Entanglement swapping Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
Two initial maximally entangled pairs and can be turned into an entangled pair by a generalized Bell basis measurement on , followed by a local correction at an endpoint using its classical label. This is qudit teleportation of , including its correlations with , to . The initial two pairs are consumed. Without the classical label, averaging the conditional endpoint states need not leave entanglement.
Take the labels , with basis indices read modulo . There is a missing hypothesis in the printed claim: the root of unity must be primitive. For example, when and , the two labels and produce the identical state , so they are not orthogonal. More generally, if the order of is , changing to repeats a state. The orthonormality claim is false for a nonprimitive root.
For the intended result, choose a primitive root of unity, for example . Since , expansion in the orthonormal basis gives
If , the sum is . If modulo , primitiveness gives while , and the finite geometric series is . Thus
There are vectors in an -dimensional Hilbert space, so they form the generalized Bell basis. Each has equal Schmidt coefficients and is a maximally entangled state.
For qudit teleportation, let be Alice's unknown input, write , and let Alice and Bob share . Alice holds and Bob holds . Define the qudit shift and phase operators
Both are unitary. Alice makes a joint projective measurement of in the generalized Bell basis, with projectors . Completeness follows from the orthonormality just proved.
For outcome , contracting the corresponding bra with the joint input and resource gives Bob's unnormalized state:
The Born rule therefore gives , since preserves the input norm. Conditional on this outcome, Bob holds . Alice sends him the classical label , and he applies its inverse in the displayed order:
The corrected receiver state is exactly the unknown input state for every outcome. Alice needs no knowledge of the amplitudes. The label has possibilities and can be encoded in classical bits; when is a power of two this is exactly . The protocol consumes the shared maximally entangled state and the original carrier is measured, so it does not retain an additional copy of the unknown state.
Equivalently, the complete joint quantum state has the teleportation expansion
It follows from the contraction calculation and completeness of the generalized Bell basis. After correction the branch operators are all , so their sum defines the identity quantum channel: . Acting on the input part of a joint state with a reference gives the same identity, which proves teleportation as an identity channel on a reference and extends the protocol to mixed inputs.
Before receiving the label, Bob instead has the outcome-averaged state
To check the equality, averaging over kills the off-diagonal matrix entries by the same root-of-unity sum; averaging the cyclic shifts makes every diagonal entry the total trace divided by . This is the Heisenberg-Weyl twirling channel. Thus the classical message is necessary to recover the input, consistently with the no-communication theorem derived in Question 1.
Label an orthonormal basis of the -dimensional Hilbert space by , with indices modulo . Let
These are the shift and phase Heisenberg-Weyl operators. Alice holds the input and one half of the shared maximally entangled state
She measures in the generalized Bell basis
Its inner products are
There are orthonormal vectors in an -dimensional space, so this is a complete projective measurement.
For an unknown normalized state , its contraction with measurement outcome gives Bob's unnormalized state
Each outcome has probability , independently of the input. Alice communicates the two -valued labels, and Bob applies the ordered inverse
The order matters because shift and phase operators do not generally commute. Normalizing the branch recovers the unknown state exactly, and all outcomes are corrected, so success is deterministic. The quantum resource is one maximally entangled pair of local dimension . The classical resource is an -valued message, with information content bits; ordinary bits suffice in fixed-length binary encoding.
This is faithful qudit teleportation even for an input entangled with a reference . Expand a joint pure state as , without requiring the reference vectors to be orthogonal. The same contraction and correction act on each system basis vector, producing . Thus the whole joint state, not just a reduced state, is preserved. Linearity extends the conclusion to mixed inputs. This is teleportation as an identity channel on a reference.
The root must be a primitive th root of unity, for example . The printed statement merely says th root; that is insufficient. With and , the states with and coincide. More generally, a root of order repeats the labels modulo . For the construction is trivial.
For a primitive root of unity, the generalized Bell basis obeys
The last equality follows from the finite geometric series: a nonzero exponent difference modulo has sum zero, while zero difference has sum . There are orthonormal vectors in an -dimensional Hilbert space, so they form a complete basis.
For qudit teleportation, Alice's input is . Alice and Bob share . Define the qudit shift and phase operators by and . Alice measures in the generalized Bell basis. On outcome , Bob's unnormalized state is
All outcomes have probability . Alice communicates and Bob applies
which restores exactly. The protocol consumes one maximally entangled pair of -level systems, a local -outcome measurement, and a classical message with possibilities. For a fixed-length binary encoding, bits suffice. No measurement depends on the unknown amplitudes.
Bob uses qudit teleportation to teleport his carrier to Clare through the pair . This transfers Bob's entanglement with Alice to Clare. Explicitly, Bob performs a generalized Bell basis measurement on . Contraction of the two initial pairs gives
The probability is for each outcome. Bob sends to Clare, who applies . Alice and Clare then share with certainty. This is entanglement swapping; neither an additional entangled pair nor a quantum transmission during the protocol is required.
The two initial pairs are consumed, and Bob's measured carriers cease to be entangled with . Without Bob's classical record, averaging the possible generalized Bell states leaves maximally mixed. Thus the conditional entanglement swapping does not supply faster-than-light communication.
For an -level qudit and primitive root of unity , these unitary operators obey and . The inverse of is , with the order reversed. These operators implement the receiver corrections in qudit teleportation.