English

Nonlocality, Asymmetry, and Distinguishing Bipartite States

Quantum Physics 2009-11-07 v3

Abstract

Entanglement is an useful resource because some global operations cannot be locally implemented using classical communication. We prove a number of results about what is and is not locally possible. We focus on orthogonal states, which can always be globally distinguished. We establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for a general set of 2x2 quantum states to be locally distinguishable, and for a general set of 2xn quantum states to be distinguished given an initial measurement of the qubit. These results reveal a fundamental asymmetry to nonlocality, which is the origin of ``nonlocality without entanglement'', and we present a very simple proof of this phenomenon.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0202034,
  title  = {Nonlocality, Asymmetry, and Distinguishing Bipartite States},
  author = {Jonathan Walgate and Lucien Hardy},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0202034},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

5 pages, 1 figure. Improved in line with referees comments, references added, typo corrected. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett