From Physical to Logical: Graph-State-Based Connectivity in Quantum Networks

Quantum cryptographic systems have been commercially available, with a striking advantage over classical systems that their security and ability to detect the presence of eavesdropping are provable based on the principles of quantum mechanics. On the other hand, quantum protocol designers may commit much more faults than classical protocol designers since human intuition is much better adapted to the classical world than the quantum world. To offer formal techniques for modeling and verification of quantum protocols, several quantum extensions of process algebra have been proposed. One of the most serious issues in quantum process algebra is to discover a quantum generalization of the notion of bisimulation, which lies in a central position in process algebra, preserved by parallel composition in the presence of quantum entanglement, which has no counterpart in classical computation. Quite a few versions of bisimulation have been defined for quantum processes in the literature, but in the best case they are only proved to be preserved by parallel composition of purely quantum processes where no classical communications are involved. Many quantum cryptographic protocols, however, employ the LOCC (Local Operations and Classical Communications) scheme, where classical communications must be explicitly specified. So, a notion of bisimulation preserved by parallel composition in the circumstance of both classical and quantum communications is crucial for process algebra approach to verification of quantum cryptographic protocols. In this paper we introduce a novel notion of bisimulation for quantum processes and prove that it is congruent with respect to various process algebra combinators including parallel composition even when both classical and quantum communications are present. We also establish some basic algebraic laws for this bisimulation. In particular, we prove uniqueness of the solutions to recursive equations of quantum processes, which provides a powerful proof technique for verifying complex quantum protocols.

Entanglement is a key resource in the emerging field of Quantum Information. The strong correlations between systems described by an entangled state allow us to perform certain tasks more efficiently than it would be possible by using only classical resources. This is why the characterization of entanglement is one of the most important problems in Quantum Information. In this thesis, we analyze several aspects of entanglement. First, we introduce a new family of criteria to determine if a bipartite mixed state is entangled or not. This family consists of a sequence of tests that can be implemented efficiently, and has the property that all entangled states can be detected by some test in the sequence. Each test in the family can be stated as a semidefinite program, which is a class of convex optimization problems. The duality structure of these programs allows us to explicitly construct an entanglement witness that proves entanglement of a state, whenever the state fails one of the tests in the sequence. The entanglement witnesses constructed in this manner have well-defined algebraic properties that can be used to give a characterization of the interior of the set of all possible entanglement witnesses, as well as the set of strictly positive bihermitian forms and the set of strictly positive maps. We also study deterministic transformations of three-qubit pure state when only local operations and classical communication (LOCC) are allowed. We derive strong constraints that the operations and states involved must satisfy, and we apply these results to characterize the set of real states that can be obtained from the GHZ state by LOCC.

Recently, the problem of discriminating multipartite unitary operations by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) has attracted significant attention. The latest work in the literature on this problem showed that two multipartite unitary operations can always be perfectly distinguished by LOCC when a finite number of runs are allowable. However, in these schemes, local entanglement (an entangled state holden by one party) was required, which seems to imply that local entanglement is necessary for perfect discrimination between unitary operations by LOCC. In this article, we show that a perfect discrimination between two unitary operations acting on a two-qudits can always be achieved without exploiting any entanglement. As a result, we conclude that local entanglement is not necessary for perfect discrimination between unitary operations acting on two-qudits by LOCC.

It is shown that while entanglement ensures difficulty in discriminating a set of mutually orthogonal states perfectly by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), entanglement content does not. In particular, for a class of entangled multiqubit states, the maximum number of perfectly LOCC distinguishable orthogonal states is shown to be independent of the average entanglement of the states, and the spatial configuration with respect to which LOCC operations may be carried out. It is also pointed out that for this class, the makeup of an ensemble, that is whether it consists only of entangled states or not, determines the maximum number of perfectly distinguishable states.

The paper studies unambiguous discrimination of fermionic states through local operations and classical communication (LOCC). In the task of unambiguous discrimination, no error is tolerated but an inconclusive result is allowed. We show that contrary to the quantum case, it is not always possible to distinguish two fermionic states through LOCC unambiguously with the same success probability as if global measurements were allowed. Furthermore, we prove that we can overcome such a limit through an ancillary system made of two fermionic modes, independently of the dimension of the system, prepared in a maximally entangled state: in this case, LOCC protocols achieve the optimal success probability.

