivation. On the technical side, we develop an efficient and practical criterion for certifying GMNL superactivation based on network entangled states, as well as a perfect parallel repetition result for the Khot-Vishnoi Bell game, which are of independent interest.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Stronger Welch Bounds and Optimal Approximate $k$-Designs

A fundamental question asks how uniformly finite sets of pure quantum states can be distributed in a Hilbert space. The Welch bounds address this question, and are saturated by $k$-designs, i.e. sets of states reproducing the $k$-th Haar moments. However, these bounds quickly become uninformative when the number of states is below that required for an exact $k$-design. We derive strengthened Welch-type inequalities that remain sharp in this regime by exploiting rank constraints from partial transposition and spectral properties of the partially transposed Haar moment operator. We prove that the deviation from the Welch bound captures the average-case approximation error, hence characterizing a natural notion of minimum achievable error at fixed cardinality. For $k=3$, we prove that SICs and complete MUB sets saturate our bounds, making them optimal approximate 3-designs of their cardinality. This leads to a natural variational criterion to rule out the existence of a complete set MUBs, which we use to obtain numerical evidence against such set in dimension $6$. As a key technical ingredient, we compute the complete spectrum of the partially transposed symmetric-subspace projector, including multiplicities and eigenvectors, which may find applications beyond the present work.

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arXiv2025

On the entropy growth of sums of iid discrete random variables

We derive an asymptotic lower bound on the Shannon entropy $H$ of sums of $N$ arbitrary iid discrete random variables. The derived bound $H \geq \frac{r(X)}{2}\log(N) + {\it cst}$ is given in terms of the incommensurability rank $r(X)$ of the random variable -- a positive integer quantity that we introduce. The derivation does not rely on central limit theorems, but builds upon the known expressions of the asymptotic entropy of the multinomial distribution and sums of iid lattice random variables, which correspond to the case $r(X)=1$.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

Parallel ergotropy: Maximum work extraction via parallel local unitary operations

Maximum quantum work extraction is generally defined in terms of the ergotropy functional, no matter how experimentally complicated is the implementation of the optimal unitary allowing for it, especially in the case of multipartite systems. In this framework, we consider a quantum battery made up of many interacting sub-systems and study the maximum extractable work via concurrent local unitary operations on each subsystem. We call the resulting functional parallel ergotropy. Focusing on the bipartite case, we first observe that parallel ergotropy outperforms work extraction via egoistic strategies, in which the first agent A extracts locally on its part the maximum available work and the second agent B, subsequently, extracts what is left on the other part. For the agents, this showcases the need of cooperating for an overall benefit. Secondly, from the informational point of view, we observe that the parallel capacity of a state can detect entanglement and compare it with the statistical entanglement witness that exploits fluctuations of stochastic work extraction. Additionally, we face the technical problem of computing parallel ergotropy. We derive analytical upper bounds for specific classes of states and Hamiltonians and provide receipts to obtain numerical upper bounds via semi-definite programming in the generic case. Finally, extending the concept of parallel ergotropy, we demonstrate that system's free-time evolution and application of local unitaries allow one to saturate the gap with the ergotropy of the whole system.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Extended local ergotropy

A fundamental problem in quantum thermodynamics is to properly quantify the work extractable from out-of-equilibrium systems. While for closed systems, maximum quantum work extraction is defined in terms of the ergotropy functional, this question is unclear in open systems interacting with an environment. The concept of local ergotropy has been proposed, but it presents several problems, such as it is not guaranteed to be non-increasing in time. Here we introduce the concept of extended local ergotropy by exploiting the free evolution of the system-environment compound. At variance with the local ergotropy, the extended local ergotropy is greater, is non-increasing in time, and activates the potential of work extraction in many cases. We then concentrate on specific schemes in which we alternate repeated local unitaries and free system-environment evolution. We provide examples based on the Jaynes-Cummings model, presenting practical protocols and analytic results that serve as proof of principle for the aforementioned advantages.

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