Bell inequality,steering, incompatibility and Leggett–Garg inequality under coarsening measurement

We investigate the effects of the coarsening measurement on the quantum-to-classical transition by Bell–Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt (Bell–CHSH) non-locality for the conventional two-qubit system, the Leggett–Garg inequality for a two-level system, and steering and incompatibility both in the equatorial plane for N measurement settings. We find that for any fixed N, steering is more vulnerable than incompatibility for coarsening measurement both in reference and in final resolution. For \(N=2\) measurement settings, under the coarsening measurement reference the Leggett–Garg inequality is the most robust, Bell–CHSH non-locality lies between steering and incompatibility, while in the coarsening measurement of final resolution for \(N=2\) measurement settings incompatibility is the most robust, steering and Bell–CHSH non-locality are equally vulnerable, and more than the Leggett–Garg inequality. However, as N increases, incompatibility and steering will become more robust than the Leggett–Garg inequality under the coarsening measurement in reference and in final resolution, respectively. Finally, for the Leggett–Garg inequality, we find that the robustness of the coarsening measurement reference is more than the coarsening temporal reference. In one word, the effects of coarsening measurement strongly depend on the ways of coarsening.     

On the connection between quantum nonlocality and phase sensitivity of two-mode entangled Fock state superpositions

In two-mode interferometry, for a given total photon number N, entangled Fock state superpositions of the form \((|N-m\rangle _a|m\rangle _b+\mathrm{e}^{i (N-2m)\phi }|m\rangle _a|N-m\rangle _b)/\sqrt{2}\) have been considered for phase estimation. Indeed all such states are maximally mode-entangled and violate a Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt (CHSH) inequality. However, they differ in their optimal phase estimation capabilities as given by their quantum Fisher informations. The quantum Fisher information is the largest for the N00N state \((|N\rangle _a|0\rangle _b+\mathrm{e}^{i N\phi }|0\rangle _a|N\rangle _b)/\sqrt{2}\) and decreases for the other states with decreasing photon number difference between the two modes. We ask the question whether for any particular Clauser–Horne (CH) (or CHSH) inequality, the maximal values of the CH (or the CHSH) functional for the states of the above type follow the same trend as their quantum Fisher informations, while also violating the classical bound whenever the states are capable of sub-shot-noise phase estimation, so that the violation can be used to quantify sub-shot-noise sensitivity. We explore CH and CHSH inequalities in a homodyne setup. Our results show that the amount of violation in those nonlocality tests may not be used to quantify sub-shot-noise sensitivity of the above states.     

Renormalization of global entanglement and Bell nonlocality in the Ising model with a transverse field

By combining quantum renormalization group approach and critical theory, we investigate the performance of global entanglement and Bell nonlocality in quantum phase transition (QPT) that occurred in Ising model with a transverse field (ITF). After several iterations, both of them gradually develop two different saturated values relevant to the Ising phase and paramagnetic phase. Moreover, we proved that the inherent block–block correlation is strong enough to violate the quantum nonlocality. What is more, we derive an exact relation between global entanglement and Bell nonlocality for the given case. To serve further insight, the nonanalytic and scaling behaviors are analyzed.     

A Bell inequality for a class of multilocal ring networks

Quantum networks with independent sources of entanglement (hidden variables) and nodes that execute joint quantum measurements can create strong quantum correlations spanning the breadth of the network. Understanding of these correlations has to the present been limited to standard Bell experiments with one source of shared randomness, bilocal arrangements having two local sources of shared randomness, and multilocal networks with tree topologies. We introduce here a class of quantum networks with ring topologies comprised of subsystems each with its own internally shared source of randomness. We prove a Bell inequality for these networks, and to demonstrate violations of this inequality, we focus on ring networks with three-qubit subsystems. Three qubits are capable of two non-equivalent types of entanglement, GHZ and W-type. For rings of any number N of three-qubit subsystems, our inequality is violated when the subsystems are each internally GHZ-entangled. This violation is consistently stronger when N is even. This quantitative even-odd difference for GHZ entanglement becomes extreme in the case of W-type entanglement. When the ring size N is even, the presence of W-type entanglement is successfully detected; when N is odd, the inequality consistently fails to detect its presence.     

