Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

Many applications of the emerging quantum technologies, such as quantum teleportation and quantum key distribution, require singlets, maximally entangled states of two quantum bits. It is thus of utmost importance to develop optimal procedures for establishing singlets between remote parties. As has been shown very recently, singlets can be obtained from other quantum states by using a quantum catalyst, an entangled quantum system which is not changed in the procedure. In this work we take this idea further, investigating properties of entanglement catalysis and its role for quantum communication. For transformations between bipartite pure states, we prove the existence of a universal catalyst, which can enable all possible transformations in this setup. We demonstrate the advantage of catalysis in asymptotic settings, going beyond the typical assumption of independent and identically distributed systems. We further develop methods to estimate the number of singlets which can be established via a noisy quantum channel when assisted by entangled catalysts. For various types of quantum channels our results lead to optimal protocols, allowing to establish the maximal number of singlets with a single use of the channel.

Entanglement quantification aims to assess the value of quantum states for quantum information processing tasks. A closely related problem is state convertibility, asking whether two remote parties can convert a shared quantum state into another one without exchanging quantum particles. Here, we explore this connection for quantum entanglement and for general quantum resource theories. For any quantum resource theory which contains resource-free pure states, we show that there does not exist a finite set of resource monotones which completely determines all state transformations. We discuss how these limitations can be surpassed, if discontinuous or infinite sets of monotones are considered, or by using quantum catalysis. We also discuss the structure of theories which are described by a single resource monotone and show equivalence with totally ordered resource theories. These are theories where a free transformation exists for any pair of quantum states. We show that totally ordered theories allow for free transformations between all pure states. For single-qubit systems, we provide a full characterization of state transformations for any totally ordered resource theory.

Resource theory of imaginarity provides a useful framework to understand the role of complex numbers, which are essential in the formulation of quantum mechanics, in a mathematically rigorous way. In the first part of this article, we study the properties of 'real' (quantum) operations both in single-party and bipartite settings. As a consequence, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for state transformations under real operations and show the existence of 'real entanglement' monotones. In the second part of this article, we focus on the problem of single copy state transformation via real quantum operations. When starting from pure initial states, we completely solve this problem by finding an analytical expression for the optimal fidelity of transformation, for a given probability of transformation and vice versa. Moreover, for state transformations involving arbitrary initial states and pure final states, we provide a semidefinite program to compute the optimal achievable fidelity, for a given probability of transformation.

resource theory of imaginarity, real quantum operations, stochastic approximate state conversion

Quantum entanglement of pure states is usually quantified via the entanglement entropy, the von Neumann entropy of the reduced state. Entanglement entropy is closely related to entanglement distillation, a process for converting quantum states into singlets, which can then be used for various quantum technological tasks. The relation between entanglement entropy and entanglement distillation has been known only for the asymptotic setting, and the meaning of entanglement entropy in the single-copy regime has so far remained open. Here we close this gap by considering entanglement catalysis. We prove that entanglement entropy completely characterizes state transformations in the presence of entangled catalysts. Our results imply that entanglement entropy quantifies the amount of entanglement available in a bipartite pure state to be used for quantum information processing, giving asymptotic results an operational meaning also in the single-copy setup.