Connecting unextendible maximally entangled base with partial Hadamard matrices

We study the unextendible maximally entangled bases (UMEB) in \(\mathbb {C}^{d}\bigotimes \mathbb {C}^{d}\) and connect the problem to the partial Hadamard matrices. We show that for a given special UMEB in \(\mathbb {C}^{d}\bigotimes \mathbb {C}^{d}\), there is a partial Hadamard matrix which cannot be extended to a Hadamard matrix in \(\mathbb {C}^{d}\). As a corollary, any \((d-1)\times d\) partial Hadamard matrix can be extended to a Hadamard matrix, which answers a conjecture about \(d=5\). We obtain that for any d there is a UMEB except for \(d=p\ \text {or}\ 2p\), where \(p\equiv 3\mod 4\) and p is a prime. The existence of different kinds of constructions of UMEBs in \(\mathbb {C}^{nd}\bigotimes \mathbb {C}^{nd}\) for any \(n\in \mathbb {N}\) and \(d=3\times 5 \times 7\) is also discussed.     

High-fidelity quantum state preparation using neighboring optimal control

We present an approach to single-shot high-fidelity preparation of an n-qubit state based on neighboring optimal control theory. This represents a new application of the neighboring optimal control formalism which was originally developed to produce single-shot high-fidelity quantum gates. To illustrate the approach, and to provide a proof-of-principle, we use it to prepare the two-qubit Bell state \(|\beta _{01}\rangle = (1/\sqrt{2})\left[ \, |01\rangle + |10\rangle \,\right] \) with an error probability \(\varepsilon \sim 10^{-6}\) (\(10^{-5}\)) for ideal (non-ideal) control. Using standard methods in the literature, these high-fidelity Bell states can be leveraged to fault-tolerantly prepare the logical state \(|\overline{\beta }_{01}\rangle \).     

A highly efficient scheme for joint remote preparation of multi-qubit W state with minimum quantum resource

We present a highly efficient scheme for perfect joint remote preparation of an arbitrary \( 2^{n} \)-qubit W state with minimum quantum resource. Both the senders Alice and Bob intend to jointly prepare one \( 2^{n} \)-qubit W state for the remote receiver Charlie. In the beginning, they help the remote receiver Charlie to construct one n-qubit intermediate state which is closely related to the target \( 2^{n} \)-qubit W state. Afterward, Charlie introduces auxiliary qubits and applies appropriate operations to obtain the target \( 2^{n} \)-qubit W state. Compared with previous schemes, our scheme requires minimum quantum resource and least amount of classical communication. Moreover, our scheme has a significant potential for being adapted to remote state preparation of other special states.     

A quantum watermarking scheme using simple and small-scale quantum circuits

A new quantum gray-scale image watermarking scheme by using simple and small-scale quantum circuits is proposed. The NEQR representation for quantum images is used. The image sizes for carrier and watermark are assumed to be \(2n \times 2n\) and \(n \times n\), respectively. At first, a classical watermark with \(n \times n\) image size and 8 bits gray scale is expanded to an image with \(2n \times 2n\) image size and 2 bits gray scale. Then the expanded image is scrambled to be a meaningless image by the SWAP gates that controlled by the keys only known to the operator. The scrambled image is embedded into the carrier image by the CNOT gates (XOR operation). The watermark is extracted from the watermarked image by applying operations in the reverse order. Simulation-based experimental results show that our proposed scheme is excellent in terms of three items, visual quality, robustness performance under noises, and computational complexity.     

New asymmetric quantum codes over $$F_{q}$$

Two families of new asymmetric quantum codes are constructed in this paper. The first family is the asymmetric quantum codes with length \(n=q^{m}-1\) over \(F_{q}\), where \(q\ge 5\) is a prime power. The second one is the asymmetric quantum codes with length \(n=3^{m}-1\). These asymmetric quantum codes are derived from the CSS construction and pairs of nested BCH codes. Moreover, let the defining set \(T_{1}=T_{2}^{-q}\), then the real Z-distance of our asymmetric quantum codes are much larger than \(\delta _\mathrm{max}+1\), where \(\delta _\mathrm{max}\) is the maximal designed distance of dual-containing narrow-sense BCH code, and the parameters presented here have better than the ones available in the literature.     

