Linking quantum discord to entanglement in a measurement

We show that a von Neumann measurement on a part of a composite quantum system unavoidably creates distillable entanglement between the measurement apparatus and the system if the state has nonzero quantum discord. The minimal distillable entanglement is equal to the one-way information deficit. The quantum discord is shown to be equal to the minimal partial distillable entanglement that is the part of entanglement which is lost, when we ignore the subsystem which is not measured. We then show that any entanglement measure corresponds to some measure of quantum correlations. This powerful correspondence also yields necessary properties for quantum correlations. We generalize the results to multipartite measurements on a part of the system and on the total system.     

Secure key from bound entanglement

We characterize the set of shared quantum states which contain a cryptographically private key. This allows us to recast the theory of privacy as a paradigm closely related to that used in entanglement manipulation. It is shown that one can distill an arbitrarily secure key from bound entangled states. There are also states that have less distillable private keys than the entanglement cost of the state. In general, the amount of distillable key is bounded from above by the relative entropy of entanglement. Relationships between distillability and distinguishability are found for a class of states which have Bell states correlated to separable hiding states. We also describe a technique for finding states exhibiting irreversibility in entanglement distillation.     

Quantum discord dynamics of two-qubit system in a quantum spin environment

We study the dynamics of quantum discord of two-qubit system in a quantum spin environment at finite temperature in the thermodynamics limit. Special attention is paid to the difference between the entanglement and quantum discord when considering the influences of the environment temperature and the initial system states. We show that in the same range of the physical parameters, when the system states behave no entanglement or entanglement sudden death, the quantum discord keeps nonzero. So the quantum discord is more robust than entanglement under this decoherence environment. Furthermore, we also illustrate that we can tune the parameters related to the system and the environment to suppress the decay of quantum discord.     

Dynamics of quantum discord in two Tavis-Cummings models with classical driving fields

We investigate the dynamics of quantum discord in a system consisting of two Tavis-Cummings models, each of which contains two atoms driven by a classical field. We compare the dynamics of quantum discord for the system with that of entanglement and show that quantum discord vanishes only asymptotically although entanglement disappears suddenly during the time evolution. Furthermore, we examine the influence of the initial states and the classical field on the discord dynamics and find that the value of quantum discord can be improved by adjusting the classical driving field. Finally, the quantum discord of two atoms in dissipative cavity is also discussed.     

Thermodynamical approach to quantifying quantum correlations

We consider the amount of work which can be extracted from a heat bath using a bipartite state rho shared by two parties. In general it is less then the amount of work extractable when one party is in possession of the entire state. We derive bounds for this "work deficit" and calculate it explicitly for a number of different cases. In particuar, for pure states the work deficit is exactly equal to the distillable entanglement of the state. A form of complementarity exists between physical work which can be extracted and distillable entanglement. The work deficit is a good measure of the quantum correlations in a state and provides a new paradigm for understanding quantum nonlocality.     

Creation of quantum correlations between two atoms in a dissipative environment from an initial vacuum state

We have investigated the effect of counter-rotating terms on the dynamics of entanglement and quantum discord between two identical atoms interacting with a lossy single mode cavity field for a system initially in a vacuum state. The counter-rotating terms are found to lead to steady states in the long-time limit which can have high quantum discord, but have no entanglement. The effect of cavity decay rate on this steady-state quantum discord has been also investigated, surprisingly, the increase in cavity decay rate is found to enhance the steady-state quantum discord.     

Robustness investigations on quantum entanglement and quantum discord of coupled qubits in squeezed vacuum reservoir

We investigate the quantum discord of coupled qubits in squeezed vacuum reservoir and compare it with the quantum entanglement of system. We find that the quantum discord and entanglement perform completely oppositely with the change of squeezed parameters. Quantum discord survives longer with the increase of squeezed amplitude parameter and entanglement death faster on the contrary. Under high squeezed amplitude parameter, the quantum discord can keep nonzero which indicate that the quantum discord is more robust than entanglement. We also find that the purity reduction of the initial quantum state will lead to the decay of concurrence or quantum discord. However, the quantum discord damps remarkably more slowly and survives longer than concurrence.     

