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We study the detection of continuous-variable entanglement, for which most of the existing methods designed so far require a full specification of the devices, and we present protocols for entanglement detection in a scenario where the measurement devices are completely uncharacterised. We first generalise, to the continuous variable regime, the seminal results by Buscemi [PRL 108, 200401(2012)] and Branciard et al. [PRL 110, 060405 (2013)], showing that all entangled states can bedetected in this scenario. Most importantly, we then describe a practical protocol that allows for the measurement-device-independent certification of entanglement of all two-mode entangled Gaussian states. This protocol is feasible with current technology as it makes only use of standard optical setups such as coherent states and homodyne measurements., Accepted in PRL

Quantum networks will enable the implementation of communication tasks with qualitative advantages with respect to the communication networks known today. While it is expected that the first demonstrations of small scale quantum networks will take place in the near term, many challenges remain to scale them. To compare different solutions, optimize over parameter space, and inform experiments, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of concrete quantum network scenarios. Here, the authors review the state-of-the-art of tools for evaluating the performance of quantum networks. The authors present them from three different angles: information-theoretic benchmarks, analytical tools, and simulation., AVS Quantum Science, 3 (1), ISSN:2639-0213

Quantum networks will allow to implement communication tasks beyond the reach of their classical counterparts. A pressing and necessary issue for the design of quantum network protocols is the quantification of the rates at which these tasks can be performed. Here, we propose a simple recipe that yields efficiently computable lower and upper bounds on the maximum achievable rates. For this we make use of the max-flow min-cut theorem and its generalization to multi-commodity flows to obtain linear programs. We exemplify our recipe deriving the linear programs for bipartite settings, settings where multiple pairs of users obtain entanglement in parallel as well as multipartite settings, covering almost all known situations. We also make use of a generalization of the concept of paths between user pairs in a network to Steiner trees spanning a group of users wishing to establish Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states., Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures. Published version

A bipartite quantum interaction corresponds to the most general quantum interaction that can occur between two quantum systems in the presence of a bath. In this work, we determine bounds on the capacities of bipartite interactions for entanglement generation and secret-key agreement between two quantum systems. Our upper bound on the entanglement generation capacity of a bipartite quantum interaction is given by a quantity called the bidirectional max-Rains information. Our upper bound on the secret-key-agreement capacity of a bipartite quantum interaction is given by a related quantity called the bidirectional max-relative entropy of entanglement. We also derive tighter upper bounds on the capacities of bipartite interactions obeying certain symmetries. Observing that reading of a memory device is a particular kind of bipartite quantum interaction, we leverage our bounds from the bidirectional setting to deliver bounds on the capacity of a task that we introduce, called private reading of a wiretap memory cell. Given a set of point-to-point quantum wiretap channels, the goal of private reading is for an encoder to form codewords from these channels, in order to establish a secret key with a party who controls one input and one output of the channels, while a passive eavesdropper has access to one output of the channels. We derive both lower and upper bounds on the private reading capacities of a wiretap memory cell. We then extend these results to determine achievable rates for the generation of entanglement between two distant parties who have coherent access to a controlled point-to-point channel, which is a particular kind of bipartite interaction., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Bipartite quantum interactions have applications in a number of different areas of quantum physics, reaching from fundamental areas such as quantum thermodynamics and the theory of quantum measurements to other applications such as quantum computers, quantum key distribution, and other information processing protocols. A particular aspect of the study of bipartite interactions is concerned with the entanglement that can be created from such interactions. In this Letter, we present our work on two basic building blocks of bipartite quantum protocols, namely, the generation of maximally entangled states and secret key via bipartite quantum interactions. In particular, we provide a nontrivial, efficiently computable upper bound on the positive-partial-transpose-assisted quantum capacity of a bipartite quantum interaction. In addition, we provide an upper bound on the secret-key-agreement capacity of a bipartite quantum interaction assisted by local operations and classical communication. As an application, we introduce a cryptographic protocol for the readout of a digital memory device that is secure against a passive eavesdropper., Comment: see companion paper at arXiv:1712.00827

We provide a versatile upper bound on the number of maximally entangled qubits, or private bits, shared by two parties via a generic adaptive communication protocol over a quantum network when the use of classical communication is not restricted. Although our result follows the idea of Azuma et al. [Nat. Comm. 7, 13523 (2016)] of splitting the network into two parts, our approach relaxes their strong restriction, consisting of the use of a single entanglement measure in the quantification of the maximum amount of entanglement generated by the channels. In particular, in our bound the measure can be chosen on a channel-by-channel basis, in order to make it as tight as possible. This enables us to apply the relative entropy of entanglement, which often gives a state-of-the-art upper bound, on every Choi-simulable channel in the network, even when the other channels do not satisfy this property. We also develop tools to compute, or bound, the max-relative entropy of entanglement for channels that are invariant under phase rotations. In particular, we present an analytical formula for the max-relative entropy of entanglement of the qubit amplitude damping channel., Comment: 23 + 14 pages, 6 figures, close to published version

The ability to distribute entanglement over complex quantum networks is an important step towards a quantum internet. Recently, there has been significant theoretical effort, mainly focusing on the distribution of bipartite entanglement via a simple quantum network composed only of bipartite quantum channels. There are, however, a number of quantum information processing protocols based on multipartite rather than bipartite entanglement. Whereas multipartite entanglement can be distributed by means of a network of bipartite channels, a more natural way is to use a more general network, that is, a quantum broadcast network including quantum broadcast channels. In this work, we present a general frame- work for deriving upper bounds on the rates at which GHZ states or multipartite private states can be distributed among a number of different parties over an arbitrary quantum broadcast network. Our upper bounds are written in terms of the multipartite squashed entanglement, corresponding to a generalisation of recently derived bounds [K. Azuma et al., Nat. Commun. 7, 13523 (2016)]. We also discuss how lower bounds can be obtained by combining a generalisation of an aggregated quantum repeater protocol with graph theoretic concepts., Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, published version