Unextendible maximally entangled bases in $${\mathbb {C}}^{pd}\otimes {\mathbb {C}}^{qd}$$

The construction of unextendible maximally entangled bases is tightly related to quantum information processing like local state discrimination. We put forward two constructions of UMEBs in \({\mathbb {C}}^{pd}\otimes {\mathbb {C}}^{qd}\)(\(p\le q\)) based on the constructions of UMEBs in \({\mathbb {C}}^{d}\otimes {\mathbb {C}}^{d}\) and in \({\mathbb {C}}^{p}\otimes {\mathbb {C}}^{q}\), which generalizes the results in Guo (Phys Rev A 94:052302, 2016) by two approaches. Two different 48-member UMEBs in \({\mathbb {C}}^{6}\otimes {\mathbb {C}}^{9}\) have been constructed in detail.     

Entanglement witness criteria of strong-<Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-separability for multipartite quantum states

Let \(H_{1}, H_{2},\ldots ,H_{n}\) be separable complex Hilbert spaces with \(\dim H_{i}\ge 2\) and \(n\ge 2\). Assume that \(\rho \) is a state in \(H=H_1\otimes H_2\otimes \cdots \otimes H_n\). \(\rho \) is called strong-k-separable \((2\le k\le n)\) if \(\rho \) is separable for any k-partite division of H. In this paper, an entanglement witnesses criterion of strong-k-separability is obtained, which says that \(\rho \) is not strong-k-separable if and only if there exist a k-division space \(H_{m_{1}}\otimes \cdots \otimes H_{m_{k}}\) of H, a finite-rank linear elementary operator positive on product states \(\Lambda :\mathcal {B}(H_{m_{2}}\otimes \cdots \otimes H_{m_{k}})\rightarrow \mathcal {B}(H_{m_{1}})\) and a state \(\rho _{0}\in \mathcal {S}(H_{m_{1}}\otimes H_{m_{1}})\), such that \(\mathrm {Tr}(W\rho )<0\), where \(W=(\mathrm{Id}\otimes \Lambda ^{\dagger })\rho _{0}\) is an entanglement witness. In addition, several different methods of constructing entanglement witnesses for multipartite states are also given.     

Indistinguishability of pure orthogonal product states by LOCC

We construct two sets of incomplete and extendible quantum pure orthogonal product states (POPS) in general bipartite high-dimensional quantum systems, which are all indistinguishable by local operations and classical communication. The first set of POPS is composed of two parts which are \(\mathcal {C}^m\otimes \mathcal {C}^{n_1}\) with \(5\le m\le n_1\) and \(\mathcal {C}^m\otimes \mathcal {C}^{n_2}\) with \(5\le m \le n_2\), where \(n_1\) is odd and \(n_2\) is even. The second one is in \(\mathcal {C}^m\otimes \mathcal {C}^n\) \((m, n\ge 4)\). Some subsets of these two sets can be extended into complete sets that local indistinguishability can be decided by noncommutativity which quantifies the quantumness of a quantum ensemble. Our study shows quantum nonlocality without entanglement.     

The block Lanczos algorithm for linear ill-posed problems

In the present paper, we propose a new method to inexpensively determine a suitable value of the regularization parameter and an associated approximate solution, when solving ill-conditioned linear system of equations with multiple right-hand sides contaminated by errors. The proposed method is based on the symmetric block Lanczos algorithm, in connection with block Gauss quadrature rules to inexpensively approximate matrix-valued function of the form \(W^Tf(A)W\), where \(W\in {\mathbb {R}}^{n\times k}\), \(k\ll n\), and \(A\in {\mathbb {R}}^{n\times n}\) is a symmetric matrix.     

Mutually unbiased maximally entangled bases in $$\mathbb {C}^d\otimes \mathbb {C}^d$$

We study mutually unbiased maximally entangled bases (MUMEB’s) in bipartite system \(\mathbb {C}^d\otimes \mathbb {C}^d (d \ge 3)\). We generalize the method to construct MUMEB’s given in Tao et al. (Quantum Inf Process 14:2291–2300, 2015), by using any commutative ring R with d elements and generic character of \((R,+)\) instead of \(\mathbb {Z}_d=\mathbb {Z}/d\mathbb {Z}\). Particularly, if \(d=p_1^{a_1}p_2^{a_2}\ldots p_s^{a_s}\) where \(p_1, \ldots , p_s\) are distinct primes and \(3\le p_1^{a_1}\le \cdots \le p_s^{a_s}\), we present \(p_1^{a_1}-1\) MUMEB’s in \(\mathbb {C}^d\otimes \mathbb {C}^d\) by taking \(R=\mathbb {F}_{p_1^{a_1}}\oplus \cdots \oplus \mathbb {F}_{p_s^{a_s}}\), direct sum of finite fields (Theorem 3.3).     

New quantum codes from dual-containing cyclic codes over finite rings

Let \(R=\mathbb {F}_{2^{m}}+u\mathbb {F}_{2^{m}}+\cdots +u^{k}\mathbb {F}_{2^{m}}\), where \(\mathbb {F}_{2^{m}}\) is the finite field with \(2^{m}\) elements, m is a positive integer, and u is an indeterminate with \(u^{k+1}=0.\) In this paper, we propose the constructions of two new families of quantum codes obtained from dual-containing cyclic codes of odd length over R. A new Gray map over R is defined, and a sufficient and necessary condition for the existence of dual-containing cyclic codes over R is given. A new family of \(2^{m}\)-ary quantum codes is obtained via the Gray map and the Calderbank–Shor–Steane construction from dual-containing cyclic codes over R. In particular, a new family of binary quantum codes is obtained via the Gray map, the trace map and the Calderbank–Shor–Steane construction from dual-containing cyclic codes over R.     

Master Lovas–Andai and equivalent formulas verifying the $$\frac{8}{33}$$ two-qubit Hilbert–Schmidt separability probability and companion rational-valued conjectures

We begin by investigating relationships between two forms of Hilbert–Schmidt two-rebit and two-qubit “separability functions”—those recently advanced by Lovas and Andai (J Phys A Math Theor 50(29):295303, 2017), and those earlier presented by Slater (J Phys A 40(47):14279, 2007). In the Lovas–Andai framework, the independent variable \(\varepsilon \in [0,1]\) is the ratio \(\sigma (V)\) of the singular values of the \(2 \times 2\) matrix \(V=D_2^{1/2} D_1^{-1/2}\) formed from the two \(2 \times 2\) diagonal blocks (\(D_1, D_2\)) of a \(4 \times 4\) density matrix \(D= \left||\rho _{ij}\right||\). In the Slater setting, the independent variable \(\mu \) is the diagonal-entry ratio \(\sqrt{\frac{\rho _{11} \rho _ {44}}{\rho _ {22} \rho _ {33}}}\)—with, of central importance, \(\mu =\varepsilon \) or \(\mu =\frac{1}{\varepsilon }\) when both \(D_1\) and \(D_2\) are themselves diagonal. Lovas and Andai established that their two-rebit “separability function” \(\tilde{\chi }_1 (\varepsilon )\) (\(\approx \varepsilon \)) yields the previously conjectured Hilbert–Schmidt separability probability of \(\frac{29}{64}\). We are able, in the Slater framework (using cylindrical algebraic decompositions [CAD] to enforce positivity constraints), to reproduce this result. Further, we newly find its two-qubit, two-quater[nionic]-bit and “two-octo[nionic]-bit” counterparts, \(\tilde{\chi _2}(\varepsilon ) =\frac{1}{3} \varepsilon ^2 \left( 4-\varepsilon ^2\right) \), \(\tilde{\chi _4}(\varepsilon ) =\frac{1}{35} \varepsilon ^4 \left( 15 \varepsilon ^4-64 \varepsilon ^2+84\right) \) and \(\tilde{\chi _8} (\varepsilon )= \frac{1}{1287}\varepsilon ^8 \left( 1155 \varepsilon ^8-7680 \varepsilon ^6+20160 \varepsilon ^4-25088 \varepsilon ^2+12740\right) \). These immediately lead to predictions of Hilbert–Schmidt separability/PPT-probabilities of \(\frac{8}{33}\), \(\frac{26}{323}\) and \(\frac{44482}{4091349}\), in full agreement with those of the “concise formula” (Slater in J Phys A 46:445302, 2013), and, additionally, of a “specialized induced measure” formula. Then, we find a Lovas–Andai “master formula,” \(\tilde{\chi _d}(\varepsilon )= \frac{\varepsilon ^d \Gamma (d+1)^3 \, _3\tilde{F}_2\left( -\frac{d}{2},\frac{d}{2},d;\frac{d}{2}+1,\frac{3 d}{2}+1;\varepsilon ^2\right) }{\Gamma \left( \frac{d}{2}+1\right) ^2}\), encompassing both even and odd values of d. Remarkably, we are able to obtain the \(\tilde{\chi _d}(\varepsilon )\) formulas, \(d=1,2,4\), applicable to full (9-, 15-, 27-) dimensional sets of density matrices, by analyzing (6-, 9, 15-) dimensional sets, with not only diagonal \(D_1\) and \(D_2\), but also an additional pair of nullified entries. Nullification of a further pair still leads to X-matrices, for which a distinctly different, simple Dyson-index phenomenon is noted. C. Koutschan, then, using his HolonomicFunctions program, develops an order-4 recurrence satisfied by the predictions of the several formulas, establishing their equivalence. A two-qubit separability probability of \(1-\frac{256}{27 \pi ^2}\) is obtained based on the operator monotone function \(\sqrt{x}\), with the use of \(\tilde{\chi _2}(\varepsilon )\).     

