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# The distillable entanglement of multiple copies of Bell states

## Abstract

It is impossible to discriminate four Bell states through local operations and classical communication (LOCC), if only one copy is provided. To complete this task, two copies will suffice and be necessary. When $`n`$ copies are provided, we show that the distillable entanglement is exactly $`n2`$.

The no-cloning theorem  asserts that it is impossible to discriminate non-orthogonal states with certainty. In general, orthogonal states may be distinguished perfectly only by means of global measurements since quantum information of orthogonality may be encoded in entanglement which may not be extracted by LOCC operations. If only LOCC operations are allowed, even product orthogonal states could not be discriminated exactly . However, Walgate et al.  demonstrated that any two orthogonal multipartite states could be discriminated with certainty by only LOCC operations. To discriminate multiple orthogonal states, more copies are required. They also showed that $`n`$ possible orthogonal states can be distinguished perfectly with $`n1`$ copies. It is an upper bound upon the number of copies required for local distinction of states. Further, they pointed out that there are sets of orthogonal states that can be distinguished using less than $`n1`$ copies. In the case of four Bell states, two copies will suffice. Recently, using the existing inequality among the measures of entanglement, Ghosh et al.  proved that any three Bell states cannot be discriminated by LOCC operations. From a different point of view, Walgate and Hardy  arrived at the same conclusion and discussed the sufficient and necessary conditions to discriminate $`2\times n`$ states. The question of local distinction of non-orthogonal states has also been investigated in recent papers . In , Ghosh et al. calculated the distillable entanglement  of the mixed state comprising of two of the Bell basis with equal a priori probability. In this note, we prove that if $`n`$ copies out of four Bell states are provided, the distillable entanglement is $`n2`$.

Denote the four Bell states as

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|00+|11),`$ (1)
$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|00|11),`$ (2)
$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|01+|10),`$ (3)
$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_4={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|01|10).`$ (4)
In , the distillable entanglement of the mixed state of the form

$$\rho =\frac{1}{2}(|\mathrm{\Phi }_i^2\mathrm{\Phi }_i|+\mathrm{\Phi }_j^2\mathrm{\Phi }_j|),$$
(5)
is shown to be one ebit, where $`ij`$.

In the following, we will consider the distillable entanglement of the mixed state comprising of four Bell states

$$\rho ^{(n)}=\frac{1}{4}\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}|\mathrm{\Phi }_i^n\mathrm{\Phi }_i|.$$
(6)
For $`n=1`$, it is explicit that $`\rho ^{(1)}`$ is separable, so $`E_d(\rho ^{(1)})=0`$.

For $`n=2`$, $`\rho ^{(2)}`$ is also separable , so $`E_d(\rho ^{(2)})=0`$. Though the proof of $`\rho ^{(2)}`$ is simple, it is of importance to calculate the relative entanglement  of the mixed state of the form Eq(3) for $`n=2m`$.

Recall that the relative entanglement of mixed state $`\rho `$ is defined as

$$E_r(\rho )=min_{\sigma 𝒟}S(\rho \sigma ),$$
(7)
where $`𝒟`$ is the set of separable states, $`S(\rho \sigma )=Tr\rho (\mathrm{log}\rho \mathrm{log}\sigma )`$ is the relative entropy. We will show that $`\rho ^{(2)m}`$ minimizes of $`S(\rho ^{(2m)}\sigma )`$ over $`\sigma 𝒟`$. Since $`\rho ^{(2)}`$ is separable, $`\rho ^{(2)m}`$ is also separable. By straight computation,

$`S(\rho ^{(2m)}\rho ^{(2)m})`$ $`=`$ $`Tr\rho ^{(2m)}(\mathrm{log}\rho ^{(2m)}\mathrm{log}\rho ^{(2)m}),`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}}Tr[|\mathrm{\Phi }_i^{2m}\mathrm{\Phi }_i|\mathrm{log}(2^{2m}{\displaystyle \underset{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{}k_m=1}{\overset{4}{}}}_{j=1}^m|\mathrm{\Phi }_{k_j}^2\mathrm{\Phi }_{k_j}|)],`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`2+2m\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}}\mathrm{\Phi }_i^{2m}|{\displaystyle \underset{k_1,k_2,\mathrm{}k_m=1}{\overset{4}{}}}_{j=1}^m|\mathrm{\Phi }_{k_j}^2\mathrm{\Phi }_{k_j}|)|\mathrm{\Phi }_i^{2m},`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`2m2.`$ (11)
So it is easy to know

$$E_r(\rho ^{(2m)})S(\rho ^{(2m)}\rho ^{(2)m})=2m2.$$
(12)
On the other hand, we know that the relative entanglement is an upper bound on the distillable entanglement, that is

$$E_d(\rho ^{(2m)})E_r(\rho ^{(2m)}).$$
(13)
Further, the distillable entanglement is the maximal number of arbitrarily pure singlets that can be prepared locally from mixed state by entanglement purification protocols, here by LOCC operations. So the entanglement distilled by any definite protocol is not larger than the distillable entanglement. In , it was showed that two copies suffice to distinguish the four Bell states. We employ the distinction process for distillation of entanglement and at least $`2m2`$ ebits could be obtained since only two copies are discarded. So we have the inequality

$$2m2E_d(\rho ^{(2m)}).$$
(14)
Now it is clear that for $`n=2m`$

$$E_d(\rho ^{(2m)})=E_r(\rho ^{(2m)})=2m2.$$
(15)
For $`n=2m+1`$, we have not found the optimal separable state $`\sigma `$ which minimizes $`S(\rho ^{(2m+1)}\sigma )`$ over $`\sigma 𝒟`$, so $`E_r(\rho ^{(2m+1)})`$ is unknown. However, we can argue that $`E_d=n2`$ is also true by the same reasoning,