Exploring entropic uncertainty relation in the Heisenberg <Emphasis Type="Italic">XX</Emphasis> model with inhomogeneous magnetic field

In this work, we investigate the quantum-memory-assisted entropic uncertainty relation in a two-qubit Heisenberg XX model with inhomogeneous magnetic field. It has been found that larger coupling strength J between the two spin-chain qubits can effectively reduce the entropic uncertainty. Besides, we observe the mechanics of how the inhomogeneous field influences the uncertainty, and find out that when the inhomogeneous field parameter \(b<1\), the uncertainty will decrease with the decrease of the inhomogeneous field parameter b, conversely, the uncertainty will increase with decreasing b under the condition that \(b>1\). Intriguingly, the entropic uncertainty can shrink to zero when the coupling coefficients are relatively large, while the entropic uncertainty only reduces to 1 with the increase of the homogeneous magnetic field. Additionally, we observe the purity of the state and Bell non-locality and obtain that the entropic uncertainty is anticorrelated with both the purity and Bell non-locality of the evolution state.     

Classical versus quantum communication in XOR games

We introduce an intermediate setting between quantum nonlocality and communication complexity problems. More precisely, we study the value of XOR games when Alice and Bob are allowed to use a limited amount (c bits) of one-way classical communication compared to their value when they are allowed to use the same amount of one-way quantum communication (c qubits). The key quantity here is the ratio between the quantum and classical value. We provide a universal way to obtain Bell inequality violations of general Bell functionals from XOR games for which the previous quotient is larger than 1. This allows, in particular, to find (unbounded) Bell inequality violations from communication complexity problems in the same spirit as the recent work by Buhrman et al. (PNAS 113(12):3191–3196, 2016). We also provide an example of a XOR game for which the previous quotient is optimal (up to a logarithmic factor) in terms of the amount of information c. Interestingly, this game has only polynomially many inputs per player. For the related problem of separating the classical versus quantum communication complexity of a function, the known examples attaining exponential separation require exponentially many inputs per party.     

Spatial dependence of entanglement renormalization in <Emphasis Type="Italic">XY</Emphasis> model

In this article, a comparative study of the renormalization of entanglement in one-, two- and three-dimensional space and its relation with quantum phase transition (QPT) near the critical point is presented by implementing the quantum renormalization group (QRG) method using numerical techniques. Adopting the Kadanoff’s block approach, numerical results for the concurrence are obtained for the spin \({-}\)1/2 XY model in all the spatial dimensions. The results show similar qualitative behavior as we move from the lower to the higher dimensions in space, but the number of iterations reduces for achieving the QPT in the thermodynamic limit. We find that in the two-dimensional and three-dimensional spin \({-}\)1/2 XY model, maximum value of the concurrence reduce by the factor of 1 / n \((n=2,3)\) with reference to the maximum value of one-dimensional case. Moreover, we study the scaling behavior and the entanglement exponent. We compare the results for one-, two- and three-dimensional cases and illustrate how the system evolves near the critical point.     

Preparing large-scale maximally entangled <Emphasis Type="Italic">W</Emphasis> states in optical system

We propose an optical scheme to prepare large-scale maximally entangled W states by fusing arbitrary-size polarization entangled W states via polarization-dependent beam splitter. Because most of the currently existing fusion schemes are suffering from the qubit loss problem, that is the number of the output entangled qubits is smaller than the sum of numbers of the input entangled qubits, which will inevitably decrease the fusion efficiency and increase the number of fusion steps as well as the requirement of quantum memories, in our scheme, we design a effect fusion mechanism to generate \(W_{m+n}\) state from a n-qubit W state and a m-qubit W state without any qubit loss. As the nature of this fusion mechanism clearly increases the final size of the obtained W state, it is more efficient and feasible. In addition, our scheme can also generate \(W_{m+n+t-1}\) state by fusing a \(W_m\), a \(W_n\) and a \(W_t\) states. This is a great progress compared with the current scheme which has to lose at least two particles in the fusion of three W states. Moreover, it also can be generalized to the case of fusing k different W states, and all the fusion schemes proposed here can start from Bell state as well.     

Cyclic quantum teleportation

We propose a scheme of cyclic quantum teleportation for three unknown qubits using six-qubit maximally entangled state as the quantum channel. Suppose there are three observers Alice, Bob and Charlie, each of them has been given a quantum system such as a photon or spin-\(\frac{1}{2}\) particle, prepared in state unknown to them. We show how to implement the cyclic quantum teleportation where Alice can transfer her single-qubit state of qubit a to Bob, Bob can transfer his single-qubit state of qubit b to Charlie and Charlie can also transfer his single-qubit state of qubit c to Alice. We can also implement the cyclic quantum teleportation with \(N\geqslant 3\) observers by constructing a 2N-qubit maximally entangled state as the quantum channel. By changing the quantum channel, we can change the direction of teleportation. Therefore, our scheme can realize teleportation in quantum information networks with N observers in different directions, and the security of our scheme is also investigated at the end of the paper.     