Comparison and control of the robustness between quantum entanglement and quantum correlation in an open quantum system

We investigate the influence of environmental decoherence on the dynamics of a coupled qubit system and quantum correlation.We analyse the relationship between concurrence and the degree of initial entanglement or the purity of initial quantum state,and also their relationship with quantum discord.The results show that the decrease of the purity of an initial quantum state can induce the attenuation of concurrence or quantum discord,but the attenuation of quantum discord is obviously slower than the concurrence’s,correspondingly the survival time of quantum discord is longer.Further investigation reveals that the robustness of quantum discord and concurrence relies on the entanglement degree of the initial quantum state.The higher the degree of entanglement,the more robust the quantum discord is than concurrence.And the reverse is equally true.Birth and death happen to quantum discord periodically and a newborn quantum discord comes into being under a certain condition,so does the concurrence.     

Tavis-Cummings模型中的几何量子失协特性

采用几何量子失协的计算方法,通过改变两原子初始状态、腔内光子数和偶极-偶极相互作用强度,研究了Tavis-Cummings模型中的几何量子失协特性.结果表明:几何量子失协都是随时间周期性振荡的,选取适当的初态可以使两原子一直保持失协状态,增加腔内光子数和偶极相互作用对几何量子失协有积极的影响.     

Investigations on quantum correlation of coupled qubits in squeezed vacuum reservoir

In this paper, we investigate the quantum correlation of coupled qubits which are initially in maximally entangled mixed states in squeezed vacuum reservoir. We compare and analyse the effects of squeezed parameters on quantum discord and quantum concurrence. The results show that in squeezed vacuum reservoir, the quantum discord and quantum concurrence perform completely opposite behaviors to the change of squeezed parameters. Quantum discord survives longer with the increase of squeezed amplitude parameter, but entanglement death turns faster on the contrary. The results also indicate that the classical correlation of the system is smaller than quantum discord in vacuum reservoir, while it is bigger than quantum discord in squeezed vacuum reservoir. The quantum discord and classical correlation are more robust than quantum concurrence in the two reservoir environments, which indicates that the entanglement actually is easily affected by decoherence and quantum discord has stronger ability to avoid decoherence in squeezed vacuum reservoir.     

Sudden death and robustness of quantum correlations in the weak- or strong-coupling regime

We study the dynamics of quantum discord and entanglement of two entangled two-level atoms within two isolated and dissipative cavities in the weak- or strong-coupling regime. The quantum entanglement are measured by concurrence and relative entropy. The quantum discord of two atoms based on quantum mutual information and relative entropy are also calculated. In the weak-coupling regime, the sudden death of quantum discord and entanglement of two atoms can occur simultaneously within a short interaction time. When the interaction time is long, quantum discord and entanglement of two atoms could be partially preserved due to the long-lived nature of quantum discord and entanglement. However, in the strong-coupling regime, there is no sudden death of quantum discord though the entanglement sudden death phenomenon occurs. In addition, we observe that entanglement and discord will be destroyed eventually when the atom-field interactions are strong. We also address the issue of experimental realization briefly.     

Extremality of Gaussian quantum states

We investigate Gaussian quantum states in view of their exceptional role within the space of all continuous variables states. A general method for deriving extremality results is provided and applied to entanglement measures, secret key distillation and the classical capacity of bosonic quantum channels. We prove that for every given covariance matrix the distillable secret key rate and the entanglement, if measured appropriately, are minimized by Gaussian states. This result leads to a clearer picture of the validity of frequently made Gaussian approximations. Moreover, it implies that Gaussian encodings are optimal for the transmission of classical information through bosonic channels, if the capacity is additive.     

Investigations into quantum correlation of coupled qubits in a squeezed vacuum reservoir

In this paper,we investigate the quantum correlation of coupled qubits which are initially in maximally entangled mixed states in a squeezed vacuum reservoir.We compare and analyze the effects of squeezed parameters on quantum discord and quantum concurrence.The results show that in a squeezed vacuum reservoir,the quantum discord and quantum concurrence perform with completely opposite behaviors with the change of squeezed parameters.Quantum discord survives longer with the increase of squeezed amplitude parameter,but entanglement death is faster on the contrary.The results also indicate that the classical correlation of the system is smaller than quantum discord in a vacuum reservoir,while it is bigger than quantum discord in a squeezed vacuum reservoir.The quantum discord and classical correlation are more robust than quantum concurrence in the two reservoir environments,which indicates that the entanglement actually is easily affected by decoherence and quantum discord has a stronger ability to avoid decoherence in a squeezed vacuum reservoir.     

