Full separability criterion for tripartite quantum systems

In this paper, an intuitive approach is employed to generalize the full separability criterion of tripartite quantum states of qubits to the higher-dimensional systems [Phys. Rev. A 72, 022333 (2005)]. A distinct characteristic of the present generalization is that less restrictive conditions are needed to characterize the properties of full separability. Furthermore, the formulation for pure states can be conveniently extended to the case of mixed states by utilizing the Kronecker product approximate technique. As applications, we give the analytic approximation of the criterion for weakly mixed tripartite quantum states and investigate the full separability of some weakly mixed states.     

Effects of phase decoherence on the entanglement of a two-qubit anisotropic Heisenberg XYZ chain with an in-plane magnetic field

We investigate the phase decoherence effects on the entanglement of a two-qubit anisotropic Heisenberg model with a nonuniform magnetic field in the x–z-plane. As a measure of the entanglement, the concurrence of the system is calculated. It is shown that when the magnetic field is along the z-axis, the nonuniform and uniform components of the field have no influence on the entanglement for the cases of and , respectively. But when the magnetic field is not along the z-axis, both the uniform and the nonuniform components of the field will introduce the decoherence effects. It is found that the effects of the Heisenberg chain's anisotropy in the Z-direction on the entanglement are dependent on the direction of the field. Moreover, the larger the initial concurrence is, the higher value it will exhibit during the time evolution of the system for a proper set of the parameters ν, Δ, θ, γ , B and b.     

Quantum state sharing of an arbitrary multiqubit state using nonmaximally entangled GHZ states

We explicitly present a scheme for quantum state sharing of an arbitrary multiqubit state using nonmaximally entangled GHZ states as the quantum channel and generalized Bell states as the measurement basis. The scheme succeeds only probabilistically with its total success probability depending on the degree of entanglement matching between the quantum channel and the generalized Bell states. Security of the scheme is guaranteed by the fact that attacks of an outside eavesdropper or/and an inside dishonest party will inevitably introduce detectable errors.     

Analysis of a recent experiment seemingly favouring local realism against quantum mechanics

A recent experiment by Brida et al. [Eur. Phys. J. D 44, 547 (2007)] is analyzed with the conclusion that the results disagree with standard quantum predictions but fit a simple local hidden variables model. New experiments are proposed which might throw new light on the anomaly.     

Multi-qubit stabilizer and cluster entanglement witnesses

One of the problems concerning entanglement witnesses (EWs) is the construction of them by a given set of operators. Here several multi-qubit EWs called stabilizer EWs are constructed by using the stabilizer operators of some given multi-qubit states such as GHZ, cluster and exceptional states. The general approach to manipulate the multi-qubit stabilizer EWs by exact(approximate) linear programming (LP) method is described and it is shown that the Clifford group play a crucial role in finding the hyper-planes encircling the feasible region. The optimality, decomposability and non-decomposability of constructed stabilizer EWs are discussed.     

Quantum tomography with wavelet transform in Banach space on homogeneous space

In this study the intimate connection is established between the Banach space wavelet reconstruction method on homogeneous spaces with both singular and nonsingular vacuum vectors, and some of the well known quantum tomographies, such as: Moyal-representation for a spin, discrete phase space tomography, tomography of a free particle, Homodyne tomography, phase space tomography and SU(1,1) tomography. And both the atomic decomposition and the Banach frame nature of these quantum tomographic examples are also revealed in details. Finally the connection between the wavelet formalism on Banach space and Q-function is discussed.     

Two-qutrit entanglement witnesses and Gell-Mann matrices

The Gell-Mann λ matrices for Lie algebra su(3) are the natural basis for the Hilbert space of Hermitian operators acting on the states of a three-level system(qutrit). So the construction of EWs for two-qutrit states by using these matrices may be an interesting problem. In this paper, several two-qutrit EWs are constructed based on the Gell-Mann matrices by using the linear programming (LP) method exactly or approximately. The decomposability and non-decomposability of constructed EWs are also discussed and it is shown that the λ-diagonal EWs presented in this paper are all decomposable but by adding λ-non-diagonal terms, one can obtain various non-decomposable EWs.     

Entanglement between nuclear spin and field mode in GaAs semiconductors

In this paper we investigate entanglement between the nuclear spin and field mode in a GaAs semiconductor. The eigenfuctions of nuclear spin in the quantized external field are obtained and thus the von Neumann entropy is evaluated explicitly. It is shown that the von Neumann entropy monotonously increases with the spin-field coupling constant but monotonously decreases with the anisotropy energy.     

Quantum state sharing of an arbitrary two-qubit state with two-photon entanglements and Bell-state measurements

Two schemes for sharing an arbitrary two-qubit state based on entanglement swapping are proposed with Bell-state measurements and local unitary operations. One is based on the quantum channel with four Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pairs shared in advance. The other is based on a circular topological structure, i.e., each user shares an EPR pair with his neighboring one. The advantage of the former is that the construction of the quantum channel between the agents is controlled by the sender Alice, which will improve the security of the scheme. The circular scheme reduces the quantum resource largely when the number of the agents is large. Both of those schemes have the property of high efficiency as almost all the instances can be used to split the quantum information. They are more convenient in application than the other schemes existing as they require only two-qubit entanglements and two-qubit joint measurements for sharing an arbitrary two-qubit state.     