In this paper, we consider the problem of discriminating quantum states by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) when an arbitrarily small amount of error is permitted. This paradigm is known as asymptotic state discrimination, and we derive necessary conditions for when two multipartite states of any size can be discriminated perfectly by asymptotic LOCC. We use this new criterion to prove a gap in the LOCC and separable distinguishability norms. We then turn to the operational advantage of using two-way classical communication over one-way communication in LOCC processing. With a simple two-qubit product state ensemble, we demonstrate a strict majorization of the two-way LOCC norm over the one-way norm.

Bell nonlocality describes a manifestation of quantum mechanics that cannot be explained by any local hidden variable model. Its origin lies in the nature of quantum entanglement, although understanding the precise relationship between nonlocality and entanglement has been a notorious open problem. In this paper, we resolve this problem by developing a dynamical framework in which quantum Bell nonlocality emerges as special form of entanglement, and both are unified as resources under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Our framework is built on the notion of quantum processes, which are abstract quantum channels mapping elements between fixed intervals in space and time. Entanglement is then identified as a quantum process that cannot be generated by LOCC while Bell nonlocality is the subset of these processes that have an instantaneous input-output delay time. LOCC pre-processing is a natural set of free operations in this theory, thereby enabling all entangled states to activate some form of Bell nonlocality. In addition, we generalize the CHSH witnesses from the state domain to the domain of entangled quantum measurements, and provide a systematic method to quantify the Bell nonlocality of a bipartite quantum channel.

It is well known that orthogonal quantum states can be distinguished perfectly. However, if we assume that these orthogonal quantum states are shared by spatially separated parties, the distinguishability of these shared quantum states may be completely different. We show that a set of linearly independent quantum states [formula: see text] where U(m,n) are generalized Pauli matrices, cannot be discriminated deterministically or probabilistically by local operations and classical communication. On the other hand, any l maximally entangled states from this set are locally distinguishable if l(l-1)< or =2d. The explicit projecting measurements are obtained to locally discriminate these states. As an example, we show that four Werner states are locally indistinguishable.

In this paper the density matrices derived from combinatorial Laplacian matrix of graphs is considered. More specifically, the paper places emphasis on the star-relevant graph, which means adding certain edges on peripheral vertices of star graph. Initially, we provide the spectrum of the density matrices corresponding to star-like graph (i.e., adding an edge on star graph) and present that the Von Neumann entropy increases under the graph operation (adding an edge on star graph) and the graph operation cannot be simulated by local operation and classical communication (LOCC). Subsequently, we illustrate the spectrum of density matrices corresponding to star-alike graph (i.e., adding one edge on star-like graph) and exhibit that the Von Neumann entropy increases under the graph operation (adding an edge on star-like graph) and the graph operation cannot be simulated by LOCC. Finally, the spectrum of density matrices corresponding to star-mlike graph (i.e., adding m nonadjacent edges on the peripheral vertices of star graph) is demonstrated and the relation between the graph operation and Von Neumann entropy, LOCC is revealed in this paper.

One-time memories (OTM's) are simple tamper-resistant cryptographic devices,\nwhich can be used to implement one-time programs, a very general form of\nsoftware protection and program obfuscation. Here we investigate the\npossibility of building OTM's using quantum mechanical devices. It is known\nthat OTM's cannot exist in a fully-quantum world or in a fully-classical world.\nInstead, we propose a new model based on "isolated qubits" -- qubits that can\nonly be accessed using local operations and classical communication (LOCC).\nThis model combines a quantum resource (single-qubit measurements) with a\nclassical restriction (on communication between qubits), and can be implemented\nusing current technologies, such as nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond. In\nthis model, we construct OTM's that are information-theoretically secure\nagainst one-pass LOCC adversaries that use 2-outcome measurements.\n Our construction resembles Wiesner's old idea of quantum conjugate coding,\nimplemented using random error-correcting codes; our proof of security uses\nentropy chaining to bound the supremum of a suitable empirical process. In\naddition, we conjecture that our random codes can be replaced by some class of\nefficiently-decodable codes, to get computationally-efficient OTM's that are\nsecure against computationally-bounded LOCC adversaries.\n In addition, we construct data-hiding states, which allow an LOCC sender to\nencode an (n-O(1))-bit messsage into n qubits, such that at most half of the\nmessage can be extracted by a one-pass LOCC receiver, but the whole message can\nbe extracted by a general quantum receiver.\n

