arXiv subjects

Tulja Varun Kondra

Publications and source records attributed to Tulja Varun Kondra.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Multinegativity and single-letter formulas for asymptotic entanglement

The study of entanglement inevitably leads to the concept of regularization, where measures are evaluated on infinitely many copies of a state. Single-letter formulas try to make these asymptotic entanglement quantities accessible through a calculation on one copy of a state, but are rarely available. We introduce a decreasing hierarchy of computable upper bounds on the asymptotic relative entropy of entanglement with respect to positive-partial-transpose (PPT) states. The regularization of every fixed hierarchy level equals this asymptotic quantity. Additivity at any level therefore yields a single-letter formula, even when the usual one-copy relative entropy is nonadditive. We establish such additivity at the first nontrivial level for two broad multiparameter families, both containing all Werner states. The upper-bound construction also extends to sandwiched Renyi divergences. The hierarchy motivates $k$-multinegative states, a generalization of binegative states and the associated $k$-multinegativity, which gives explicit upper bounds on both the asymptotic relative entropy and exact PPT entanglement cost. We construct states which are $k$-multinegative at arbitrarily large depths $k$ that separate consecutive levels of the previously introduced entanglement-cost hierarchy, disproving its conjectured finite collapse. These results provide state-dependent single-letter formulas while identifying a limitation of universal finite-level characterizations.

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arXiv2026

Sharp Quantum Capacity Thresholds: Exponential Strong Converses for Degradable and Antidegradable Channels

The quantum capacity of a noisy channel quantifies the maximum rate at which quantum information can be transmitted reliably. For general channels, its evaluation requires an optimization over arbitrarily many channel uses. Degradable channels form a central exception: their capacity is given by the single-letter coherent information, while antidegradable channels have zero capacity. Nevertheless, even for these fundamental classes, it has remained open whether communication above capacity becomes possible when a fixed non-maximal error is tolerated. Here we resolve this problem by proving an exponential strong converse for every finite-dimensional degradable and antidegradable channel: at any rate above capacity, the fidelity of every coding scheme decays exponentially with the number of channel uses. As an immediate consequence, we establish the first all-code exponential strong converse for the quantum erasure channel throughout its full parameter range, strengthening previous results that applied only to almost all codes. We also show that exponential strong-converse bounds are preserved under receiver post-processing. This yields efficiently computable semidefinite-programming bounds for arbitrary finite-dimensional channels, improved bounds for Pauli channels, and an exact exponential strong converse for a nondegradable multilevel amplitude-damping family.

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arXiv2026

Very Strong Irreversibility of Quantum Entanglement

The manipulation of quantum entanglement is fundamentally irreversible: some mixed entangled states require pure entanglement for their preparation, although no pure entanglement can be recovered from them by local operations and classical communication. This irreversibility is known to persist even under the maximal class of operations that do not generate entanglement, revealing a fundamental distinction between entanglement theory and thermodynamics. We construct cases for which any attempt to restore reversibility necessarily incurs an error that increases exponentially with the number of copies. Technically, we demonstrate a strict separation between the exponential strong-converse distillable entanglement and the exponential strong-converse entanglement cost. Our result resolves a conjecture posed by Lami and Regula (Nat. Phys. 19, 184-189 (2023)) and strengthens it by showing that the irreversibility of entanglement persists even at the level of polynomially (in the number of copies) growing error. We further derive a semidefinite-programming lower bound on the exponential strong-converse cost under non-entangling operations. Finally, for the class of completely PPT-preserving operations, we construct analytically solvable families of antisymmetric states exhibiting the exponential strong-converse irreversibility. Remarkably, to our knowledge, no analogous separation between exponential strong converse cost and the analogous distillable entanglement is currently known even under the more restrictive class of LOCC operations.

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arXiv2026

Optimality of universal conclusive entanglement concentration protocols

Entanglement concentration is essential for quantum technologies, yet rigorous bounds on the success probability for universal protocols (those requiring no prior knowledge about the input state) have remained underexplored. We establish such fundamental limits for conclusive protocols distilling a perfect Bell state from pure two-qubit states by deriving the optimal success probability starting with two copies of a state with known Schmidt basis and four copies of a state with unknown Schmidt basis, using concatenated two-qubit operations. We prove that a known protocol achieves these bounds, confirming its optimality. Crucially, universality imposes an inherent efficiency trade-off, yielding an average success probability of just 2/105 over Haar measure.