$`S(\rho ^{(2m+1)2}\rho ^{(2)2m+1})=4m2,`$ (16)
$`E_r(\rho ^{(2m+1)}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}S(\rho ^{(2m+1)2}\rho ^{(2)2m+1}),`$ (17)
$`2m1E_d(\rho ^{(2m+1)})E_r(\rho ^{(2m+1)}).`$ (18)
So $`E_d(\rho ^{(n)})=n2`$ also holds when $`n`$ is odd.

Clearly, it is easy to see that $`\rho ^{(2)n}`$ realizes the minimization of $`S(\rho ^{(n)2}\sigma )`$ over $`\sigma 𝒟`$. As a byproduct, $`E_r(\rho ^{(n)2})=2n4`$. When $`n`$ is even, $`E_r(\rho ^{(2m)})=2E_r(\rho ^{(m)})`$ and the additivity of the relative entanglement holds. Since $`E_r(\rho ^{(2m+1)})`$ is unknown, we do not know whether $`E_r(\rho ^{(2m+1)2})`$ is strictly larger than $`2E_r(\rho ^{(2m+1)})`$. If that is the case, it is a counterexample  to the additivity conjecture for the relative entanglement. In addition, we can conclude from the above discussion that two copies are sufficient and necessary to discriminate the four Bell states by LOCC operations. If it is not true, more than $`n2`$ ebits could be distilled out of the mixed state $`\rho ^{(n)}`$ which contradicts our conclusion.

Notice that all permutations of the four Bell states could be realized by only local unitary operations. It is sufficient to show that any two of them could be interchanged locally while the other two remain unchanged. For example, under the local unitary transformation $`|0|0,|1e^{i\frac{\pi }{2}}|1`$, $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_1|\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ while $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_3`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_4`$ are unchanged ignoring the global phase. Similarly, the interchange between other states could be obtained locally. It is the particular property of Bell states. For the generalized Bell states in higher dimensionality, not all permutations of the bases could be transformed by only local unitary operations. Now we can further generalize our outcome to the mixed states of the form

$$\sigma ^{(n)}=\frac{1}{4}\underset{i_j=1}{\overset{4}{}}_{j=1}^n|\mathrm{\Phi }_{i_j}\mathrm{\Phi }_{i_j}|,$$
(19)
where there is only four terms in the sum and the corresponding states of the four terms form a permutation of the Bell bases. Through local unitary operations, $`\sigma ^{(n)}`$ could be transformed to $`\rho ^{(n)}`$. So the distillable entanglement of $`\sigma ^{(n)}`$ is also $`n2`$.

As well known, entanglement is responsible for many quantum tasks and pure entangled states are required in most cases. Unfortunately, entanglement is fragile and easy to be blurred by noise, so distillation of entanglement is of importance. Though many distillation protocols and upper bounds are known, distillable entanglement are known in few nontrivial cases. In this note, we have shown that when $`n`$ copies out of four possible Bell states are provided with equal a priori probability, the distillable entanglement is exactly $`n2`$.

D. Yang thanks S. J. Gu and H. W. Wang for helpful discussion. We also thank Aditi Sen(DE) and Ujjwal Sen for commenting on the paper. The work is supported by the NNSF of China, the Special NSF of Zhejiang Province (Grant No.RC98022) and Guang-Biao Cao Foundation in Zhejiang University.


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# Continuous Variable Quantum Cryptography - beating the 3 dB loss limit

## Abstract

We demonstrate that secure quantum key distribution systems based on continuous variables implementations can operate beyond the apparent 3 dB loss limit that is implied by the beam splitting attack . The loss limit was established for standard minimum uncertainty states such as coherent states. We show that by an appropriate postselection mechanism we can enter a region where Eve’s knowledge on Alice’s key falls behind the information shared between Alice and Bob even in the presence of substantial losses.

The distribution of random keys for cryptographic purposes can be made secure by using the fundamental properties of quantum systems such that any interception of the key information can be detected. This was first discussed for discrete systems  and experimental demonstrations have been carried out using optical sources, which produce low photon number states . More recently schemes based on continuous quantum variables have been proposed , where the scheme by Gottesman and Preskill  has been proven to be information-theoretically secure. Apart from being of fundamental interest these schemes offer certain practical advantages. However, they all share one major disadvantage: currently it is thought that the use of continuous variable techniques does not allow quantum key distribution (QKD) beyond 50 % loss . This severely limits the applicability of such schemes.