Restricted (<Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>, <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>)-threshold quantum secret sharing scheme based on local distinguishability of orthogonal multiqudit entangled states

In this work, we study a restricted (k, n)-threshold access structure. According to this structure, we construct a group of orthogonal multipartite entangled states in d-dimensional system and investigate the distinguishability of these entangled states under restricted local operations and classical communication. Based on these properties, we propose a restricted (k, n)-threshold quantum secret sharing scheme (called LOCC-QSS scheme). The k cooperating players in the restricted threshold scheme come from all disjoint groups. In the proposed protocol, the participants distinguish these orthogonal states by the computational basis measurement and classical communication to reconstruct the original secret. Furthermore, we also analyze the security of our scheme in three primary quantum attacks and give a simple encoding method in order to better prevent the participant conspiracy attack.     

Violation of Bell inequalities for arbitrary-dimensional bipartite systems

In this paper, we consider the violation of Bell inequalities for quantum system \(\mathbb {C}^K\otimes \mathbb {C}^K\) (integer \(K\ge 2\)) with group theoretical method. For general M possible measurements, and each measurement with K outcomes, the Bell inequalities based on the choice of two orbits are derived. When the observables are much enough, the quantum bounds are only dependent on M and approximate to the classical bounds. Moreover, the corresponding nonlocal games with two different scenarios are analyzed.     

On the power of non-local boxes

A non-local box is a virtual device that has the following property: given that Alice inputs a bit at her end of the device and that Bob does likewise, it produces two bits, one at Alice's end and one at Bob's end, such that the XOR of the outputs is equal to the AND of the inputs. This box, inspired from the CHSH inequality, was first proposed by Popescu and Rohrlich to examine the question: given that a maximally entangled pair of qubits is non-local, why is it not maximally non-local? We believe that understanding the power of this box will yield insight into the non-locality of quantum mechanics. It was shown recently by Cerf, Gisin, Massar and Popescu, that this imaginary device is able to simulate correlations from any measurement on a singlet state. Here, we show that the non-local box can in fact do much more: through the simulation of the magic square pseudo-telepathy game and the Mermin-GHZ pseudo-telepathy game, we show that the non-local box can simulate quantum correlations that no entangled pair of qubits can, in a bipartite scenario and even in a multi-party scenario. Finally we show that a single non-local box cannot simulate all quantum correlations and propose a generalization for a multi-party non-local box. In particular, we show quantum correlations whose simulation requires an exponential amount of non-local boxes, in the number of maximally entangled qubit pairs.     

Quantum sealed-bid auction using a modified scheme for multiparty circular quantum key agreement

A feasible, secure and collusion attack-free quantum sealed-bid auction protocol is proposed using a modified scheme for multiparty circular quantum key agreement. In the proposed protocol, the set of all (n) bidders is grouped into l subsets (sub-circles) in such a way that only the initiator (who prepares the quantum state to be distributed for a particular round of communication and acts as the receiver in that round) is a member of all the subsets (sub-circles) prepared for a particular round, while any other bidder is part of only a single subset. All n bidders and auctioneer initiate one round of communication, and each of them prepares l copies of a \(\left( r-1\right) \)-partite entangled state (one for each sub-circle), where \(r=\frac{n}{l}+1\). The efficiency and security of the proposed protocol are critically analyzed. It is shown that the proposed protocol is free from the collusion attacks that are possible on the existing schemes of quantum sealed-bid auction. Further, it is observed that the security against collusion attack increases with the increase in l, but that reduces the complexity (number of entangled qubits in each entangled state) of the entangled states to be used and that makes the scheme scalable and implementable with the available technologies. The additional security and scalability are shown to arise due to the use of a circular structure in place of a complete-graph or tree-type structure used earlier.     

Do multipartite correlations speed up adiabatic quantum computation or quantum annealing?

Quantum correlations are thought to be the reason why certain quantum algorithms overcome their classical counterparts. Since the nature of this resource is still not fully understood, we shall investigate how multipartite entanglement and non-locality among qubits vary as the quantum computation runs. We shall encounter that quantum measures on the whole system cannot account for their corresponding speedup.     

