Locally accessible information: How much can the parties gain by cooperating?

We investigate measurements of bipartite ensembles restricted to local operations and classical communication and find a universal Holevo-like upper bound on the locally accessible information. We analyze our bound and exhibit a class of states which saturate it. Finally, we link the bound to the problem of quantification of the nonlocality of the operations necessary to extract locally unaccessible information.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, RevTeX4; v2: a conjecture partially proven, results unchanged; v3: small changes in presentation, published versio

Protocols for entanglement transformations of bipartite pure states

We present a general theoretical framework for both deterministic and probabilistic entanglement transformations of bipartite pure states achieved via local operations and classical communication. This framework unifies and greatly simplifies previous works. A necessary condition for ``pure contraction'' transformations is given. Finally, constructive protocols to achieve both probabilistic and deterministic entanglement transformations are presented.Comment: 7 pages, no figures. Version slightly modified on Physical Review A reques

Parity proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem based on the 24 rays of Peres

A diagrammatic representation is given of the 24 rays of Peres that makes it easy to pick out all the 512 parity proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem contained in them. The origin of this representation in the four-dimensional geometry of the rays is pointed out.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures and 3 tables. Three references have been added. Minor typos have been correcte

Local environment can enhance fidelity of quantum teleportation

We show how an interaction with the environment can enhance fidelity of quantum teleportation. To this end, we present examples of states which cannot be made useful for teleportation by any local unitary transformations; nevertheless, after being subjected to a dissipative interaction with the local environment, the states allow for teleportation with genuinely quantum fidelity. The surprising fact here is that the necessary interaction does not require any intelligent action from the parties sharing the states. In passing, we produce some general results regarding optimization of teleportation fidelity by local action. We show that bistochastic processes cannot improve fidelity of two-qubit states. We also show that in order to have their fidelity improvable by a local process, the bipartite states must violate the so-called reduction criterion of separability.Comment: 9 pages, Revte

Dynamics of quantum entanglement

A model of discrete dynamics of entanglement of bipartite quantum state is considered. It involves a global unitary dynamics of the system and periodic actions of local bistochastic or decaying channel. For initially pure states the decay of entanglement is accompanied with an increase of von Neumann entropy of the system. We observe and discuss revivals of entanglement due to unitary interaction of both subsystems. For some mixed states having different marginal entropies of both subsystems (one of them larger than the global entropy and the other one one smaller) we find an asymmetry in speed of entanglement decay. The entanglement of these states decreases faster, if the depolarizing channel acts on the "classical" subsystem, characterized by smaller marginal entropy.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex, 10 figures, refined versio