The argument leading to this limit is based on an optimal cloning approach for optical signals that corresponds to a beam splitting attack on the signals . At the loss limit an eavesdropper Eve can replace the lossy channel by a perfect one with an adapted beam splitter to mimic the losses. She can then generate a cloned signal with a fidelity which depends on the beam splitter transmission. In order to extract a secure key out of the material with the usual privacy amplification tools  and a free choice of the required error correction technique, including the efficient two-way schemes , however, the mutual information $`I_{AB}`$ between Alice and Bob has to exceed the information that either of them shares with Eve: $`I_{AB}>\mathrm{max}\{I_{AE},I_{EB}\}`$. This condition arises as follows: In order to perform privacy amplification  one needs to be able to estimate Eve’s information on the data shared by Alice and Bob after error correction. Two-way error correction provides additional information to Eve in two forms: redundant information to enable error correction, that are according to Shannon’s theorem at least $`1I_{AB}`$ bits, and information about the positions of bits where Alice’s and Bob’s data initially differ. In the worst case, the two-way error correction scheme leaks the complete information about these error positions to Eve, so that Eve’s information about Alice’s and Bob’s key now stands on the same footing and satisfies $`I_{(AB)E}^{}\mathrm{max}\{I_{AE},I_{EB}\}`$. In the protocol presented below, we actually find equality, as explained later. Taking this into account, the usual mechanism of one-way communication schemes applies, and we find for individual attacks via  the condition $`I_{AB}>\mathrm{max}\{I_{AE},I_{EB}\}`$.***Following discussions with P. Grangier, it should be pointed out that specific two-way error correction techniques might leak less information about error positions leading to less demanding conditions. Yet, for losses beyond $`50\%`$, one finds that the condition $`I_{AB}>I_{AE}`$ is violated so that the above standard methods cannot be used without advanced quantum technologies such as quantum memories and entanglement purification which are presently not available. Note that one may to restrict the information flow for error correction from Bob to Alice or vice versa. In this case the ”maximum” in the above case may safely replaced by the ”minimum” , but efficient protocols for one way error correction close to the Shannon limit for typical error rates around $`5\%`$ are still missing up to now.

In this paper we propose a novel scheme, which operates beyond the apparent 3 dB limit that is applied by the beam splitting attack. In certain situations it is still possible to create a secure key  although $`I_{AB}<I_{AE}`$ or even $`I_{AB}<I_{BE}`$. For classical correlations the procedure is known as advantage distillation ; upon closer investigation this turns out to be a form of postselection and requires two-way classical communication. Gottesman and Lo  used this technique to increase the tolerance against errors in the single-photon BB84 protocol. Postselection is a standard intrinsic procedure in conventional QKD with weak pulses: if no photon is detected by Bob, or when Alice and Bob did not measure in the same basis, the corresponding time slot is ignored and hence does not contribute to the raw data. Without this postselection the condition $`I_{AB}\mathrm{max}\{I_{AE},I_{EB}\}`$ could never be reached for any QKD protocol for losses beyond $`3`$ dB, because then Eve has access to better signals than Bob. However, postselection allows unconditionally secure key exchange in presence of large losses, limited basically only by the photo-detection process . The situation becomes more subtle for continuous variable schemes, since then always a non-vacuum signal reaches Bob and correlations appear between the data measured by Bob and that of an potential eavesdroppers via Alice’s state preparation. Thus the postselection has to be made more conscious, and here we show how to do this. The selection of favorable data for Alice and Bob has been previously addressed in the context of implementing the BB84 protocol with weak coherent pulses in the presence of a strong phase reference pulse . Our results demonstrate that continuous variables and weak coherent pulse schemes are closely linked in the basic principles.

We consider the following scheme, which is similar to those proposed by Cerf et al.  and Grosshans et al. . Alice sends an ensemble of coherent states to Bob with a Gaussian distribution of complex amplitudes centered on the vacuum. Bob measures either of two conjugate quadratures, say for example the in- and out-of phase quadratures $`X`$ and $`Y`$, using homodyne detection. The measurement results $`x`$ are then given as eigenvalues of quadrature operator $`\widehat{x}_\lambda =\frac{1}{2}(\widehat{a}e^{i\lambda }+\widehat{a}^{}e^{i\lambda })`$ with $`\lambda =0`$, or $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$. Bob will effectively see a Gaussian distribution of real amplitude coherent states when he looks at the quadrature $`X`$ and a Gaussian distribution of imaginary amplitude coherent states when he looks at the quadrature $`Y`$. Bob reveals which quadrature he measured in each time interval and estimates whether Alice prepared a coherent state with a positive or negative displacement in the corresponding quadrature. Alice and Bob can now interpret positive displacements as logical $`\mathrm{"}0\mathrm{"}`$ and negative ones as logical $`\mathrm{"}1\mathrm{"}`$.