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arXiv2026

Fundamental limitations on entanglement extraction from purity

States of sufficiently low purity are separable and cannot be entangled by unital (purity-non-generating) operations. Since high-purity states are experimentally demanding, it is natural to ask how much purity a state must possess to enable entanglement generation. Absolutely separable states remain separable under all deterministic unital channels, and so cannot deterministically generate entanglement in this setting. We show, however, that some absolutely separable states can generate entanglement via probabilistic protocols that do not produce purity. This motivates the study of states that fail to generate entanglement with any non-zero probability, which we call completely absolutely separable; we give a full characterization of this class. Along the way, we derive a novel sufficient condition for separability that depends only on the largest and smallest eigenvalues, along with the smallest local dimension and is independent of all previously known spectral separability criteria.

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arXiv2025

Stochastic approximate state conversion for entanglement and general quantum resource theories

Quantum resource theories provide a mathematically rigorous way of understanding the nature of various quantum resources. An important problem in any quantum resource theory is to determine how quantum states can be converted into each other within the physical constraints of the theory. The standard approach to this problem is to study approximate or probabilistic transformations. Here, we investigate the intermediate regime, providing limits on both, the fidelity and the probability of state transformations. We derive limitations on the transformations, which are valid in all quantum resource theories, by providing bounds on the maximal transformation fidelity for a given transformation probability. As an application, we show that these bounds imply an upper bound on the asymptotic rates for various classes of states under probabilistic transformations. We also show that the deterministic version of the single copy bounds can be applied for drawing limitations on the manipulation of quantum channels, which goes beyond the previously known bounds of channel manipulations. Furthermore, we completely solve the question of stochastic-approximate state conversion via local operations and classical communication in the following two cases: (i) Both initial and target states are pure bipartite entangled states of arbitrary dimensions. (ii) The target state is a two-qubit entangled state and the initial state is a pure bipartite state.

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arXiv2025

Second Law of Entanglement Manipulation with Entanglement Battery

A central question since the beginning of quantum information science is how two distant parties can convert one entangled state into another. It has been conjectured that such conversions could be executed reversibly in an asymptotic regime, mirroring the reversible nature of Carnot cycles in classical thermodynamics. While a conclusive proof of this conjecture has been missing so far, earlier studies have excluded reversible entanglement manipulation in various settings. In this work, we show that arbitrary mixed state entanglement transformations can be made reversible under local operations and classical communication, when assisted by an entanglement battery--an auxiliary quantum system that stores and supplies entanglement in a way that ensures no net entanglement is lost. In particular, the rate of transformation in the asymptotic limit can be quantitatively expressed as a ratio of entanglement present within the quantum states involved. Our setting allows to consider different entanglement quantifiers which give rise to unique principles governing state transformations, effectively constituting diverse manifestations of a ``second law'' of entanglement manipulation. These findings resolve a long-standing open question on the reversible manipulation of entangled states and are also applicable to multipartite entanglement and other quantum resource theories, including quantum thermodynamics.

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arXiv2025

Coherence manipulation in asymmetry and thermodynamics

In the classical regime, thermodynamic state transformations are governed by the free energy. This is also called as the second law of thermodynamics. Previous works showed that, access to a catalytic system allows us to restore the second law in the quantum regime when we ignore coherence. However, in the quantum regime, coherence and free energy are two independent resources. Therefore, coherence places additional non-trivial restrictions on the the state transformations, that remains elusive. In order to close this gap, we isolate and study the nature of coherence, i.e., we assume access to a source of free energy. We show that allowing catalysis along with a source of free energy allows us to amplify any quantum coherence present in the quantum state arbitrarily. Additionally, any correlations between the system and the catalyst can be suppressed arbitrarily. Therefore, our results provide a key step in formulating a fully general law of quantum thermodynamics.