Any set of states which cannot be perfectly distinguished by local operations\nand classical communication (LOCC) alone, can always be locally distinguished\nusing quantum teleportation with enough entanglement resource. However, in\nquantum information theory, entanglement is a very valuable resource, so it\nleaves the following open question: how to accomplish this task more\nefficiently than teleportation, that is, design the local discrimination\nprotocol using less entanglement resource. In this paper, we first present two\nprotocols to locally distinguish a set of unextendible product bases (UPB) in\n$5\\otimes 5$ by using different entanglement resource. Then, we generalize the\ndistinguishing methods for a class of UPB in $d\\otimes d$, where $d$ is odd and\n$d\\geqslant 3$. Furthermore, for a class of UPB in $d\\otimes d$, where $d$ is\neven and $d\\geqslant 4$, we prove that these states can also be distinguished\nby LOCC with multiple copies of low-dimensional entanglement resource. These\nresults offer rather general insight into how to use entanglement resource more\nefficiently, and also reveal the phenomenon of less nonlocality with more\nentanglement.\n

It is known that any bipartite unitary operator of Schmidt rank three is equivalent to a controlled unitary under local unitaries. We propose a standard form of such operators. Using the form we improve the upper bound for the entanglement cost to implement such operators under local operations and classical communications (LOCC), and provide a corresponding protocol. A part of our protocol is based on a recursive-control protocol which is helpful for implementing other unitary operators. We show that any bipartite permutation unitary of Schmidt rank three can be implemented using LOCC and two ebits. We give two protocols for implementing bipartite permutation unitaries of any Schmidt rank $r$, and showed that one of the protocol uses $O(r)$ ebits of entanglement and $O(r)$ bits of classical communication, while these two types of costs for the other protocol scale as $O(r\log r)$ but the actual values are smaller for all $r<1100$. Based on this we obtain upper bounds of the number of nonlocal CNOT gates needed to implement bipartite classical reversible maps using classical circuits under two different conditions. We also quantify the entangling power of bipartite permutation unitaries of Schmidt rank two and three. We show that they are respectively $1$ ebit and some value between $\log_2 9 - 16/9$ and $\log_2 3$ ebits.

We study the problem of transforming a set of pure bipartite states into another using deterministic LOCC (local operations and classical communication). Necessary conditions for the existence of such a transformation are obtained using LOCC constraints on state transformation, entanglement, and distinguishability. These conditions are shown to be independent but not sufficient. We discuss their satisfiability and classify all possible input-output pairs of sets accordingly. We also prove that strict inclusions hold between LOCC, separable, and positive partial transpose operations for set transformation problems.

Bound entangled (BE) states are strange in nature: non-zero amount of free entanglement is required to create them but no free entanglement can be distilled from them under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Even though usefulness of such states has been shown in several information processing tasks, there exists no simple method to characterize them for an arbitrary composite quantum system. Here we present a $(d-3)/2$-parameter family of BE states each with positive partial transpose (PPT). This family of PPT-BE states is introduced by constructing an unextendible product basis (UPB) in $\mathbb{C}^d\otimes\mathbb{C}^d$ with $d$ odd and $d\ge 5$. The range of each such PPT-BE state is contained in a $2(d-1)$ dimensional entangled subspace whereas the associated UPB-subspace is of dimension $(d-1)^2+1$. We further show that each of these PPT-BE states can be written as a convex combination of $(d-1)/2$ number of rank-4 PPT-BE states. Moreover, we prove that these rank-4 PPT-BE states are extreme points of the convex compact set $\mathcal{P}$ of all PPT states in $\mathbb{C}^d\otimes\mathbb{C}^d$, namely the {\it Peres} set. An interesting geometric implication of our result is that the convex hull of these rank-4 PPT-BE extreme points -- the $(d-3)/2$-simplex -- is sitting on the boundary between the set $\mathcal{P}$ and the set of non-PPT states. We also discuss consequences of our construction in the context of quantum state discrimination by LOCC.

We study the problem of distinguishing quantum states using local operations and classical communication (LOCC). A question of fundamental interest is whether there exist sets of $k \leq d$ orthogonal maximally entangled states in $\complex^{d}\otimes\complex^{d}$ that are not perfectly distinguishable by LOCC. A recent result by Yu, Duan, and Ying [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 020506 (2012)] gives an affirmative answer for the case $k = d$. We give, for the first time, a proof that such sets of states indeed exist even in the case $k &lt; d$. Our result is constructive and holds for an even wider class of operations known as positive-partial-transpose measurements (PPT). The proof uses the characterization of the PPT-distinguishability problem as a semidefinite program.