The Clifford group, stabilizer states, and linear and quadratic operations over GF(2)

We describe stabilizer states and Clifford group operations using linear operations and quadratic forms over binary vector spaces. We show how the n-qubit Clifford group is isomorphic to a group with an operation that is defined in terms of a (2n+1)x(2n+1) binary matrix product and binary quadratic forms. As an application we give two schemes to efficiently decompose Clifford group operations into one and two-qubit operations. We also show how the coefficients of stabilizer states and Clifford group operations in a standard basis expansion can be described by binary quadratic forms. Our results are useful for quantum error correction, entanglement distillation and possibly quantum computing.Comment: 9 page

Local unitary versus local Clifford equivalence of stabilizer states

We study the relation between local unitary (LU) equivalence and local Clifford (LC) equivalence of stabilizer states. We introduce a large subclass of stabilizer states, such that every two LU equivalent states in this class are necessarily LC equivalent. Together with earlier results, this shows that LC, LU and SLOCC equivalence are the same notions for this class of stabilizer states. Moreover, recognizing whether two given stabilizer states in the present subclass are locally equivalent only requires a polynomial number of operations in the number of qubits.Comment: 8 pages, replaced with published versio

Four qubits can be entangled in nine different ways

We consider a single copy of a pure four-partite state of qubits and investigate its behaviour under the action of stochastic local quantum operations assisted by classical communication (SLOCC). This leads to a complete classification of all different classes of pure states of four-qubits. It is shown that there exist nine families of states corresponding to nine different ways of entangling four qubits. The states in the generic family give rise to GHZ-like entanglement. The other ones contain essentially 2- or 3-qubit entanglement distributed among the four parties. The concept of concurrence and 3-tangle is generalized to the case of mixed states of 4 qubits, giving rise to a seven parameter family of entanglement monotones. Finally, the SLOCC operations maximizing all these entanglement monotones are derived, yielding the optimal single copy distillation protocol

The Lorentz singular value decomposition and its applications to pure states of 3 qubits

All mixed states of two qubits can be brought into normal form by the action of SLOCC operations of the kind $\rho'=(A\otimes B)\rho(A\otimes B)^\dagger$. These normal forms can be obtained by considering a Lorentz singular value decomposition on a real parameterization of the density matrix. We show that the Lorentz singular values are variationally defined and give rise to entanglement monotones, with as a special case the concurrence. Next a necessary and sufficient criterion is conjectured for a mixed state to be convertible into another specific one with a non-zero probability. Finally the formalism of the Lorentz singular value decomposition is applied to tripartite pure states of qubits. New proofs are given for the existence of the GHZ- and W-class of states, and a rigorous proof for the optimal distillation of a GHZ-state is derived