New q-ary quantum MDS codes with distances bigger than $$\frac{ q}{2}$$

The construction of quantum MDS codes has been studied by many authors. We refer to the table in page 1482 of (IEEE Trans Inf Theory 61(3):1474–1484, 2015) for known constructions. However, there have been constructed only a few q-ary quantum MDS \([[n,n-2d+2,d]]_q\) codes with minimum distances \(d>\frac{q}{2}\) for sparse lengths \(n>q+1\). In the case \(n=\frac{q^2-1}{m}\) where \(m|q+1\) or \(m|q-1\) there are complete results. In the case \(n=\frac{q^2-1}{m}\) while \(m|q^2-1\) is neither a factor of \(q-1\) nor \(q+1\), no q-ary quantum MDS code with \(d> \frac{q}{2}\) has been constructed. In this paper we propose a direct approach to construct Hermitian self-orthogonal codes over \(\mathbf{F}_{q^2}\). Then we give some new q-ary quantum codes in this case. Moreover many new q-ary quantum MDS codes with lengths of the form \(\frac{w(q^2-1)}{u}\) and minimum distances \(d > \frac{q}{2}\) are presented.     

Improved constructions for quantum maximum distance separable codes

In this work, we further improve the distance of the quantum maximum distance separable (MDS) codes of length \(n=\frac{q^2+1}{10}\). This yields new families of quantum MDS codes. We also construct a family of new quantum MDS codes with parameters \([[\frac{q^2-1}{3}, \frac{q^2-1}{3}-2d+2, d]]_{q}\), where \(q=2^m\), \(2\le d\le \frac{q-1}{3}\) if \(3\mid (q+2)\), and \(2\le d\le \frac{2q-1}{3}\) if \(3\mid (q+1)\). Compared with the known quantum MDS codes, these quantum MDS codes have much larger minimum distance.     

Two families of BCH codes and new quantum codes

In this paper, two families of non-narrow-sense (NNS) BCH codes of lengths \(n=\frac{q^{2m}-1}{q^2-1}\) and \(n=\frac{q^{2m}-1}{q+1}\) (\(m\ge 3)\) over the finite field \(\mathbf {F}_{q^2}\) are studied. The maximum designed distances \(\delta ^\mathrm{new}_\mathrm{max}\) of these dual-containing BCH codes are determined by a careful analysis of properties of the cyclotomic cosets. NNS BCH codes which achieve these maximum designed distances are presented, and a sequence of nested NNS BCH codes that contain these BCH codes with maximum designed distances are constructed and their parameters are computed. Consequently, new nonbinary quantum BCH codes are derived from these NNS BCH codes. The new quantum codes presented here include many classes of good quantum codes, which have parameters better than those constructed from narrow-sense BCH codes, negacyclic and constacyclic BCH codes in the literature.     

An extended nonsymmetric block Lanczos method for model reduction in large scale dynamical systems

In this paper, we propose an extended block Krylov process to construct two biorthogonal bases for the extended Krylov subspaces \(\mathbb {K}_{m}^e(A,V)\) and \(\mathbb {K}_{m}^e(A^{T},W)\), where \(A \in \mathbb {R}^{n \times n}\) and \(V,~W \in \mathbb {R}^{n \times p}\). After deriving some new theoretical results and algebraic properties, we apply the proposed algorithm with moment matching techniques for model reduction in large scale dynamical systems. Numerical experiments for large and sparse problems are given to show the efficiency of the proposed method.     

