Quantum entanglement

All our former experience with application of quantum theory seems to say: {\it what is predicted by quantum formalism must occur in laboratory}. But the essence of quantum formalism - entanglement, recognized by Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen and Schr\"odinger - waited over 70 years to enter to laboratories as a new resource as real as energy. This holistic property of compound quantum systems, which involves nonclassical correlations between subsystems, is a potential for many quantum processes, including ``canonical'' ones: quantum cryptography, quantum teleportation and dense coding. However, it appeared that this new resource is very complex and difficult to detect. Being usually fragile to environment, it is robust against conceptual and mathematical tools, the task of which is to decipher its rich structure. This article reviews basic aspects of entanglement including its characterization, detection, distillation and quantifying. In particular, the authors discuss various manifestations of entanglement via Bell inequalities, entropic inequalities, entanglement witnesses, quantum cryptography and point out some interrelations. They also discuss a basic role of entanglement in quantum communication within distant labs paradigm and stress some peculiarities such as irreversibility of entanglement manipulations including its extremal form - bound entanglement phenomenon. A basic role of entanglement witnesses in detection of entanglement is emphasized.Comment: 110 pages, 3 figures, ReVTex4, Improved (slightly extended) presentation, updated references, minor changes, submitted to Rev. Mod. Phys

Genuine Multipartite Entanglement in the 33-Photon Decay of Positronium

The electron-positron annihilation into two photons is a standard technology in medicine to observe e.g. metabolic processes in human bodies. A new tomograph will provide the possibility to observe not only direct $e^+ e^-$ annihilations but also the $3$ photons from the decay of ortho-positronium atoms formed in the body. We show in this contribution that the three-photon state with respect to polarisation degrees of freedom depends on the angles between the photons and exhibits various specific entanglement features. In particular genuine multipartite entanglement, a type of entanglement involving all degrees of freedoms, is subsistent if the positronium was in a definite spin eigenstate. Remarkably, when all spin eigenstates are mixed equally, entanglement --and even stronger genuine multipartite entanglement-- survives. Due to a "\textit{symmetrization}" process, however, $Dicke$-type of entanglement remains whereas $GHZ$-type of entanglement vanishes. The survival of particular entanglement properties in the mixing scenario may make it possible to extract quantum information in form of distinct entanglement features, e.g., from metabolic processes in human bodies.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure