Reversible Entanglement Beyond Quantum Operations

Schematic hierarchy of operations.

Abstract

We introduce a reversible theory of exact entanglement manipulation by establishing a necessary and sufficient condition for state transfer under trace-preserving transformations that completely preserve the positivity of partial transpose (PPT). Under these free transformations, we show that logarithmic negativity emerges as the pivotal entanglement measure for determining entangled states’ transformations, analogous to the role of entropy in the second law of thermodynamics. Previous results proved that entanglement is irreversible under quantum operations that completely preserve PPT and under all nonentangling transformations. In this work, we find that going beyond the complete positivity constraint imposed by standard quantum mechanics enables a reversible theory of exact entanglement manipulation, which may suggest a potential incompatibility between the reversibility of entanglement and the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics.

Publication
Physical Review Research
Yu-Ao Chen
Yu-Ao Chen
Visiting Scholar

I obtained my BS in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics from University of Science and Technology of China. I obtained my PhD degree in Applied Mathematics from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Xiao-Shan Gao. My research interests include quantum computing, symbolic computation and cryptanalysis.

Xin Wang
Xin Wang
Associate Professor

Prof. Xin Wang founded the QuAIR Lab at HKUST (Guangzhou) in June 2023. His research aims to advance our understanding of the limits of information processing with quantum systems and the potential of quantum artificial intelligence. His current interests include quantum algorithms, quantum resource theory, quantum machine learning, quantum computer architecture, and quantum error processing. Prior to establishing the QuAIR Lab, Prof. Wang was a Staff Researcher at the Institute for Quantum Computing at Baidu Research, where he focused on quantum computing research and the development of the Baidu Quantum Platform. Notably, he led the development of Paddle Quantum, a Python library for quantum machine learning. From 2018 to 2019, he was a Hartree Postdoctoral Fellow at the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS) at the University of Maryland, College Park. Prof. Wang received his Ph.D. in quantum information from the University of Technology Sydney in 2018, under the supervision of Prof. Runyao Duan and Prof. Andreas Winter. He obtained his B.S. in mathematics (Wu Yuzhang Honors) from Sichuan University in 2014.

Lei Zhang
Lei Zhang
PhD Student (2023)

I obtained my BMath in AMath, CO & joint PMath from the University of Waterloo. My research interests include quantum algorithm design and quantum machine learning.

Chenghong Zhu
Chenghong Zhu
PhD Student (2023)

I obtained my BS and MS degrees in computer science from the University of Melbourne. My research interests include distributed quantum computing, quantum entanglement and quantum machine learning.