For our analysis of the security of this scheme we extend this protocol and specify the used states by additional steps. After Bob’s publication of his choice of the quadrature, Alice will interpret the state she sent either as a member of the set $`\{|\alpha e^{i\theta },|\alpha e^{i\theta }\}`$, if Bob detected the quadrature $`X`$, or $`\{|i\alpha e^{i\theta },|i\alpha e^{i\theta }\}`$ ($`\alpha `$), if Bob measured the quadrature $`Y`$. She now publishes the values of $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$. In each case, from Bob’s and Eve’s perspective, this narrows down the number of possible signals to two, for example $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }`$ or $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }`$. Thus Alice and Bob can build up a secret key as before when now the encoding reads more specifically: $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }\mathrm{"}0\mathrm{"}`$, $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }\mathrm{"}1\mathrm{"}`$ for amplitude measurements and $`|i\alpha e^{i\theta }\mathrm{"}0\mathrm{"}`$, $`|i\alpha e^{i\theta }\mathrm{"}1\mathrm{"}`$ for phase measurements. Other choices of signal sets are possible, for example sets with point symmetry, but the choice above turns out to be favorable.

To investigate the secrecy of the key the distribution of Bob’s data conditioned on the choice of Alice can be accessed using classical communication. For this purpose Alice and Bob open up complete signal descriptions and measurement results for some randomly chosen transmission events. Thus the statistics of Bob’s detected results should mirror Alice’s coherent state preparation with expected Gaussian distributions centered according to the complex amplitude displacements.

Eve’s first strategy is thus passive intervention via the beamsplitter attack . Eve’s intervention is indistinguishable from loss. In the typical loss model Alice’s state is transformed as

$$|\alpha e^{i\theta }_B|0_E|\sqrt{\eta }\alpha e^{i\theta }_B|\sqrt{1\eta }\alpha e^{i\theta }_E$$
(1)
for arbitrary $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$, where $`\eta `$ is the transmission efficiency between Alice and Bob. Alice and Bob are none the wiser but Eve ends up with all the lost signal. It was shown , that provided the loss is less than 50% it is still possible for Alice and Bob to distill a secure key when faced with such an attack. We will now show that in fact 50 % loss is not an ultimate limit for secure QKD.

We wish to find a way by which Alice and Bob can postselect a subset of the data for which they have a high mutual information, but for which Eve and Alice do not. Alice and Bob can base their selection procedure on the parameter $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$ characterizing the state preparation and Bob’s measurement results $`x`$ or $`y`$. The overall mutual information of Alice and Bob can then be subdivided into different *effective information channels* characterized by the parameters $`(\alpha ,\theta ,x)`$, such that

$$I_{AB}^{tot}=_{\alpha ,\theta ,x}𝑑x𝑑\alpha 𝑑\theta p(\alpha ,\theta ,x)I_{AB}(\alpha ,\theta ,x).$$
(2)
Similarly the overall information Alice shares with Eve can be composed from all single events.

Note, that the separable nature of the state of Eq. (1) ensures that there is no correlation between Bob’s and Eve’s quantum uncertainties. Thus Eve’s mutual information with Alice does not depend on Bob’s detected outcome $`x`$. Furthermore, Eve shares with Bob always less information than with Alice, $`I_{BE}<I_{AE}`$, and it is sufficient to consider Alice and Eve’s information only. Altogether, this allows us to evaluate the knowledge of the different parties separately for all effective information channels and we can restrict our analysis to find suitable parameters $`(\alpha ,\theta ,x)`$ with $`I_{AB}(\alpha ,\theta ,x)>I_{AE}(\alpha ,\theta )`$. Since the beam splitting attack and protocol itself are symmetrical in respect to the considered conjugate quadratures, it is also sufficient to investigate only the case of a quadrature measurement $`X`$ by Bob.

To identify the good effective channels, we calculate the mutual information shared by Alice and Eve. Alice sends a priori pure states. However knowing nothing about Alice’s state preparation Eve would have to distinguish between two allowed mixed states characterized by positive or negative displacements in the respective quadrature. So far no general expression for the accessible information is known for non-orthogonal mixed states. For this reason we provide Eve with the additional information about $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$. As a trade-off Eve has to distinguish for each effective channel between two non-orthogonal *pure* states, in the case of $`X`$ quadrature measurements between $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }`$ and $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }`$. In this situation the maximum accessible information is known. It is given as a function of the overlap $`f`$ of the respective two states  in the form

$`I_{AE}(\alpha ,\theta )=`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+\sqrt{1f^2(\alpha ,\theta )})\mathrm{log}(1+\sqrt{1f^2(\alpha ,\theta )})+`$ (5)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1\sqrt{1f^2(\alpha ,\theta )})\mathrm{log}(1\sqrt{1f^2(\alpha ,\theta )}).`$
For an effective channel with parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$ the overlap can be calculated as

$$f(\alpha ,\theta )=\alpha \sqrt{1\eta }e^{i\theta }|\alpha \sqrt{1\eta }e^{i\theta }=e^{2(1\eta )E^2},$$
(6)
where we defined as $`E=\alpha \mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$. The protocol ensures that the overlap and thus the mutual information of Eve depends only on the effective amplitude $`E=\alpha \mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$. As we will see later, the parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\theta `$ enter the mutual information of Alice and Bob always in the same combination. This allows us to consider in the following the parameters $`(E,x)`$ only.

At this point we note that the states between which Eve has to distinguish and their a-priori probabilities do not change if we give Eve the additional information whether Alice’s and Bob’s decoded bit differs for a given signal. This kind of information is leaked in two-way error correction (see above). It is for this reason that we can assume equality in the bound $`I_{(AB)E}^{}\mathrm{max}\{I_{AE},I_{EB}\}`$ of Eve’s information $`I_{(AB)E}^{}`$ on Alice’s and Bob’s key given the knowledge of all error positions.