The bound of entanglement of superpositions with more than two components

A bipartite quantum state (for two systems in any dimensions) can be decomposed as a superposition of many components. For a superposition of more than two components we prove that there is a bound of the entanglement of the superposition state which can be expressed according to entanglements of its component states. Especially, if the component states are mutually bi-orthogonal, the entanglement of the superposition state can be exactly given in terms of the entanglements of the states being superposed.     

Bell inequalities for a sensible family of local hidden variable theories testable at low detection efficiency

A family of local models containing two angles as hidden variables is defined for experiments measuring polarization correlation of optical photons. Searching for the best model of the family, that is giving predictions most close to quantum mechanics, allows deriving Bell-type inequalities which may be tested with relatively low detection efficiency.     

Entanglement generation in trapped atoms

The two atoms in the ion trap are entangled by the interaction with an external excited atom. The evolution of the entanglement is analytically derived without the decoherence. Considering the spontaneous decay from the environment, the evolution of the entanglement is similar to the damping Rabi oscillation. The generation of entanglement is induced by the dipole-dipole type interaction of atoms. It is found that the entanglement of two trapped atoms is robust with the uniform interaction with the external atom. The collective spontaneous emission from the coupling between the atoms may enhance the entanglement.     

Three-party qutrit-state sharing

A three-party scheme for securely sharing an arbitrary unknown single-qutrit state is presented. Using a generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state as the quantum channel among the three parties, the quantum information (i.e. the qutrit state) from the sender can be split in such a way that the information can be recovered if and only if both receivers collaborate. A generalization of the scheme to multi-party case is also sketched.     

Quantum phase transition of entanglement in Heisenberg spin model with quantized field

In this paper, we investigate the entanglement of a two-spin system with Heisenberg exchange interaction in a quantized field. The pairwise entanglement between bipartite subsystems is obtained. It is shown that the entanglement exhibits a quantum phase transition due to the variation of exchang coupling. Phase diagrams are obtained explicitly. The analogy of the quantum phase transition compared to the case under a classical field are addressed.     

Discussion of the entanglement classification of a 4-qubit pure state

We classify 4-qubit pure states under the stochastic local operation and classical communication (SLOCC). There exist twenty three essentially different classes of states, giving rise to a four-graded partially ordered structure. We also give the criterion to judge which class an arbitrary 4-qubit state belongs to. We re-classify the 4-qubit pure state into 2×2×4, 4×4 aspects. Finally, we give our analysis of the classification difference of methods for the 3-qubit pure state.     

Twin photons entangled in polarization and angular momentum

Quantum states of twin photons entangled in angular momentum and polarization provide new degrees of freedom to researchers in quantum information and imaging. This work discuss these states and also emphasizes differences between two proposed models for twin photons entangled in angular momentum. Answers to the presented questions would contribute to a better understanding of this nonlinear process. Received 30 August 2002 / Received in final form 10 October 2002 Published online 21 January 2003     

PPLN waveguide for quantum communication

We report on energy-time and time-bin entangled photon-pair sources based on a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide. Degenerate twin photons at 1 314 nm wavelength are created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and coupled into standard telecom fibers. Our PPLN waveguide features a very high conversion efficiency of about 10^-6, roughly 4 orders of magnitude more than that obtained employing bulk crystals [#!Tanzilli01a!#]. Even if using low power laser diodes, this engenders a significant probability for creating two pairs at a time - an important advantage for some quantum communication protocols. We point out a simple means to characterize the pair creation probability in case of a pulsed pump. To investigate the quality of the entangled states, we perform photon-pair interference experiments, leading to visibilities of 97% for the case of energy-time entanglement and of 84% for the case of time-bin entanglement. Although the last figure must still be improved, these tests demonstrate the high potential of PPLN waveguide based sources to become a key element for future quantum communication schemes. Received 13 July 2001     

Geometric phase in entangled bipartite systems

The geometric phase (GP) for bipartite systems in transverse external magnetic fields is investigated in this paper. Two different situations have been studied. We first consider two non-interacting particles. The results show that because of entanglement, the geometric phase is very different from that of the non-entangled case. When the initial state is a Werner state, the geometric phase is, in general, zero and moreover the singularity of the geometric phase may appear with a proper evolution time. We next study the geometric phase when intra-couplings appear and choose Werner states as the initial states to entail this discussion. The results show that unlike our first case, the absolute value of the GP is not zero, and attains its maximum when the rescaled coupling constant J is less than 1. The effect of inhomogeneity of the magnetic field is also discussed.     

Bounds on bipartitely shared entanglement reduced from superposed tripartite quantum states

For a tripartite pure state superposed by two individual states, the bipartitely shared entanglement can always be achieved by local measurements of the third party. Consider the different aims of the third party, i.e. maximizing or minimizing the bipartitely shared entanglement, we find bounds on both the possible bipartitely shared entanglement of the superposition state in terms of the corresponding entanglement of the two states being superposed. In particular, by choosing the concurrence as bipartite entanglement measure, we obtain calculable bounds for tripartite (2 ⊗ 2 ⊗ n)-dimensional cases.     

Pairwise entanglement in symmetric multi-qubit systems

For pairs of particles extracted from a symmetric state of N two-level systems, the two-particle density matrix is expressed in terms of expectation values of collective spin operators for the large system. Results are presented for experimentally relevant examples of pure states: Dicke states | S, M>, spin coherent, and spin squeezed states, where only the symmetric subspace, S = N/2 is populated, and for thermally entangled mixed states populating also lower S values. The entanglement of the extracted pair is then quantified by a calculation of the concurrence, which provides directly the entanglement of formation of the pair. Received 9 May 2001 and Received in final form 16 November 2001