arXiv subjects

Stefano Mancini

Publications and source records attributed to Stefano Mancini.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Minimum output entropy of a non-Gaussian quantum channel

We introduce a model of non-Gaussian quantum channel that stems from the combination of two physically relevant processes occurring in open quantum systems, namely amplitude damping and dephasing. For it we find input states approaching zero output entropy, while respecting the input energy constraint. These states fully exploit the infinite dimensionality of the Hilbert space. Upon truncation of the latter, the minimum output entropy remains finite and optimal input states for such a case are conjectured thanks to numerical evidences.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Optimal feedback control of two-qubit entanglement in dissipative environments

We study the correction of errors intervening in two-qubit dissipating into their own environments. This is done by resorting to local feedback actions with the aim of preserving as much as possible the initial amount of entanglement. Optimal control is found by first gaining insights from the subsystem purity and then by numerical analysis on the concurrence. This is tantamount to a double optimization, on the actuation and on the measurement processes. Repeated feedback action is also investigated, thus paving the way for a continuous time formulation and solution of the problem.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

The role of spin in entanglement generated by expanding spacetime

We investigate the effects of spin on entanglement arising in Dirac field in an expanding spacetime characterized by the Robertson-Walker metric. We present a general approach that allows us to treat the case where only charge conservation is required, as well as the case where also angular momentum conservation is required. We fiend that in both situations entanglement, quantified by subsystem entropy, behaves the same and does not qualitatively deviates from the spinless case. Differences only arise when particles and/or antiparticles are present in the input state.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Two-way Gaussian quantum cryptography against coherent attacks in direct reconciliation

We consider the two-way quantum cryptographic protocol with coherent states assuming direct reconciliation. A detailed security analysis is performed considering a two-mode coherent attack, that represents the residual eavesdropping once the parties have reduced the general attack by applying symmetric random permutations. In this context we provide a general analytical expression for the keyrate, discussing the impact of the residual two-mode correlations on the security of the scheme. In particular we identify the optimal eavesdropping against two-way quantum communication, which is given by a two-mode coherent attack with symmetric and separable correlations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Quantum reading under a local energy constraint

Nonclassical states of light play a central role in many quantum information protocols. Their quantum features have been exploited to improve the readout of information from digital memories, modelled as arrays of microscopic beam splitters [S. Pirandola, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 090504 (2011)]. In this model of quantum reading, a nonclassical source of light with Einstein-Podolski-Rosen correlations has been proven to retrieve more information than any classical source. In particular, the quantum-classical comparison has been performed under a global energy constraint, i.e., by fixing the mean total number of photons irradiated over each memory cell. In this paper we provide an alternative analysis which is based on a local energy constraint, meaning that we fix the mean number of photons per signal mode irradiated over the memory cell. Under this assumption, we investigate the critical number of signal modes after which a nonclassical source of light is able to beat any classical source irradiating the same number of signals.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

A geometric entropy detecting the Erdös-Rényi phase transition

We propose a method to associate a differentiable Riemannian manifold to a generic many degrees of freedom discrete system which is not described by a Hamiltonian function. Then, in analogy with classical Statistical Mechanics, we introduce an entropy as the logarithm of the volume of the manifold. The geometric entropy so defined is able to detect a paradigmatic phase transition occurring in random graphs theory: the appearance of the `giant component' according to the Erdös-Rényi theorem.

math-ph↗

arXiv2015

Adiabatic many-body state preparation and information transfer in quantum dot arrays

Quantum simulation of many-body systems are one of the most interesting tasks of quantum technology. Among them is the preparation of a many-body system in its ground state when the vanishing energy gap makes the cooling mechanisms ineffective. Adiabatic theorem, as an alternative to cooling, can be exploited for driving the many-body system to its ground state. In this paper, we study two most common disorders in quantum dot arrays, namely exchange coupling fluctuations and hyperfine interaction, in adiabatically preparation of ground state in such systems. We show that the adiabatic ground state preparation is highly robust against those disorder effects making it good analog simulator. Moreover, we also study the adiabatic classical information transfer, using singlet-triplet states, across a spin chain. In contrast to ground state preparation the transfer mechanism is highly affected by disorder and in particular, the hyperfine interaction is very destructive for the performance. This suggests that for communication tasks across such arrays adiabatic evolution is not as effective and quantum quenches could be preferable.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Finite key size analysis of two-way quantum cryptography

Quantum cryptographic protocols solve the longstanding problem of distributing a shared secret string to two distant users by typically making use of one-way quantum channel. However, alternative protocols exploiting two-way quantum channel have been proposed for the same goal and with potential advantages. Here we overview a security proof for two-way quantum key distribution protocols, against the most general eavesdropping attack, that utilize an entropic uncertainty relation. Then, by resorting to the `smooth' version of involved entropies, we extend such a proof to the case of finite key size. The results will be compared to those available for one-way protocols showing some advantages.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Quantum tomography and nonlocality

We present a tomographic approach to the study of quantum nonlocality in multipartite systems. Bell inequalities for tomograms belonging to a generic tomographic scheme are derived by exploiting tools from convex geometry. Then, possible violations of these inequalities are discussed in specific tomographic realizations providing some explicit examples.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Preserving Information from the Beginning to the End of time in a Robertson-Walker Spacetime

