Symmetric quantum discord for a two-qubit state

We discuss the symmetric quantum discord(SQD) for an arbitrary two-qubit state consisting of subsystems A and B and give the analysis formula of the symmetric quantum discord for the arbitrary two-qubit state. We also give the optimization process of the symmetric quantum discord for some states and obtain the symmetric quantum discord. We compare the quantum discord(QD) with the symmetric quantum discord, and find that the symmetric quantum discord is greater than the quantum discord. We also find that the symmetric quantum discord can be unequal to the quantum discord when the right quantum discord(measure on subsystem B) is equal to the left quantum discord(measure on subsystem A).     

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.     

Quantum discord with weak measurements

Weak measurements cause small change to quantum states, thereby opening up the possibility of new ways of manipulating and controlling quantum systems. We ask, can weak measurements reveal more quantum correlation in a composite quantum state? We prove that the weak measurement induced quantum discord, called as the “super quantum discord”, is always larger than the quantum discord captured by the strong measurement. Moreover, we prove the monotonicity of the super quantum discord as a function of the measurement strength and in the limit of strong projective measurement the super quantum discord becomes the normal quantum discord. We find that unlike the normal discord, for pure entangled states, the super quantum discord can exceed the quantum entanglement. Our results provide new insights on the nature of quantum correlation and suggest that the notion of quantum correlation is not only observer dependent but also depends on how weakly one perturbs the composite system. We illustrate the key results for pure as well as mixed entangled states.     

Geometric Global Quantum Discord of Two-qubit X States

In this paper, we find that the geometric global quantum discord proposed by Xu and the total quantum correlations proposed by Hassan and Joag are identical. Moreover, we work out the analytical formulas of the geometric global quantum discord and geometric quantum discord both for two-qubit X states, respectively. We further illustrate how to use these formulas to deal with a few particular examples. We also compare the results achieved by using three kinds of geometric quantum discords. The geometric quantum discord is verified as a tight lower bound of the geometric global quantum discord for two-qubit X states.     

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.     

Simulating the effect of weak measurements by a phase damping channel and determining different measures of bipartite correlations in nuclear magnetic resonance

Quantum discord is a measure based on local projective measurements which captures quantum correlations that may not be fully captured by entanglement. A change in the measurement process, achieved by replacing rank-one projectors with a weak positive operator-valued measure (POVM), allows one to define weak variants of quantum discord. In this work, we experimentally simulate the effect of a weak POVM on a nuclear magnetic resonance quantum information processor. The two-qubit system under investigation is part of a three-qubit system, where one of the qubits is used as an ancillary to implement the phase damping channel. The strength of the weak POVM is controlled by varying the strength of the phase damping channel. We experimentally observed two weak variants of quantum discord namely, super quantum discord and weak quantum discord, in two-qubit Werner and Bell-diagonal states. The resultant dynamics of the states is investigated as a function of the measurement strength.     

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.     

Non-zero total correlation means non-zero quantum correlation

We investigated the super quantum discord based on weak measurements. The super quantum discord is an extension of the standard quantum discord defined by projective measurements and also describes the quantumness of correlations. We provide some equivalent conditions for zero super quantum discord by using quantum discord, classical correlation and mutual information. In particular, we find that the super quantum discord is zero only for product states, which have zero mutual information. This result suggests that non-zero correlations can always be detected using the quantum correlation with weak measurements. As an example, we present the assisted state-discrimination method.     

Characterizing Quantum Correlations in Arbitrary-Dimensional Bipartite Systems Using Hurwitz's Theory

Quantum correlations play vital roles in the quantum features in quantum information processing tasks. Among the measures of quantum correlations, quantum discord （QD） and entanglement of formation （EOF） axe two significant ones. Recent research has shown that there exists a relation between QD and EOF, which makes QD more significant in quantum information theory. However, until now, there exists no general method of chaxaeterizing quantum discord in high-dimensional quantum systems. In this paper, we have proposed a general method for calculating quantum discord in axbitraxy-dimensionM bipaxtite quantum systems in terms of Hurwitz＇s theory. Applications including the Werner state, the spin-1 XXZ model thermal equilibrium state, the Horodecki state, and the separable-bound-free entanglement state are investigated. We present the method of obtaining the EOF of axbitraxy-dimensional bipaxtite quantum states via purification, and the relations.hip between QD and EOF.     