Next, we calculate the mutual information of Alice and Bob. According to the protocol Bob performs quadrature measurements and decodes the bit value as the sign of the detected displacement. Depending on the signal states $`|\pm \alpha e^{\pm i\theta }`$, his outcomes $`x`$ are distributed corresponding to one of the probability distributions

$$P(x||\pm \alpha e^{\pm i\theta })=|x_0|\pm \alpha e^{\pm i\theta }|^2=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}e^{2(x\sqrt{\eta }E))^2}$$
(7)
with $`|x_0`$ as the eigenstate of the quadrature operators with $`\lambda =0`$. This decoding leads to an error rate

$$p_e=\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\frac{P(x||\alpha e^{i\theta })}{P(||\alpha e^{i\theta })+P(x||\alpha e^{i\theta })}\text{for }x>0}{\frac{P(x||\alpha e^{i\theta })}{P(x||\alpha e^{i\theta })+P(x||\alpha e^{i\theta })}\text{for }x<0}$$
(8)
To illustrate Bob’s decoding we consider in Fig. 1 the case of $`50\%`$ loss and an effective amplitude of $`E=1`$. The left graph depicts the two possible distributions for Bob’s results $`x`$ corresponding to Alice’s states $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }`$ and $`|\alpha e^{i\theta }`$. For the intersection point at $`x=0`$, Bob’s measurement delivers no information, but for all other values of $`x`$, the distribution corresponding to Alice’s encoded bit value is more probable. In the right graphs we plotted the probability that Alice has encoded a ”0” or ”1”, if Bob actually obtained the value $`x`$. With the arranged bit assignment the smaller value of these graphs gives Bob’s error probability corresponding to Eq. (8). Alice’s and Bob’s mutual information can now be calculated separately for all effective information channels with ($`x,E`$) by the Shannon formula.

$`I_{AB}(x,E)=1+p_e\mathrm{log}_2p_e+(1p_e)\mathrm{log}_2(1p_e).`$ (9)
We are now in a position to identify those effective information channels with $`I_{AB}(x,E)>I_{AE}(x,E)`$, which allow to extract a secret key. Fig. 2 displays the differences of the respective information plotted for the events $`(E,x)`$ again in the case of $`50\%`$ loss. Positive valued areas, indicating region of possible secure key exchange, are colored bright, negative ones in dark. Thus our investigation allows us to model an ideal postselection procedure, where all events $`(x,E)`$ with $`I_{AB}>\mathrm{max}\{I_{AE},I_{EB}\}`$ actually contribute to the key.

The comparison of Fig. 2 between the mutual information of Alice and Bob and the information they share with Eve dplays an insight, that was first recognized in . Alice and Bob can actually utilize statistical measurement results with large $`x`$ to increase their security, but Eve, on the other hand, cannot improve her error rate for Bob’s selected data. This is, because her state is uncorrelated to Bob’s results $`x`$. Furthermore there exist for each transmission $`\eta `$ an optimum effective displacements $`E`$ , such that the mutual information between Alice and Bob is maximized.

We can evaluate the key rates $`R_k`$, that can be achieved in the presented postselection process as

$`R_k=R_r\times {\displaystyle _S}𝑑x𝑑Ep(x,E)[I_{AB}(x,E)I_{AE}(x,E)],`$ (10)
where $`R_r`$ is the raw data rate, and $`S`$ denotes the subset of selected effective channels. For the presented protocol the probability $`p(x,E)`$ that the effective channel is used is composed of Gaussian distribution of the effective amplitude $`E`$ and the distribution of $`x`$ conditioned on $`E`$. With a distribution width $`d`$ for the effective amplitudes we find

$`p(x,E)=`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{d\pi }}}e^{2E^2/d}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(P(x||\alpha e^{i\theta })+P(x||\alpha e^{i\theta }))`$ (12)
with $`P(x||\pm \alpha e^{i\theta })`$ given in Eq. (7).

First numerical calculations, where we limited our integration over the data set within $`\pm 4`$, indicate that in the presence of $`50\%`$ loss and for an optimized parameter of $`d=2.1`$, bit rates up to $`R_k=R_r\times 0.0667`$ are achievable. For a loss rate of $`75\%`$, we have found a key rate of $`R_k=R_r\times 0.0073`$. These calculations show that the high repetition rates of continuous variable technology, which is expected to be in the GHz region, can actually lead to secure key rates that are well above currently implemented schemes.

We have shown that continuous variable QKD using coherent states in the presence of losses above 50% can still be implemented securely against an eavesdropper using an individual beam splitter attack. The postselection process solely relies on classical data processing and thus does not require sophisticated quantum resources other than coherent states. An absolute proof of security would require the analysis of a more general attack by Eve. However, it is likely that the beam splitting attack is the optimal attack even in this protocol utilizing postselection. The existence of optimum effective displacements for the mutual information between Alice and Bob opens the possibility construct more elaborated protocols with modified probability distributions for Alice’s state preparation to achieve higher the bit rates. However, in all such protocols one has to be cautious to ensure that the beam splitting attack remains the best eavesdropping strategy.