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arXiv2025

No quantum advantage without classical communication: fundamental limitations of quantum networks

Quantum networks connect systems at separate locations via quantum links, enabling a wide range of quantum information tasks between distant parties. Large-scale networks have the potential to enable global secure communication, distributed quantum computation, enhanced clock synchronization, and high-precision multiparameter metrology. For the optimal development of these technologies, however, it is essential to identify the necessary resources and sub-routines that will lead to the quantum advantage, but this is demanding even for the simplest protocols in quantum information processing. Here we show that quantum networks relying on the long-distance distribution of bipartite entanglement, combined with local operations and shared randomness, cannot achieve a relevant quantum advantage. Specifically, we prove that these networks do not help in preparing resourceful quantum states such as Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states or cluster states, despite the free availability of long-distance entanglement. At an abstract level, our work points towards a fundamental difference between bipartite and multipartite entanglement. From a practical perspective, our results highlight the need for classical communication combined with quantum memories to fully harness the power of quantum networks.

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arXiv2024

Catalytic and asymptotic equivalence for quantum entanglement

Entanglement is a fundamental resource in quantum information processing, yet understanding its manipulation and transformation remains a challenge. Many tasks rely on highly entangled pure states, but obtaining such states is often challenging due to the presence of noise. Typically, entanglement manipulation procedures involving asymptotically many copies of a state are considered to overcome this problem. These procedures allow for distilling highly entangled pure states from noisy states, which enables a wide range of applications, such as quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography. When it comes to manipulating entangled quantum systems on a single copy level, using entangled states as catalysts can significantly broaden the range of achievable transformations. Similar to the concept of catalysis in chemistry, the entangled catalyst is returned unchanged at the end of the state manipulation procedure. Our results demonstrate that despite the apparent conceptual differences between the asymptotic and catalytic settings, they are actually strongly connected and fully equivalent for all distillable states. Our methods rely on the analysis of many-copy entanglement manipulation procedures which may establish correlations between different copies. As an important consequence, we demonstrate that using an entangled catalyst cannot enhance the asymptotic singlet distillation rate of a distillable quantum state. Our findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the capabilities and limitations of both catalytic and asymptotic state transformations of entangled states, and highlight the importance of correlations in these processes.

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arXiv2024

Catalysis of entanglement and other quantum resources

In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance which enables a chemical reaction or increases its rate, while remaining unchanged in the process. Instead of chemical reactions, quantum catalysis enhances our ability to convert quantum states into each other under physical constraints. The nature of the constraints depends on the problem under study and can arise, e.g., from energy preservation. This article reviews the most recent developments in quantum catalysis and gives a historical overview of this research direction. We focus on the catalysis of quantum entanglement and coherence, and also discuss this phenomenon in quantum thermodynamics and general quantum resource theories. We review applications of quantum catalysis and also discuss the recent efforts on universal catalysis, where the quantum state of the catalyst does not depend on the states to be transformed. Catalytic embezzling is also considered, a phenomenon that occurs if the catalyst's state can change in the transition.

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arXiv2024

Is there a finite complete set of monotones in any quantum resource theory?

Entanglement quantification aims to assess the value of quantum states for quantum information processing tasks. A closely related problem is state convertibility, asking whether two remote parties can convert a shared quantum state into another one without exchanging quantum particles. Here, we explore this connection for quantum entanglement and for general quantum resource theories. For any quantum resource theory which contains resource-free pure states, we show that there does not exist a finite set of resource monotones which completely determines all state transformations. We discuss how these limitations can be surpassed, if discontinuous or infinite sets of monotones are considered, or by using quantum catalysis. We also discuss the structure of theories which are described by a single resource monotone and show equivalence with totally ordered resource theories. These are theories where a free transformation exists for any pair of quantum states. We show that totally ordered theories allow for free transformations between all pure states. For single-qubit systems, we provide a full characterization of state transformations for any totally ordered resource theory.

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arXiv2024

Entanglement catalysis for quantum states and noisy channels

Many applications of the emerging quantum technologies, such as quantum teleportation and quantum key distribution, require singlets, maximally entangled states of two quantum bits. It is thus of utmost importance to develop optimal procedures for establishing singlets between remote parties. As has been shown very recently, singlets can be obtained from other quantum states by using a quantum catalyst, an entangled quantum system which is not changed in the procedure. In this work we take this idea further, investigating properties of entanglement catalysis and its role for quantum communication. For transformations between bipartite pure states, we prove the existence of a universal catalyst, which can enable all possible transformations in this setup. We demonstrate the advantage of catalysis in asymptotic settings, going beyond the typical assumption of independent and identically distributed systems. We further develop methods to estimate the number of singlets which can be established via a noisy quantum channel when assisted by entangled catalysts. For various types of quantum channels our results lead to optimal protocols, allowing to establish the maximal number of singlets with a single use of the channel.