Steady-State Discord Between Two Qubits Coupled Collectively to a Thermal Reservoir

We study the dynamics of quantum discord between two qubits coupled collectively to a thermal reservoir. For comparison, we also consider the dynamics of quantum entanglement. It is shown that we can obtain a stable quantum discord induced by the thermal environment when the discord of the initial state is zero. The thermal environment can also induce a stable amplification of the initially prepared quantum discord for certain X-type states. It is very valuable that the quantum discord is more resistant against the thermal environment than quantum entanglement. And, we have demonstrated that the sudden death of discord in a Markovian regime is impossible even at high temperature. It provides us a feasible way to create and protect quantum correlation in the case of a high-temperature thermal environment for various physical system such as trapped ions, quantum dots or Josephson junctions.     

Discord and nonclassicality in probabilistic theories

Quantum discord quantifies nonclassical correlations in quantum states. We introduce discord for states in causal probabilistic theories, inspired by the original definition proposed by H. Ollivier and W.?H. Zurek [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 017901 (2001)]. We show that the only probabilistic theory in which all states have null discord is classical probability theory. Non-null discord is then not just a quantum feature, but a generic signature of nonclassicality.     

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.     

Experimental investigation of the evolution of gaussian quantum discord in an open system

Gaussian quantum discord is a measure of quantum correlations in Gaussian systems. Using Gaussian discord, we quantify the quantum correlations of a bipartite entangled state and a separable two-mode mixture of coherent states. We experimentally analyze the effect of noise addition and dissipation on Gaussian discord and show that the former noise degrades the discord, while the latter noise for some states leads to an increase of the discord. In particular, we experimentally demonstrate the near death of discord by noisy evolution and its revival through dissipation.     

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.     

Entanglement irreversibility from quantum discord and quantum deficit

We relate the problem of irreversibility of entanglement with the recently defined measures of quantum correlation--quantum discord and one-way quantum deficit. We show that the entanglement of formation is always strictly larger than the coherent information and the entanglement cost is also larger in most cases. We prove irreversibility of entanglement under local operations and classical communication for a family of entangled states. This family is a generalization of the maximally correlated states for which we also give an analytic expression for the distillable entanglement, the relative entropy of entanglement, the distillable secret key, and the quantum discord.     

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.     

Nonclassical Correlations in a Three-Mode Continuous-Variable System

We investigate a standard measure of quantum discord for tripartite coherent states of the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) type. Furthermore, we check the monotonicity of a superquantum discord according to weak quantum measurements. We accomplish our study by manipulating the amount of quantum information lost during the perturbation of the quantum system and controlling the measurement strength. In addition, we calculate the entanglement of the system under study. Finally we compare the behavior of the three correlations.     

Bures Distance of Discord for Two-Qubit X-States

Two-qubit X-state is a large class of quantum states which plays an important role in the quantification and dynamical study of quantum correlations. However, the corresponding quantification of quantum discord is still missing for bona fide discord measures, like original quantum discord, Bures distance of discord, and relative entropy of discord. In this paper, we consider the calculation of Bures distance of discord, which is a kind of correlations satisfying all criteria of a discord measure, for two-qubit X-states. Firstly, we derive explicit expression for Bures distance of discord for a kind of five-parameters family of states. Moreover, for general two-qubit X-states, we not only calculate the Bures distance of discord for a subset of two-qubit X-states by classifying and analyzing the optimal local measurements and the optimal projection operators, but also provide an analytic upper bound for entirety.

     

Quantifying coherence with dynamical discord

Quantum coherence and discord are two kinds of manifestations of nonclassicality. By calculating the coherence and discord in the specific bipartite quantum systems, we show quantitative connections between the coherence and the discord in the bipartite quantum systems created from local systems with the help of incoherent operations. We show that the coherence bounds the dynamical discord, and under particular conditions of the initial quantum states, the coherence of single systems is equal to the dynamical discord. We extend these results to the multipartite quantum systems.