Three maximally entangled states can require two-way LOCC for local discrimination

We show that there exist sets of three mutually orthogonal $d$-dimensional maximally entangled states which cannot be perfectly distinguished using one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC) for arbitrarily large values of $d$. This contrasts with several well-known families of maximally entangled states, for which any three states can be perfectly distinguished. We then show that two-way LOCC is sufficient to distinguish these examples. We also show that any three mutually orthogonal $d$-dimensional maximally entangled states can be perfectly distinguished using measurements with a positive partial transpose (PPT) and can be distinguished with one-way LOCC with high probability. These results circle around the question of whether there exist three maximally entangled states which cannot be distinguished using the full power of LOCC; we discuss possible approaches to answer this question.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. (Published version

Distinguishing Bipartitite Orthogonal States using LOCC: Best and Worst Cases

Two types of results are presented for distinguishing pure bipartite quantum states using Local Operations and Classical Communications. We examine sets of states that can be perfectly distinguished, in particular showing that any three orthogonal maximally entangled states in C^3 tensor C^3 form such a set. In cases where orthogonal states cannot be distinguished, we obtain upper bounds for the probability of error using LOCC taken over all sets of k orthogonal states in C^n tensor C^m. In the process of proving these bounds, we identify some sets of orthogonal states for which perfect distinguishability is not possible.Comment: 22 pages, published version. Some proofs rewritten for clarit