Published April 2010 | Version Published
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Approximating the set of separable states using the positive partial transpose test

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract

The positive partial transpose test is one of the main criteria for detecting entanglement, and the set of states with positive partial transpose is considered as an approximation of the set of separable states. However, we do not know to what extent this criterion, as well as the approximation, is efficient. In this paper, we show that the positive partial transpose test gives no bound on the distance of a density matrix from separable states. More precisely, we prove that, as the dimension of the space tends to infinity, the maximum trace distance of a positive partial transpose state from separable states tends to 1. Using similar techniques, we show that the same result holds for other well-known separability criteria such as reduction criterion, majorization criterion, and symmetric extension criterion. We also bring in evidence that the sets of positive partial transpose states and separable states have totally different shapes.

Additional Information

© 2010 American Institute of Physics. Received 9 November 2009; accepted 22 February 2010; published online 27 April 2010. Authors are grateful to Karol Życzkowski and Stanisław J. Szarek for providing some background about the comparison of the volume of the sets of separable states and PPT states. S.B. is also thankful to Barbara Terhal for useful discussions.

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Eprint ID
18407
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20100524-134930766

Dates

Created
2010-05-25
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Updated
2021-11-08
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