English

Entangled Rings

Quantum Physics 2009-11-06 v3 Condensed Matter

Abstract

Consider a ring of N qubits in a translationally invariant quantum state. We ask to what extent each pair of nearest neighbors can be entangled. Under certain assumptions about the form of the state, we find a formula for the maximum possible nearest-neighbor entanglement. We then compare this maximum with the entanglement achieved by the ground state of an antiferromagnetic ring consisting of an even number of spin-1/2 particles. We find that, though the antiferromagnetic ground state does not maximize the nearest-neighbor entanglement relative to all other states, it does so relative to other states having zero z-component of spin.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0009041,
  title  = {Entangled Rings},
  author = {Kevin M. O'Connor and William K. Wootters},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0009041},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

19 pages, no figures; v2 includes new results; v3 corrects a numerical error for the case N=8