Two-outcome LOCC dilution of a Bell pair Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-20
Let and . Starting from the Bell state , Alice applies the measurement in quantum mechanics with Kraus operators displayed above. Completeness follows from . Each outcome has probability . The normalized outputs are and . Communicating the outcome allows both parties to apply a Pauli X gate in the second branch, making both outputs equal to the first. Thus this LOCC protocol deterministically converts one Bell pair into any two-qubit pure state with these Schmidt coefficients, after appropriate local unitary operations. It includes the product state endpoint without postselection.
Two-qubit product-state determinant criterion Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-25
Write a two-qubit pure state as and form its coefficient matrix . The state is a product state exactly when has rank one, equivalently when
Two-qubit state 2026-10-25
A quantum state on the tensor product of two two-dimensional complex state spaces. A normalized pure state has squared coefficient moduli summing to one. It is a product state exactly when , by the two-qubit product-state determinant criterion. The weaker equality of moduli only characterizes independence of the computational-basis outcomes; phases can preserve quantum entanglement despite those independent statistics.
W state 2026-10-14
The -qubit W state is the Dicke state with one excitation:
For three qubits it is . Its reduced density matrix on any one qubit is , from the Dicke state recursion. For both diagonal entries are nonzero, so that qubit is entangled with the rest: a pure product state would have a pure marginal. A symmetric-arm reduction of an exchange Hamiltonian supplies a dynamical preparation from one initial excitation.