The detection power of real entanglement witnesses under local unitary equivalence

TL;DR

This paper investigates the detection capabilities of real entanglement witnesses (REWs) compared to complex ones, providing conditions for their effectiveness and exploring their limitations in detecting various entangled states.

Contribution

It establishes necessary and sufficient conditions for REWs to detect entangled states, including PPT and NPT states, and examines their operational equivalence to complex EWs.

Findings

REWs detect exactly one entangled state of a real density matrix.

All NPT states are detectable by REWs.

Conditions are derived for PPT entangled states detection.

Abstract

The imaginary unit $i$ has recently been experimentally proven to be indispensable for quantum mechanics. We study the differences in detection power between real and complex entanglement witnesses (EWs) distinguished by whether their matrix expressions incorporate imaginary parts. We show that a real EW (REW), denoted by a real Hermitian matrix, must detect one entangled state of a real density matrix, and conversely an entangled state of a real density matrix must be detected by one REW. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for the entangled states detected by REWs, and give a specific example implying the detection limitations of REWs. From an operational perspective, we investigate whether all entangled states are detected by the EWs locally equivalent to some REWs. We prove the validity for all NPT (non-positive partial transpose) states. We also derive a necessary and sufficient condition of the validity for the PPT (positive partial transpose) entangled states of complex density matrices. By this condition we show the validity for a family of two-qutrit PPT entangled states of rank four. Another way to figure out the problem is to check whether a counterexample exists. We propose a method to examine the existence from a set-theoretic perspective, and provide some supporting evidence of non-existence. Finally, we derive some results on local projections of EWs with product projectors.