Discord under the influence of a quantum phase transition

This paper studies the discord of a bipartite two-level system coupling to an XY spin-chain environment in a transverse field and investigates the relationship between the discord property and the environment’s quantum phase transition.The results show that the quantum discord is also able to characterize the quantum phase transitions.We also discuss the difference between discord and entanglement,and show that quantum discord may reveal more general information than quantum entanglement for characterizing the environment’s quantum phase transition.     

Necessary and sufficient condition for nonzero quantum discord

Quantum discord characterizes "nonclassicality" of correlations in quantum mechanics. It has been proposed as the key resource present in certain quantum communication tasks and quantum computational models without containing much entanglement. We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of nonzero quantum discord for any dimensional bipartite states. This condition is easily experimentally implementable. Based on this, we propose a geometrical way of quantifying quantum discord. For two qubits this results in a closed form of expression for discord. We apply our results to the model of deterministic quantum computation with one qubit, showing that quantum discord is unlikely to be the reason behind its speedup.     

Quantum correlations dynamics of three-qubit states coupled to an XY spin chain: Role of coupling strengths

We investigate the prominent impacts of coupling strengths on the evolution of entanglement and quantum discord for a three-qubit system coupled to an XY spin-chain environment. In the case of a pure W state, more robust, even larger nonzero quantum correlations can be obtained by tailoring the coupling strengths between the qubits and the environment.For a mixed state consisting of the GHZ and W states, the dynamics of entanglement and quantum discord can characterize the critical point of quantum phase transition. Remarkably, a large nonzero quantum discord is generally retained, while the nonzero entanglement can only be obtained as the system-environment coupling satisfies certain conditions. We also find that the impact of each qubit's coupling strength on the quantum correlation dynamics strongly depends on the variation schemes of the system-environment couplings.     

Controlling of entropic uncertainty in open quantum system via proper placement of quantum register

We investigate the dynamical behaviors of quantum-memory-assisted entropic uncertainty and its lower bound in the amplitude-damping channel. The influences of different placement positions of the quantum register on the dynamics of quantum coherence, quantum entanglement, and quantum discord are analyzed in detail. The numerical simulation results show that the quantum register should be placed in the channel of the non-Markovian effect. This option is beneficial to reduce the entropic uncertainty and its lower bound. We also find that this choice does not change the evolution of the quantum coherence and quantum entanglement, but changes the dynamical process of the quantum discord of the system.These results show that quantum coherence, quantum entanglement, and quantum discord are different quantum resources with unique characteristics and properties, and quantum discord can play a key role in reducing the uncertainty of quantum systems.     

Unified approach to quantum capacities: towards quantum noisy coding theorem

Based on a unified approach to all kinds of quantum capacities we show that the rate of quantum information transmission is bounded by the maximal attainable rate of coherent information. Moreover, we show that if for any bipartite state the one-way distillable entanglement is no less than coherent information, then one obtains Shannon-like formulas for all the capacities. The inequality also implies that the decrease of distillable entanglement due to the mixing process does not exceed that of the corresponding loss of information about a system.     

Entanglement, Quantum Discord, and Non-locality in Bell-Diagonal States

Experimental approach to characterize the non-locality, entanglement, and quantum correlation of a multiparity quantum system is one of the important subjects in quantum information theory. Here, by investigating the violations of Bell inequality (BI), we analyze the relations among the non-locality, concurrence C, and quantum discord Q typically for a family of Bell-diagonal states. It is shown that, for the optimal measurement basis the BI is always violated, if the quantum discord is larger than 0.5031 and the concurrence is larger than 0.5605. Certainly, the BI is maximally violated for the maximal entanglement and quantum discord, i.e., C=Q=1. Our generic results are demonstrated with a thermal XY model of the two-qubit system with controllable interbit couplings.     

A study on quantum discord sudden changes

For open quantum systems, quantum discord sudden changes (QDSCs) may appear in the dynamics instead of sudden death appears in quantum entanglement. In this paper, we study the dynamics of quantum discord and explore the relation between the entanglement sudden death and QDSC. We find that the QDSC is sensitive to the initial states and the excitation number in the total system (the qubits  +  environment). By using the geometric measurement of the quantum correlation, the geometric interpretation for the QDSC is presented and the condition for the emergence of the QDSC is given. Furthermore, we observe that the entanglement sudden death and QDSC do not have one to one correspondence for open quantum systems.