Preserving information stored in a physical system subjected to noise can be modeled in a communication-theoretic paradigm, in which storage and retrieval correspond to an input encoding and output decoding, respectively. The encoding and decoding are then constructed in such a way as to protect against the action of a given noisy quantum channel. This paper considers the situation in which the noise is not due to technological imperfections, but rather to the physical laws governing the evolution of the universe. In particular, we consider the dynamics of quantum systems under a 1+1 Robertson-Walker spacetime and find that the noise imparted to them is equivalent to the well known amplitude damping channel. Since one might be interested in preserving both classical and quantum information in such a scenario, we study trade-off coding strategies and determine a region of achievable rates for the preservation of both kinds of information. For applications beyond the physical setting studied here, we also determine a trade-off between achievable rates of classical and quantum information preservation when entanglement assistance is available.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Quantum filtering of a thermal master equation with purified reservoir

We consider a system subject to a quantum optical master equation at finite temperature and study a class of conditional dynamics obtained by monitoring its totally or partially purified environment. More specifically, drawing from the notion that the thermal state of the environment may be regarded as the local state of a lossy and noisy two-mode squeezed state, we consider conditional dynamics ("unravellings") resulting from the homodyne detection of the two modes of such a state. Thus, we identify a class of unravellings parametrised by the loss rate suffered by the environmental two-mode state, which interpolate between direct detection of the environmental mode alone (occurring for total loss, whereby no correlation between the two environmental modes is left) and full access to the purification of the bath (occurring when no loss is acting and the two-mode state of the environment is pure). We hence show that, while direct detection of the bath is not able to reach the maximal steady-state squeezing allowed by general-dyne unravellings, such optimal values can be obtained when a fully purified bath is accessible. More generally we show that, within our framework, any degree of access to the bath purification improves the performance of filtering protocols in terms of achievable squeezing and entanglement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Entanglement from dissipative dynamics into overlapping environments

We consider two ensembles of qubit dissipating into two overlapping environments, that is with a certain number of qubit in common that dissipate into both environments. We then study the dynamics of bipartite entanglement between the two ensembles by excluding the common qubit. To get analytical solutions for an arbitrary number of qubit we consider initial states with a single excitation and show that the largest amount of entanglement can be created when excitations are initially located among side (non common) qubit. Moreover, the stationary entanglement exhibits a monotonic (resp. non-monotonic) scaling versus the number of common (resp. side) qubit.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

General-dyne unravelling of a thermal master equation

We analyse the unravelling of the quantum optical master equation at finite temperature due to direct, continuous, general-dyne detection of the environment. We first express the general-dyne Positive Operator Valued Measure (POVM) in terms of the eigenstates of a non-hermitian operator associated to the general-dyne measurement. Then, we derive the stochastic master equation obtained by considering the interaction between the system and a reservoir at thermal equilibrium, which is measured according to the POVM previously determined. Finally, we present a feasible measurement scheme which reproduces general-dyne detection for any value of the parameter characterising the stochastic master equation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Quantum Channel Capacities with Passive Environment Assistance

We initiate the study of passive environment-assisted communication via a quantum channel, modeled as a unitary interaction between the information carrying system and an environment. In this model, the environment is controlled by a benevolent helper who can set its initial state such as to assist sender and receiver of the communication link. (The case of a malicious environment, also known as jammer, or arbitrarily varying channel, is essentially well-understood and comprehensively reviewed.) Here, after setting out precise definitions, focussing on the problem of quantum communication, we show that entanglement plays a crucial role in this problem: indeed, the assisted capacity where the helper is restricted to product states between channel uses is different from the one with unrestricted helper. Furthermore, prior shared entanglement between the helper and the receiver makes a difference, too.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Entanglement Typicality

We provide a summary of both seminal and recent results on typical entanglement. By typical values of entanglement, we refer here to values of entanglement quantifiers that (given a reasonable measure on the manifold of states) appear with arbitrarily high probability for quantum systems of sufficiently high dimensionality. We work within the Haar measure framework for discrete quantum variables, where we report on results concerning the average von Neumann and linear entropies as well as arguments implying the typicality of such values in the asymptotic limit. We then proceed to discuss the generation of typical quantum states with random circuitry. Different phases of entanglement, and the connection between typical entanglement and thermodynamics are discussed. We also cover approaches to measures on the non-compact set of Gaussian states of continuous variable quantum systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Quantifying Networks Complexity from Information Geometry Viewpoint

We consider a Gaussian statistical model whose parameter space is given by the variances of random variables. Underlying this model we identify networks by interpreting random variables as sitting on vertices and their correlations as weighted edges among vertices. We then associate to the parameter space a statistical manifold endowed with a Riemannian metric structure (that of Fisher-Rao). Going on, in analogy with the microcanonical definition of entropy in Statistical Mechanics, we introduce an entropic measure of networks complexity. We prove that it is invariant under networks isomorphism. Above all, considering networks as simplicial complexes, we evaluate this entropy on simplexes and find that it monotonically increases with their dimension.

math-ph↗

arXiv2014

Information Dissipation in Random Quantum Networks

We study the information dynamics in a network of spin-$1/2$ particles when edges representing $XY$ interactions are randomly added to a disconnected graph accordingly to a probability distribution characterized by a "weighting" parameter. In this way we model dissipation of information initially localized in single or two qubits all over the network. We then show the dependence of this phenomenon from weighting parameter and size of the network.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Security of two-way quantum key distribution

Quantum key distribution protocols typically make use of a one-way quantum channel to distribute a shared secret string to two distant users. However, protocols exploiting a two-way quantum channel have been proposed as an alternative route to the same goal, with the potential advantage of outperforming one-way protocols. Here we provide a strategy to prove security for two-way quantum key distribution protocols against the most general quantum attack possible by an eavesdropper. We utilize an entropic uncertainty relation, and only a few assumptions need to be made about the devices used in the protocol. We also show that a two-way protocol can outperform comparable one-way protocols.

quant-ph↗