The Existence of Quantum Entanglement Catalysts

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arXiv:quant-ph/0311133v2 18 Jan 2005TheExistenceofQuantumEntanglementCatalysts∗XiaomingSun†RunyaoDuan‡MingshengYing§StateKeyLaboratoryofIntelligentTechnologyandSystems,DepartmentofComputerScienceandTechnology,TsinghuaUniv.,Beijing,100084,China.

AbstractWithoutadditionalresources,itisoftenimpossibletotransformoneentangledquantumstateintoanotherwithlocalquantumoperationsandclassicalcommunica-tion.JonathanandPlenio[Phys.Rev.Lett.83,3566(1999)]presentedaninterestingexampleshowingthatthepresenceofanotherstate,calledacatalyst,enablessuchatransformationwithoutchangingthecatalyst.Theyalsopointedoutthatingeneralitisveryhardtofindananalyticalconditionunderwhichacatalystexists.Inthispaperwestudytheexistenceofcatalystsfortwoincomparablequantumstates.Forthesimplestcaseof2×2catalystsfortransformationsfromone4×4statetoanother,anecessaryandsufficientconditionforexistenceisfound.Forthegeneralcase,wegiveanefficientpolynomialtimealgorithmtodecidewhetherak×kcatalystexistsfortwon×nincomparablestates,wherekistreatedasaconstant.

IndexTerms—Quantuminformation,entanglementstates,entanglementtrans-formation,entanglementcatalysts.

1IntroductionEntanglementisafundamentalquantummechanicalresourcethatcanbesharedamongspatiallyseparatedparties.Thepossibilityofhavingentanglementisadistinguishingfea-tureofquantummechanicsthatdoesnotexistinclassicalmechanics.Itplaysacentralroleinsomestrikingapplicationsofquantumcomputationandquantuminformationsuchasquantumteleportation[1],quantumsuperdensecoding[2]andquantumcryptography[3].Asaresult,entanglementhasbeenrecognizedasausefulphysicalresource[4].However,manyfundamentalproblemsconcerningquantumentanglementarestillunsolved.Animportantsuchproblemconcernstheexistenceofentanglementtransformation.SupposethatAliceandBobeachhaveonepartofabi-partitestate.Thequestiontheniswhat

xm97@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn‡Email:dry02@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn

§Email:yingmsh@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

1otherstatescantheytransformtheentangledstateinto?Sinceanentangledstateisseparatedspatially,itisnaturaltorequirethatAliceandBobcanonlymakeuseoflocaloperationsandclassicalcommunication(LOCC).Significantprogressinthestudyofen-tanglementwasmadebyBennett,Bernstein,PopescuandSchumacher[5]in1996.Theyproposedanentanglementconcentrationprotocolwhichsolvedtheentanglementtrans-formationproblemintheasymptoticcase.In1999,Nielsen[6]madeanotherimportantadvance.Supposethereisabi-partitestate|ψ1󰀔=󰀆n

i=1

βi|i󰀔A|i󰀔BwithOSCsβ1≥β2≥···≥βn≥0.Itwasprovedthat|ψ1󰀔→|ψ2󰀔ispossibleunderLOCCifandonlyifλψ1≺λψ2,whereλψ1andλψ2arethevectorsoforderedSchmidtcoefficients,i.e.λψ1=(α1,...,αn),λψ2=(β1,...,βn),≺denotesthemajorizationrelation[7,8],i.e.for1≤l≤n,l󰀃i=1αi≤l󰀃

i=1βi,

withequalitywhenl=n.ThisfundamentalcontributionbyNielsenprovidesuswithanextremelyusefulmathematicaltoolforstudyingentanglementtransformation.AsimplebutsignificantfactimpliedbyNielsen’stheoremisthatthereexistincomparablestates|ψ1󰀔and|ψ2󰀔withbothtransformations|ψ1󰀔→|ψ2󰀔and|ψ2󰀔→|ψ1󰀔impossible.ShortlyafterNielsen’swork,aquitesurprisingphenomenonofentanglement,namely,entanglementcatalysis,wasdiscoveredbyJonathanandPlenio[9].Theygaveanexampleshowingthatonemayuseanotherentangledstate|c󰀔,knownasacatalyst,tomakeanimpossibletransformation|ψ󰀔→|φ󰀔possible.Furthermore,thetransformationisinfactoneof|ψ󰀔⊗|c󰀔→|φ󰀔⊗|c󰀔,sothatthecatalyst|c󰀔isnotmodifiedintheprocess.Entanglementcatalysisisanotherusefulprotocolthatquantummechanicsprovides.Thereforetoexploitthefullpowerofquantuminformationprocessing,wefirsthavetosolvethefollowingbasicproblem:givenapairofincomparablestates|ψ1󰀔and|ψ2󰀔with|ψ1󰀔→|ψ2󰀔and|ψ2󰀔→|ψ1󰀔,determinewhetherthereexistsacatalyst|c󰀔suchthat|ψ1󰀔⊗|c󰀔→|ψ2󰀔⊗|c󰀔.AccordingtoNielsen’stheorem,solvingtheproblemrequiresdeterminingwhetherthereisastate|c󰀔forwhichthemajorizationrelationλψ1⊗c≺λψ2⊗c

holds.AspointedoutbyJonathanandPlenio[9],itisverydifficulttofindananalytical

andbothnecessaryandsufficientconditionfortheexistenceofacatalyst.Thedifficultyismainlyduetolackofsuitablemathematicaltoolstodealwithmajorizationoftensorproductstates,andespeciallytheflexibleorderingoftheOSCsoftensorproducts.In[9],JonathanandPlenioonlygavesomesimplenecessaryconditionsfortheexistenceofcatalysts,butnosufficientconditionwasfound.Thosenecessaryconditionsenabledthemtoshowthatentanglementcatalysiscanhappeninthetransformationbetweentwon×nstateswithn≥4.Oneofthemainaimsofthepresentpaperistogiveanecessaryandsufficientconditionforentanglementcatalysisinthesimplestcaseofentanglementtransformationbetween4×4stateswitha2×2catalyst.Forgeneralcase,thefactthatananalyticalconditionunderwhichincomparablestatesarecatalyzableisnoteasytofindleadsusnaturallytoanalternativeapproach;thatis,toseeksomeefficientalgorithmtodecidecatalyzabilityofentanglementtransformation.Indeed,an