Our result pushes continuous variable QKD closer to practical applications. In addition we have also shown that the type of postselection protocol considered here can also be employed for schemes using squeezed light, such as in

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and by the EU grant under QIPC, project IST-1999-13071 (QUICOV); TCR acknowledges the support of the Australian Research Council. The authors would also like to thank N. Korolkova for fruitfull discussions and H. Coldenstrodt-Ronge for help in the preparation of the manuscript.


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# Stripe phases in the two-dimensional Falicov-Kimball model

\[

## Abstract

The observation of charge stripe order in the doped nickelate and cuprate materials has motivated much theoretical effort to understand the underlying mechanism of the stripe phase. Numerical studies of the Hubbard model show two possibilities: (i) stripe order arises from a tendency toward phase separation and its competition with the long-range Coulomb interaction or (ii) stripe order inherently arises as a compromise between itinerancy and magnetic interactions. Here we determine the restricted phase diagrams of the two-dimensional Falicov-Kimball model and see that it displays rich behavior illustrating both possibilities in different regions of the phase diagram.

\]

The discovery of charge stripes in the nickelate  and cuprate  materials has encouraged much theoretical work to explain the underlying physical principles behind the stripe order and to examine whether the stripes are related to the mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity. There are two schools of thought for the physics that drives stripe formation: (i) Kivelson, Emery, and coworkers  propose that strongly correlated systems have a natural tendency toward phase separation and the inhomogeneous spatial charge ordering arises from a competition between this tendency to phase separate and the long-range Coulomb interaction which does not allow the electron density to stray too far from its average; and (ii) Scalapino and White  propose that the stripe order arises from a competition between kinetic and exchange energies in a doped antiferromagnet which does not require long-range Coulomb forces to stabilize the stripes. Despite a large amount of numerical work ranging from high-temperature expansions , to Monte Carlo simulations , to exact diagonalization , as well as semiclassical Hartree-Fock theory , no consensus has been reached about the region of stability for the phase separated states or the mechanism for stripe formation.

Here we take an alternate point of view. Rather than try to prove phase separation in the Hubbard or $`tJ`$ models, we choose an even simpler model—the spinless Falicov-Kimball model , which can be analyzed exactly. The relation of the Falicov-Kimball model to the Hubbard model is analogous to the relation between the Ising and the Heisenberg models of magnetism (the Falicov-Kimball model can be viewed as a Hubbard model where the down-spin electrons are frozen and do not hop). The Hamiltonian is

$$H=t\underset{x,y}{}c_x^{}c_y+U\underset{x}{}c_x^{}c_xw_x,$$
(1)
with $`c_x^{}`$ ($`c_x`$) the creation (annihilation) operator for a spinless electron at site $`x`$ and $`w_x`$ is a classical variable that denotes the presence (absence) of an ion at site $`x`$ when it is equal to 1 (0), respectively. The hopping occurs between nearest-neigbors on a square lattice and the interaction strength is denoted by $`U`$. For any given configuration of ions $`\{w_x\}`$ the ground state for $`N_e`$ electrons is determined by diagonalizing a one-body operator given by the above Hamiltonian, and filling in the lowest $`N_e`$ states. We typically are interested in the ground-state configuration of the ions for a given number of electrons $`N_e=_xc_x^{}c_x`$ and a given number of ions $`N_i=_xw_x`$ (or their densities $`\rho _e=N_e/N`$ and $`\rho _i=N_i/N`$ respectively).

The possibility of phase separation when $`U\mathrm{}`$ was proposed in 1990  and is called the segregation principle. It was proved in the one-dimensional case , in the infinite-dimensional case , and recently in the general case . This phase separation is a special type of phase separation, often referred to as the segregated phase, where the electrons and ions avoid each other, and reside in separate domains. It is the analog of the ferromagnetic state in the Hubbard model. At half filling for the electrons and the ions, the ground state is known to be the chessboard phase . This state is the analog of the antiferromagnetic state in the Hubbard model.

The question we pose is, if we fix the number of electrons to equal the number of ions, then what are the stable phases as a function of the number of electrons. This problem is the analog of doping the $`S_z=0`$ phase of the Hubbard model away from half filling. Since we know the system phase separates as $`\rho _e0`$ and is in the chessboard phase for $`\rho _e1/2`$, we have the interesting situation of determining how the transition is made from the segregated phase to the chessboard phase, which are two phases that are about as different from each other as possible.

It is well known that the ground-state phase diagram of the Falicov-Kimball model typically includes a large number of different phases as functions of the particle concentrations and the interaction strength. As such, it seems unlikely that one can rigorously analyze ground-state phases in the general case, although a number of interesting results exist for special cases  (usually for large $`U`$). Instead, we work with the restricted phase diagram technique, where we consider all possible periodic phases for which the number of sites per unit cell $`N_0`$ is less than or equal to $`N_c=16`$. The technique first identifies all nonequivalent periodic phases, which number 23 755 in our case. Then for each periodic phase in our trial set, we calculate the total energy at a given value of $`U`$. Since, unlike the 1D case (see ), there are no exact formulae known for the density of states of general periodic phases in 2D, we have performed a numerical solution of the corresponding eigenvalue problem to determine the bandstructure (see Ref.  for the details). This involves finding the eigenvalues of an $`N_0dimensional`$ matrix for each value of $`k`$ in a two-dimensional grid covering the Brillouin zone. Our calculations were performed with a $`kspace`$ grid of 110$`\times `$110 points for each phase. Then the grand canonical phase diagram is constructed as a function of the electron and ion chemical potentials, and finally the grand-canonical phase diagram is translated to the canonical phase diagram for arbitrary $`\rho _i`$ and $`\rho _e`$. This procedure assures thermodynamical stability of all phases (both periodic and their mixtures) present in the resulting canonical phase diagram. The stability problem is discussed extensively in Ref. , where the canonical phase diagrams of the 1D Falicov-Kimball model were studied. Finally, we make the restriction $`\rho _i=\rho _e`$ in the canonical phase diagram to analyze the problem at hand.

The ground-state phase diagram is quite complex. We find many different stable phases occur, which can be classified into a number of different categories: (i) the empty lattice ($`\rho _i=0`$ and $`\rho _e0`$) denoted E; (ii) the full lattice ($`\rho _i=1`$ and $`\rho _e=0`$) denoted F; (iii) the chessboard phase ($`\rho _i=\rho _e=1/2`$ and ions occupy the A sublattice only) denoted Ch; (iv) diagonal neutral ($`\rho _i=1\rho _e`$) stripe phases (the ions are arranged as diagonal chessboard phases separated by fully occupied striped regions with a slope of one, or equivalently, Ch phases separated by diagonal antiphase boundaries) denoted DNS; (v) diagonal non-neutral ($`\rho _i1\rho _e`$) stripe phases (the ions are arranged as diagonal chessboard phases but separated by empty striped regions with a slope of one) denoted DS; (vi) axial non-neutral stripes ($`\rho _i1\rho _e`$ and ions arranged in stripes parallel to the y-axis and translationally invariant along the axis) denoted AS; (vii) axial non-neutral chessboard stripes ($`\rho _i1\rho _e`$ and ions arranged in stripes of the chessboard phase oriented parallel to the y-axis) denoted AChS; (viii) other neutral phases ($`\rho _i=1\rho _e`$ but the arrangement is not in any simple stripe-like phase) denoted N; (ix) non-neutral four-molecule phases (where $`\rho _i1\rho _e`$ and empty sites are arranged out of “bound” four-molecule squares) denoted 4M; and (x) truly two-dimensional non-neutral arrangements of ions (where $`\rho _i1\rho _e`$ and the ions are arranged in a fashion that is not stripe-like, but rather requires a two-dimensional unit cell to describe it) denoted 2D. Generically, the phase diagram includes mixtures of two or three of the periodic phases (iii-x), or of one or two periodic phases and the empty lattice (i). The empty lattice is usually needed in the phase mixtures to ensure that the average electron and ion fillings are equal for the mixtures. For occasional values of the filling, we do find single periodic phases to be stable, but this feature is rare. When the filling is sufficiently far from half filling, the system is in the segregated phase, which is a mixture of the empty lattice ($`\rho _i=0`$, $`\rho _e0`$) and of the full lattice ($`\rho _i=1`$, $`\rho _e=0`$).

The number of phases stable or appearing in mixtures tends to grow as $`U`$ is decreased in magnitude. For $`U=8`$ there are 25 phases: E (1); F(1); Ch (1); DNS (6); and N (16). For $`U=6`$ there are 30 phases: E (1); F (1); Ch (1); AS (20); N (6); and 2D (1). For $`U=4`$ there are 42 phases: E (1); F (1); Ch (1); AS (35); N (1); and 2D (3). For $`U=2`$ there are 38 phases: E (1); F (1); Ch (1); AS (14); DNS (4); 4M (2); and 2D (15). For $`U=1`$ there are 50 phases: E (1); F (1); Ch (1); DS (1); AS (9); AChS (6); 4M (3); and 2D (28).

The empty lattice, the full lattice and the chessboard phase are present in the phase diagram for all $`U`$; the diagonal neutral stripes generally for large $`U`$ ($`U>7`$) (occasionally they can appear for moderate $`U`$ as well—as occurs for $`U=2`$); the axial stripes for moderate and small $`U`$ ($`U<7`$); the axial chessboard stripes for small $`U`$ $`(U<3`$); the other neutral phases for large $`U`$ ($`U>4`$); the four-molecule phases for small $`U`$ ($`U<3`$); and the two-dimensional phases for moderate and small $`U`$ ($`U<7`$) (growing significantly in number as $`U`$ decreases). The total number of phases appearing in the phase diagram are too large to illustrate here. Instead, we choose a number of illustrative examples of each of the different types.