Decoherence effect on quantum-memory-assisted entropic uncertainty relations

Uncertainty principle significantly provides a bound to predict precision of measurement with regard to any two incompatible observables, and thereby plays a nontrivial role in quantum precision measurement. In this work, we observe the dynamical features of the quantum-memory-assisted entropic uncertainty relations (EUR) for a pair of incompatible measurements in an open system characterized by local generalized amplitude damping (GAD) noises. Herein, we derive the dynamical evolution of the entropic uncertainty with respect to the measurement affecting by the canonical GAD noises when particle A is initially entangled with quantum memory B. Specifically, we examine the dynamics of EUR in the frame of three realistic scenarios: one case is that particle A is affected by environmental noise (GAD) while particle B as quantum memory is free from any noises, another case is that particle B is affected by the external noise while particle A is not, and the last case is that both of the particles suffer from the noises. By analytical methods, it turns out that the uncertainty is not full dependent of quantum correlation evolution of the composite system consisting of A and B, but the minimal conditional entropy of the measured subsystem. Furthermore, we present a possible physical interpretation for the behavior of the uncertainty evolution by means of the mixedness of the observed system; we argue that the uncertainty might be dramatically correlated with the systematic mixedness. Furthermore, we put forward a simple and effective strategy to reduce the measuring uncertainty of interest upon quantum partially collapsed measurement. Therefore, our explorations might offer an insight into the dynamics of the entropic uncertainty relation in a realistic system, and be of importance to quantum precision measurement during quantum information processing.     

Generalized teleportation by quantum walks

We develop a generalized teleportation scheme based on quantum walks with two coins. For an unknown qubit state, we use two-step quantum walks on the line and quantum walks on the cycle with four vertices for teleportation. For any d-dimensional states, quantum walks on complete graphs and quantum walks on d-regular graphs can be used for implementing teleportation. Compared with existing d-dimensional states teleportation, prior entangled state is not required and the necessary maximal entanglement resource is generated by the first step of quantum walk. Moreover, two projective measurements with d elements are needed by quantum walks on the complete graph, rather than one joint measurement with \(d^2\) basis states. Quantum walks have many applications in quantum computation and quantum simulations. This is the first scheme of realizing communicating protocol with quantum walks, thus opening wider applications.     

On <Emphasis Type="Italic">S</Emphasis>-mixing entropy of quantum channels

In this paper, an S-mixing entropy of quantum channels is introduced as a generalization of Ohya’s S-mixing entropy. We investigate several properties of the introduced entropy. Moreover, certain relations between the S-mixing entropy and the existing map and output entropies of quantum channels are investigated as well. These relations allowed us to find certain connections between separable states and the introduced entropy. Hence, there is a sufficient condition to detect entangled states. Moreover, several properties of the introduced entropy are investigated. Besides, entropies of qubit and phase-damping channels are calculated.     

Lower limits of spin detection efficiency for two-parameter two-qubit (TPTQ) states with non-ideal ferromagnetic detectors

We have investigated a TPTQ state as an input state of a non-ideal ferromagnetic detectors. Minimal spin polarization required to demonstrate spin entanglement according to entanglement witness and CHSH inequality with respect to (w.r.t.) their two free parameters have been found, and we have numerically shown that the entanglement witness is less stringent than the direct tests of Bell’s inequality in the form of CHSH in the entangled limits of its free parameters. In addition, the lower limits of spin detection efficiency fulfilling secure cryptographic key against eavesdropping have been derived. Finally, we have considered TPTQ state as an output of spin decoherence channel and the region of ballistic transmission time w.r.t. spin relaxation time and spin dephasing time has been found.     

Probing quantum coherence,uncertainty, steerability of quantum coherence and quantum phase transition in the spin model

In this paper, we study the relation among quantum coherence, uncertainty, steerability of quantum coherence based on skew information and quantum phase transition in the spin model by employing quantum renormalization-group method. Interestingly, the results show that the value of the local quantum uncertainty is equal to the local quantum coherence corresponding to local observable \(\sigma _z\) in XXZ model, and unlikely in XY model, local quantum uncertainty is minimal optimization of the local quantum coherence over local observable \(\sigma _x\) and this proposition can be generalized to a multipartite system. Therefore, one can directly achieve quantum correlation measured by local quantum uncertainty and coherence by choosing different local observables \(\sigma _x\), \(\sigma _z\), corresponding to the XY model and XXZ model separately. Meanwhile, steerability of quantum coherence in XY and XXZ model is investigated systematically, and our results reveal that no matter what times the QRG iterations are carried out, the quantum coherence of the state of subsystem cannot be steerable, which can also be suitable for block–block steerability of local quantum coherence in both XY and XXZ models. On the other hand, we have illustrated that the quantum coherence and uncertainty measure can efficiently detect the quantum critical points associated with quantum phase transitions after several iterations of the renormalization. Moreover, the nonanalytic and scaling behaviors of steerability of local quantum coherence have been also taken into consideration.