The symmetric extendibility of quantum states

Marcin Nowakowski

doi:10.1088/1751-8113/49/38/385301

The symmetric extendibility of quantum states

Abstract

Studies on the symmetric extendibility of quantum states have become particularly important in the context of the analysis of one-way quantum measures of entanglement, and the distillability and security of quantum protocols. In this paper we analyze composite systems containing a symmetric extendible part, with particular attention devoted to the one-way security of such systems. Further, we introduce a new one-way entanglement monotone based on the best symmetric approximation of a quantum state and the extendible number of a quantum state. We underpin these results with geometric observations about the structures of multi-party settings which posses substantial symmetric extendible components in their subspaces. The impossibility of reducing the maximal symmetric extendibility by means of the one-way local operations and classical communication method is pointed out on multiple copies. Finally, we state a conjecture linking symmetric extendibility with the one-way distillability and security of all quantum states, analyzing the behavior of a private key in the neighborhood of symmetric extendible states.