Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / iii / Paper 323 / 4

For any normalized pure state on finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces ${\mathcal{H}}_A\otimes {\mathcal{H}}_B$, the Schmidt decomposition givesThe $u_j$ and $v_j$ form orthonormal sets in their respective spaces. The positive numbers $\sqrt{p_j}$ are the Schmidt coefficients, and $r$ is the Schmidt rank. Taking a partial trace gives the reduced density matricesThus the nonzero eigenvalues of the two reduced density matrices agree.

One construction is a singular value decomposition of the coefficient matrix $M$ in $|\psi ⟩={\sum }_{a,b}{M}_{ab}|a⟩|b⟩$. If $M=U\Sigma V^{†}$, the columns of $U$ give $u_j$, the complex conjugates of the columns of $V$ give $v_j$, and the singular values give $\sqrt{p_j}$. This also explains why the Schmidt coefficients are real and nonnegative.

The coefficient matrix in the computational basis isFor a bipartite pure state, the partial traces give ${\psi }_A=M{M}^{†}$ and ${\psi }_B=M^T\overline{M}$. Therefore the requested reduced density matrices areThe columns of $M$ are orthogonal. Their norms are $\sqrt{2/3}$ and $\sqrt{1/3}$, so normalizing them gives the orthonormal setWith $|v_0⟩=|0⟩$ and $|v_1⟩=|1⟩$, a Schmidt decomposition isExpanding this expression reproduces the minus sign in the $|01⟩$ coefficient. The two reduced density matrices both have eigenvalues $2/3$ and $1/3$, consistent with these Schmidt coefficients.

Write $|\zeta ⟩={\sum }_{i,j}{M}_{ij}|i{⟩}_A|j{⟩}_B$. Normalization says $\Vert M{\Vert }_{\mathrm{HS}}=1$, and the Schmidt rank equals the matrix rank of $M$. Its nonzero singular values are therefore $s_1,\dots ,s_r$ with ${\sum }_j{s}_j^2=1$.

The overlap with the maximally entangled state is $⟨{\varphi }^{+}|\zeta ⟩=\mathrm{Tr}(M)/\sqrt{d}$. The trace norm estimate of Q3(i), with test linear operator $I$, followed by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, givesFor two pure states, the unsquared quantum fidelity is the absolute value of their overlap. Hence the maximally entangled overlap bound from Schmidt rank isThe bound is attained by $|\zeta ⟩=r^{-1/2}{\sum }_{j=0}^{r-1}|jj⟩$. Thus uniform Schmidt coefficients on $r$ aligned basis pairs give the greatest possible overlap for that Schmidt rank.