Witnessed entanglement and the geometric measure of quantum discord

We establish relations between geometric quantum discord and entanglement quantifiers obtained by means of optimal witness operators. In particular, we prove a relation between negativity and geometric discord in the Hilbert-Schmidt norm, which is slightly different from a previous conjectured one [Phys. Rev. A 84, 052110 (2011)].We also show that, redefining the geometric discord with the trace norm, better bounds can be obtained. We illustrate our results numerically.Comment: 8 pages + 3 figures. Revised version with erratum for PRA 86, 024302 (2012). Simplified proof that discord is bounded by entanglement in any nor

Viable entanglement detection of unknown mixed states in low dimensions

We explore procedures to detect entanglement of unknown mixed states, which can be experimentally viable. The heart of the method is a hierarchy of simple feasibility problems, which provides sufficient conditions to entanglement. Our numerical investigations indicate that the entanglement is detected with a cost which is much lower than full state tomography. The procedure is applicable to both free and bound entanglement, and involves only single copy measurements.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, 4 table

Dynamical matrix for arbitrary quadratic fermionic bath Hamiltonians and non-Markovian dynamics of one and two qubits in an Ising model environment

We obtain the analytical expression for the Kraus decomposition of the quantum map of an environment modeled by an arbitrary quadratic fermionic Hamiltonian acting on one or two qubits, and derive simple functions to check the non-positivity of the intermediate map. These functions correspond to two different sufficient criteria for non-Markovianity. In the particular case of an environment represented by the Ising Hamiltonian, we discuss the two sources of non-Markovianity in the model, one due to the finite size of the lattice, and another due to the kind of interactions.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure