On quantum mean-field models and their quantum annealing

This paper deals with fully-connected mean-field models of quantum spins with p-body ferromagnetic interactions and a transverse field. For p=2 this corresponds to the quantum Curie-Weiss model (a special case of the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model) which exhibits a second-order phase transition, while for p>2 the transition is first order. We provide a refined analytical description both of the static and of the dynamic properties of these models. In particular we obtain analytically the exponential rate of decay of the gap at the first-order transition. We also study the slow annealing from the pure transverse field to the pure ferromagnet (and vice versa) and discuss the effect of the first-order transition and of the spinodal limit of metastability on the residual excitation energy, both for finite and exponentially divergent annealing times. In the quantum computation perspective this quantity would assess the efficiency of the quantum adiabatic procedure as an approximation algorithm.Comment: 44 pages, 23 figure

Faithful Squashed Entanglement

Squashed entanglement is a measure for the entanglement of bipartite quantum states. In this paper we present a lower bound for squashed entanglement in terms of a distance to the set of separable states. This implies that squashed entanglement is faithful, that is, strictly positive if and only if the state is entangled. We derive the bound on squashed entanglement from a bound on quantum conditional mutual information, which is used to define squashed entanglement and corresponds to the amount by which strong subadditivity of von Neumann entropy fails to be saturated. Our result therefore sheds light on the structure of states that almost satisfy strong subadditivity with equality. The proof is based on two recent results from quantum information theory: the operational interpretation of the quantum mutual information as the optimal rate for state redistribution and the interpretation of the regularised relative entropy of entanglement as an error exponent in hypothesis testing. The distance to the set of separable states is measured by the one-way LOCC norm, an operationally-motivated norm giving the optimal probability of distinguishing two bipartite quantum states, each shared by two parties, using any protocol formed by local quantum operations and one-directional classical communication between the parties. A similar result for the Frobenius or Euclidean norm follows immediately. The result has two applications in complexity theory. The first is a quasipolynomial-time algorithm solving the weak membership problem for the set of separable states in one-way LOCC or Euclidean norm. The second concerns quantum Merlin-Arthur games. Here we show that multiple provers are not more powerful than a single prover when the verifier is restricted to one-way LOCC operations thereby providing a new characterisation of the complexity class QMA.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. Due to an error in the published version, claims have been weakened from the LOCC norm to the one-way LOCC nor

Measurement of Angular Distributions and R= sigma_L/sigma_T in Diffractive Electroproduction of rho^0 Mesons

Production and decay angular distributions were extracted from measurements of exclusive electroproduction of the rho^0(770) meson over a range in the virtual photon negative four-momentum squared 0.5< Q^2 <4 GeV^2 and the photon-nucleon invariant mass range 3.8< W <6.5 GeV. The experiment was performed with the HERMES spectrometer, using a longitudinally polarized positron beam and a ^3He gas target internal to the HERA e^{+-} storage ring. The event sample combines rho^0 mesons produced incoherently off individual nucleons and coherently off the nucleus as a whole. The distributions in one production angle and two angles describing the rho^0 -> pi+ pi- decay yielded measurements of eight elements of the spin-density matrix, including one that had not been measured before. The results are consistent with the dominance of helicity-conserving amplitudes and natural parity exchange. The improved precision achieved at 47 GeV, reveals evidence for an energy dependence in the ratio R of the longitudinal to transverse cross sections at constant Q^2.Comment: 15 pages, 15 embedded figures, LaTeX for SVJour(epj) document class Revision: Fig. 15 corrected, recent data added to Figs. 10,12,14,15; minor changes to tex

Moment-Based Evidence for Simple Rational-Valued Hilbert-Schmidt Generic 2 x 2 Separability Probabilities

Employing Hilbert-Schmidt measure, we explicitly compute and analyze a number of determinantal product (bivariate) moments |rho|^k |rho^{PT}|^n, k,n=0,1,2,3,..., PT denoting partial transpose, for both generic (9-dimensional) two-rebit (alpha = 1/2) and generic (15-dimensional) two-qubit (alpha=1) density matrices rho. The results are, then, incorporated by Dunkl into a general formula (Appendix D6), parameterized by k, n and alpha, with the case alpha=2, presumptively corresponding to generic (27-dimensional) quaternionic systems. Holding the Dyson-index-like parameter alpha fixed, the induced univariate moments (|rho| |rho^{PT}|)^n and |rho^{PT}|^n are inputted into a Legendre-polynomial-based (least-squares) probability-distribution reconstruction algorithm of Provost (Mathematica J., 9, 727 (2005)), yielding alpha-specific separability probability estimates. Since, as the number of inputted moments grows, estimates based on |rho| |rho^{PT}| strongly decrease, while ones employing |rho^{PT}| strongly increase (and converge faster), the gaps between upper and lower estimates diminish, yielding sharper and sharper bounds. Remarkably, for alpha = 2, with the use of 2,325 moments, a separability-probability lower-bound 0.999999987 as large as 26/323 = 0.0804954 is found. For alpha=1, based on 2,415 moments, a lower bound results that is 0.999997066 times as large as 8/33 = 0.242424, a (simpler still) fractional value that had previously been conjectured (J. Phys. A, 40, 14279 (2007)). Furthermore, for alpha = 1/2, employing 3,310 moments, the lower bound is 0.999955 times as large as 29/64 = 0.453125, a rational value previously considered (J. Phys. A, 43, 195302 (2010)).Comment: 47 pages, 12 figures; slightly expanded and modified for journal publication; this paper incorporates and greatly extends arXiv:1104.021

Geometric Measures of Quantum Correlations with Bures and Hellinger Distances

This article contains a survey of the geometric approach to quantum correlations. We focus mainly on the geometric measures of quantum correlations based on the Bures and quantum Hellinger distances.Comment: to be published as a chapter of the book "Lectures on general quantum correlations and their applications" edited by F. Fanchini, D. Soares-Pinto, and G. Adesso (Springer, 2017); 47 pages, 3 figures; second version: minor typos in the first version correcte