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arXiv2023

Real quantum operations and state transformations

Resource theory of imaginarity provides a useful framework to understand the role of complex numbers, which are essential in the formulation of quantum mechanics, in a mathematically rigorous way. In the first part of this article, we study the properties of ``real'' (quantum) operations both in single-party and bipartite settings. As a consequence, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for state transformations under real operations and show the existence of ``real entanglement'' monotones. In the second part of this article, we focus on the problem of single copy state transformation via real quantum operations. When starting from pure initial states, we completely solve this problem by finding an analytical expression for the optimal fidelity of transformation, for a given probability of transformation and vice versa. Moreover, for state transformations involving arbitrary initial states and pure final states, we provide a semidefinite program to compute the optimal achievable fidelity, for a given probability of transformation.

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arXiv2023

Resource Theory of Imaginarity: New Distributed Scenarios

The resource theory of imaginarity studies the operational value of imaginary parts in quantum states, operations, and measurements. Here we introduce and study the distillation and conversion of imaginarity in distributed scenario. This arises naturally in bipartite systems where both parties work together to generate the maximum possible imaginarity on one of the subsystems. We give exact solutions to this problem for general qubit states and pure states of arbitrary dimension. We present a scenario that demonstrates the operational advantage of imaginarity: the discrimination of quantum channels without the aid of an ancillary system. We then link this scenario to LOCC discrimination of bipartite states. We experimentally demonstrate the relevant assisted distillation protocol, and show the usefulness of imaginarity in the aforementioned two tasks.

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arXiv2022

Entanglement and coherence in Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm

Quantum algorithms allow to outperform their classical counterparts in various tasks, most prominent example being Shor's algorithm for efficient prime factorization on a quantum computer. It is clear that one of the reasons for the speedup is the superposition principle of quantum mechanics, which allows a quantum processor to be in a superposition of different states at the same time. While such superposition can lead to entanglement across different qubits of the processors, there also exists quantum algorithms which outperform classical ones using superpositions of individual qubits without entangling them. As an example, the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm allows one to determine a bit string encoded into an oracle. While the classical version of the algorithm requires multiple calls of the oracle to learn the bit string, a single query of the oracle is enough in the quantum case. In this Letter, we analyze in detail the quantum resources in the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm. For this, we introduce and study its probabilistic version, where the goal is to guess the bit string after a single call of the oracle. We show that in the absence of entanglement, the performance of the algorithm is directly related to the amount of quantum coherence in the initial state. We further demonstrate that a large amount of entanglement in the initial state prevents the algorithm from achieving optimal performance. We also apply our methods to quantum computation with mixed states, proving that pseudopure states achieve optimal performance for a given purity in the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm. We further investigate quantum resources in the one clean qubit model, showing that the model can exhibit speedup over any known classical algorithm even with arbitrary little amount of multipartite entanglement, general quantum correlations, and coherence.

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arXiv2021

Catalytic Transformations of Pure Entangled States

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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arXiv2021

Resource theory of imaginarity: Quantification and state conversion

Complex numbers are widely used in both classical and quantum physics, and are indispensable components for describing quantum systems and their dynamical behavior. Recently, the resource theory of imaginarity has been introduced, allowing for a systematic study of complex numbers in quantum mechanics and quantum information theory. In this work we develop theoretical methods for the resource theory of imaginarity, motivated by recent progress within theories of entanglement and coherence. We investigate imaginarity quantification, focusing on the geometric imaginarity and the robustness of imaginarity, and apply these tools to the state conversion problem in imaginarity theory. Moreover, we analyze the complexity of real and general operations in optical experiments, focusing on the number of unfixed wave plates for their implementation. We also discuss the role of imaginarity for local state discrimination, proving that any pair of real orthogonal pure states can be discriminated via local real operations and classical communication. Our study reveals the significance of complex numbers in quantum physics, and proves that imaginarity is a resource in optical experiments.

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