Information-theoretic temporal Bell inequality and quantum computation

An information-theoretic temporal Bell inequality is formulated to contrast classical and quantum computations. Any classical algorithm satisfies the inequality, while quantum ones can violate it. Therefore, the violation of the inequality is an immediate consequence of the quantumness in the computation. Furthermore, this approach suggests a notion of temporal nonlocality in quantum computation.Comment: v2: 5 pages, refereces added, discussion slightly revised, main result unchanged. v3: typos correcte

Accessibility of physical states and non-uniqueness of entanglement measure

Ordering physical states is the key to quantifying some physical property of the states uniquely. Bipartite pure entangled states are totally ordered under local operations and classical communication (LOCC) in the asymptotic limit and uniquely quantified by the well-known entropy of entanglement. However, we show that mixed entangled states are partially ordered under LOCC even in the asymptotic limit. Therefore, non-uniqueness of entanglement measure is understood on the basis of an operational notion of asymptotic convertibility.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure. v2: main result unchanged but presentation extensively changed. v3: figure added, minor correction

Mean Field Approximations and Multipartite Thermal Correlations

The relationship between the mean-field approximations in various interacting models of statistical physics and measures of classical and quantum correlations is explored. We present a method that allows us to bound the total amount of correlations (and hence entanglement) in a physical system in thermal equilibrium at some temperature in terms of its free energy and internal energy. This method is first illustrated using two qubits interacting through the Heisenberg coupling, where entanglement and correlations can be computed exactly. It is then applied to the one dimensional Ising model in a transverse magnetic field, for which entanglement and correlations cannot be obtained by exact methods. We analyze the behavior of correlations in various regimes and identify critical regions, comparing them with already known results. Finally, we present a general discussion of the effects of entanglement on the macroscopic, thermodynamical features of solid-state systems. In particular, we exploit the fact that a $d$ dimensional quantum system in thermal equilibrium can be made to corresponds to a d+1 classical system in equilibrium to substitute all entanglement for classical correlations.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

A Concentration/Purification Scheme for Two Partially Entangled Photon Pairs

An experimental scheme for concentrating entanglement in partially entangled photon pairs is proposed. In this scheme, two separated parties obtain one maximally entangled photon pair from previously shared two partially entangled photon pairs by local operations and classical communication. A practical realization of the proposed scheme is discussed, which uses imperfect photon detectors and spontaneous parametric down-conversion as a photon source. This scheme also works for purifying a class of mixed states.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

A reversible theory of entanglement and its relation to the second law

We consider the manipulation of multipartite entangled states in the limit of many copies under quantum operations that asymptotically cannot generate entanglement. As announced in [Brandao and Plenio, Nature Physics 4, 8 (2008)], and in stark contrast to the manipulation of entanglement under local operations and classical communication, the entanglement shared by two or more parties can be reversibly interconverted in this setting. The unique entanglement measure is identified as the regularized relative entropy of entanglement, which is shown to be equal to a regularized and smoothed version of the logarithmic robustness of entanglement. Here we give a rigorous proof of this result, which is fundamentally based on a certain recent extension of quantum Stein's Lemma proved in [Brandao and Plenio, Commun. Math. 295, 791 (2010)], giving the best measurement strategy for discriminating several copies of an entangled state from an arbitrary sequence of non-entangled states, with an optimal distinguishability rate equal to the regularized relative entropy of entanglement. We moreover analyse the connection of our approach to axiomatic formulations of the second law of thermodynamics.Comment: 21 pages. revised versio