The empty lattice (E) corresponds to a lattice with no ions and the full lattice (F) corresponds to a lattice fully occupied by ions. The chessboard phase (Ch) corresponds to the case where ions (large dots) occupy the A sublattice and empty sites (small dots) occupy the B sublattice as shown in Fig. 1(a). A diagonal neutral stripe phase (DNS) is shown in Fig. 1(b). It is typical of the phases we see with regions of chessboard phase separated by antiphase boundaries. This configuration has $`\rho _i=5/9`$ and $`\rho _e=4/9`$ and every ninth diagonal is an antiphase boundary. An example of a nonneutral diagonal stripe phase (DS) which has $`\rho _i=7/15`$ and $`\rho _e=7/15`$ is shown in Fig. 1(c). Like the neutral stripes, these have antiferromagnetic regions but they are separated by diagonal empty (and not full ) lattice stripes; the empty lattice stripes are width two now. An axial stripe phase (AS) is shown in Fig. 1(d). It is typical of these phases with fully occupied (ferromagentic) stripes separated by the empty lattice. This configuration has $`\rho _i=2/3`$ and $`0.189<\rho _e<0.283`$; other stable phases have wider bands of occupied stripes, which are always separated by an empty lattice stripe of width one. An example of an axial chessboard stripe phase (AChS) is shown in Fig. 1(e). These phases consist of regions of the chessboard phase separated by width one empty lattice stripes. The width of the chessboard phase ranges all the way down to two. This particular phase has $`\rho _i=3/7`$ and $`\rho _e=3/7`$. An example of an other neutral phase (N) is depicted in Fig. 1(f). These phases can be viewed as striped phases, alternating occupied (ferromagnetic) and empty lattice stripes, with the stripes having slope different from 0, 1, or $`\mathrm{}`$. In this example, $`\rho _i=7/9`$ and $`\rho _e=2/9`$; the slope of the empty lattice stripe is 1/2. A four-molecule phase (4M) is shown in Fig. 1(g). These phases are two-dimensional tilings of four-molecule empty-site squares inside an occupied “latticework”. This phase has $`\rho _i=11/15`$ and $`\rho _e=1/15`$. The truly two-dimensional phases (2D) are more difficult to classify—some, like in Fig. 1(h), have no stripe-like character at all ($`\rho _i=4/9`$ and $`\rho _e=4/9`$), others can be described with a stripe-like picture such as in Fig. 1(i) ($`\rho _i=1/6`$ and $`0.32<\rho _e<0.34`$) which can be viewed either as slope 2/3 ferromagnetic stripes in an empty lattice, or as antiferromagnetic axial stripes, etc.; in the end we classify these phases as two-dimensional. The summary of all of the stable phases will appear in a longer publication.

The phase diagram is shown in Fig. 2 and its simplified, schematic version, in Fig. 3. The phase boundary between the segregated phase and mixtures with periodic phases, approaches half filling as $`U`$ gets large, as expected. When $`U=8`$, we find the mixtures, when doped just away from half filling, occur between the chessboard phase, the empty lattice and diagonal neutral stripe phases. This picture is similar to those that propose the phase separation scenario, but there is no requirement of the long-range Coulomb interaction to generate the stripes—they also occur as part of the periodic phases that compose the different stable mixtures. As the system is doped further away from half filling, mixtures with other neutral phases occur, before the system fully phase separates.

As $`U`$ is reduced, the phase diagram becomes more complicated. Near half filling, the chessboard phase is always one of the phases in the stable mixtures, but we find the empty lattice and diagonal neutral phases disappear and are replaced by other neutral or 2D phases in the mixtures. Then as $`U`$ is reduced further, the diagonal neutral stripe phases occasionally re-enter into the mix, replacing the N or 2D phases, as can be seen for $`U=2`$. Finally, for smaller $`U`$, the mixtures are between the diagonal non-neutral stripes and the chessboard phase only. Farther away from half filling, the behavior is even more complex, with axial non-neutral stripes first entering near the segregation boundary, and then the 4M phases appearing as $`U`$ is reduced further. The axial neutral chessboard phases also appear for small $`U`$. It is in this moderate-to-small $`U`$ region where we see many stripe phases form due to a delicate balance between kinetic-energy and potential-energy effects. This is the alternate scenario for stripe formation, that does not require phase separation or the long-range Coulomb interaction.

In summary, we have calculated the restricted phase diagram of the two-dimensional Falicov-Kimball model. We constrained the system to have the same number of localized and itinerant particles, which is the analog of the $`S_z=0`$ state of the Hubbard model. We find that, in addition to the phase separation of the segregated phase, the system generically forms a number of different stripe phases. For large $`U`$, we find the stripes to be diagonal stripes and appearing only close to half filling. As $`U`$ is reduced, we find diagonal stripes changing into axial chessboard stripes and then axial stripes as the system is doped further away from half filling. In addition, we find a number of truly two-dimensional phases present as well. While we cannot say anything about what happens in the Hubbard model itself, our results suggest that one should expect a complex phase diagram when stripe phases are present and see a competition between the stability of the stripes and other, more two-dimensional, structures. Of course, we can only speculate on the behavior of the Hubbard model, but this exact solution of the Falicov-Kimball model shows that stripe formation is generically a complicated occurrence, that can have a number of competing states close in energy. We do expect, however, that the phase diagram simplifies for the Hubbard model, since the system can quantum-mechanically fluctuate between different low-energy “ionic” configurations.

Acknowledgements: R.L. and G.B. acknowledge support from the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN) under Grant No. 2P03B 131 19 and J.K.F. acknowledges support from the NSF under grant No. DMR-9973225. We also acknowledge support from Georgetown University for a travel grant in the fall of 2001.