Exact exponential algorithms for 3-machine flowshop scheduling problems

In this paper, we focus on the design of an exact exponential time algorithm with a proved worst-case running time for 3-machine flowshop scheduling problems considering worst-case scenarios. For the minimization of the makespan criterion, a Dynamic Programming algorithm running in \({\mathcal {O}}^*(3^n)\) is proposed, which improves the current best-known time complexity \(2^{{\mathcal {O}}(n)}\times \Vert I\Vert ^{{\mathcal {O}}(1)}\) in the literature. The idea is based on a dominance condition and the consideration of the Pareto Front in the criteria space. The algorithm can be easily generalized to other problems that have similar structures. The generalization on two problems, namely the \(F3\Vert f_\mathrm{max}\) and \(F3\Vert \sum f_i\) problems, is discussed.     

USSOR methods for solving the rank deficient linear least squares problem

In order to find the least squares solution of minimal norm to linear system \(Ax=b\) with \(A \in \mathcal{C}^{m \times n}\) being a matrix of rank \(r< n \le m\), \(b \in \mathcal{C}^{m}\), Zheng and Wang (Appl Math Comput 169:1305–1323, 2005) proposed a class of symmetric successive overrelaxation (SSOR) methods, which is based on augmenting system to a block \(4 \times 4\) consistent system. In this paper, we construct the unsymmetric successive overrelaxation (USSOR) method. The semiconvergence of the USSOR method is discussed. Numerical experiments illustrate that the number of iterations and CPU time for the USSOR method with the appropriate parameters is respectively less and faster than the SSOR method with optimal parameters.     

An optimal discrimination of two mixed qubit states with a fixed rate of inconclusive results

In this paper we consider the optimal discrimination of two mixed qubit states for a measurement that allows a fixed rate of inconclusive results. Our strategy is to transform the problem of two qubit states into a minimum error discrimination for three qubit states by adding a specific quantum state \(\rho _{0}\) and a prior probability \(q_{0}\), which behaves as an inconclusive degree. First, we introduce the beginning and the end of practical interval of inconclusive result, \(q_{0}^{(0)}\) and \(q_{0}^{(1)}\), which are key ingredients in investigating our problem. Then we obtain the analytic form of them. Next, we show that our problem can be classified into two cases \(q_{0}=q_{0}^{(0)}\) (or \(q_{0}=q_{0}^{(1)}\)) and \(q_{0}^{(0)}<q_{0}<q_{0}^{(1)}\). In fact, by maximum confidences of two qubit states and non-diagonal element of \(\rho _{0}\), our problem is completely understood. We provide an analytic solution of our problem when \(q_{0}=q_{0}^{(0)}\) (or \(q_{0}=q_{0}^{(1)}\)). However, when \(q_{0}^{(0)}<q_{0}<q_{0}^{(1)}\), we rather supply the numerical method to find the solution, because of the complex relation between inconclusive degree and corresponding failure probability. Finally we confirm our results using previously known examples.     

Spatial-spectral-combined sparse representation-based classification for hyperspectral imagery

Recently, sparse representation-based classification (SRC), which assigns a test sample to the class with minimum representation error via a sparse linear combination of all the training samples, has successfully been applied to hyperspectral imagery. Alternatively, spatial information, which means the adjacent pixels belong to the same class with a high probability, is a valuable complement to the spectral information. In this paper, we have presented a new spectral-spatial-combined SRC method, abbreviated as SSSRC or \(\mathrm{S}^{3}\mathrm{RC}\), to jointly consider the spectral and spatial neighborhood information of each pixel to explore the spectral and spatial coherence by the SRC method. Furthermore, a fast interference-cancelation operation is adopted to accelerate the classification procedure of \(\mathrm{S}^{3}\mathrm{RC}\), named \(\mathrm{FS}^{3}\mathrm{RC}\). Experimental results have shown that both the proposed SRC-based approaches, \(\mathrm{S}^{3}\mathrm{RC}\) and \(\mathrm{FS}^{3}\mathrm{RC}\), could achieve better performance than the other state-of-the-art methods.