Luca Marinatto

General criterion for the entanglement of two indistinguishable particles

We relate the notion of entanglement for quantum systems composed of two identical constituents to the impossibility of attributing a complete set of properties to both particles. This implies definite constraints on the mathematical form of the state vector associated with the whole system. We then analyze separately the cases of fermion and boson systems, and we show how the consideration of both the Slater-Schmidt number of the fermionic and bosonic analog of the Schmidt decomposition of the global state vector and the von Neumann entropy of the one-particle reduced density operators can supply us with a consistent criterion for detecting entanglement. In particular, the consideration of the von Neumann entropy is particularly useful in deciding whether the correlations of the considered states are simply due to the indistinguishability of the particles involved or are a genuine manifestation of the entanglement. The treatment leads to a full clarification of the subtle aspects of entanglement of two identical constituents which have been a source of embarrassment and of serious misunderstandings in the recent literature.

Entanglement and Properties of Composite Quantum Systems: A Conceptual and Mathematical Analysis

Various topics concerning the entanglement of composite quantum systems are considered with particular emphasis concerning the strict relations of such a problem with the one of attributing objective properties to the constituents. Most of the paper deals with composite systems in pure states. After a detailed discussion and a precise formal analysis of the case of systems of distinguishable particles, the problems of entanglement and the one of the properties of subsystems of systems of identical particles are thoroughly discussed. This part is the most interesting and new and it focuses in all details various subtle questions which have never been adequately discussed in the literature. Some inappropriate assertions which appeared in recent papers are analyzed. The relations of the main subject of the paper with the nonlocal aspects of quantum mechanics, as well as with the possibility of deriving Bells inequality are also considered.

An optimal entropic uncertainty relation in a two-dimensional Hilbert space ☆

We derive an optimal entropic uncertainty relation for an arbitrary pair of observables in a two-dimensional Hilbert space. Such a result, for the simple case we are considering, definitively improves all the entropic uncertainty relations which have appeared in the literature.

WHICH KIND OF TWO-PARTICLE STATES CAN BE TELEPORTED THROUGH A THREE-PARTICLE QUANTUM CHANNEL?

The use of a three-particle quantum channel to teleport entangled states through a slight modification of Bennetts procedure is studied. It is shown that it is not possible to perform successful teleportation of an arbitrary and unknown two-particle entangled state, following our version of Bennetts procedure. On the contrary, it is shown which, and in how many different ways, particular classes of two-particle states can be teleported.

Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger argument of nonlocality without inequalities for mixed states

We generalize the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger nonlocality without inequalities argument to cover the case of arbitrary mixed statistical operators associated to three-qubits quantum systems. More precisely, we determine the radius of a ball (in the trace distance topology) surrounding the pure GHZ state and containing arbitrary mixed statistical operators which cannot be described by any local and realistic hidden variable model and which are, as a consequence, noncompletely separable. As a practical application, we focus on certain one-parameter classes of mixed states which are commonly considered in the experimental realization of the original GHZ argument and which result from imperfect preparations of the pure GHZ state. In these cases we determine for which values of the parameter controlling the noise a nonlocality argument can still be exhibited, despite the mixedness of the considered states. Moreover, the effect of the imperfect nature of measurement processes is discussed.

Instantaneous and Local Nondemolition Measurement of Nonlocal Observables using Entangled States

With reference to a system of n spin‐1/2 particles which are distributed between two space‐like separated parties, we present two procedures to perform an instantaneous and local measurement of any nondegenerate observable having as its eigenstates the orthonormal basis of n‐partite entangled states introduced in [S. Bose, V. Vedral, and P. L. Knight, Phys. Rev. A 57, 822 (1998)], whose vectors reduce to the Bell states for n = 2 and to the GHZ states for n = 3. The first procedure implements a genuine nondemolition measurement by resorting to two n‐particle entangled states as an additional resource. The second one distinguishes between those eigenstates, though without preserving them (i.e., it is a demolition measurement), but it requires only a single couple of additional particles in a (maximally entangled) Bell state. Both methods are instantaneous, in the sense that the outcome of the measurement process is completely determined as soon as the local operations, whose duration can be made as short a...

Nonlocality without inequalities for almost all entangled states of any quantum system

It is shown that it is possible to rule out all local and stochastic hidden variable models accounting for the quantum mechanical predictions implied by almost any entangled quantum state vector of any number of particles whose Hilbert spaces have arbitrary dimensions, without resorting to Bell-type inequalities. The present proof makes use of the mathematically precise notion of Bell locality and it involves only simple set theoretic arguments.