Financing: Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)

Project reference Nr.: G.0120.03
Start: 2003-01-01
End: 2006-12-31

Description:
This project concerns the study of quantum entanglement with a major focus an entanglement distillation protocols. We see three main reasons for studying entanglement distillation protocols. The first and most obvious reason is that entanglement distillation protocols are a means of obtaining states that are closer to maximally entangled pure states, as needed in typical applications like teleportation, from mixed states that can be reached by sending one qubit of an entangled pair through a realistic channel. A second reason to study distillation protocols is that asymptotic protocols yield a lower bound for "entanglement of distillation", an important measure of entanglement, that is in itself a lower bound for any sensible measure of entanglement. A third reason is that multi-copy entanglement protocols can be considered as applications of entanglement, where more can be done in the presence of entangled pairs than without. We hope that studying these mechanisms will reveal some information on the important problem of how exactly the presence of entanglement enables one to do things that are impossible without.
 

SMC people involved in the project:

• Jeroen Dehaene (Coordinator)
• Bart De Moor (Promoter)
• Maarten Van den Nest (Team member)
• Erik Hostens (Team member)