Robustness of two-qubit and three-qubit states in correlated quantum channels.

We investigate how the correlated actions of quantum channels affect the robustness of entangled states. We consider the Bell-like state and random two-qubit pure states in the correlated depolarizing, bit flip, bit-phase flip, and phase flip channels. It is found that the robustness of two-qubit pure states can be noticeably enhanced due to the correlations between consecutive actions of these noisy channels, and the Bell-like state is always the most robust one. We also consider the robustness of three-qubit pure states in correlated noisy channels. For the correlated bit flip and phase flip channels, the result shows that although the most robust and most fragile states are locally unitary equivalent, they exhibit different robustness in different correlated channels, and the effect of channel correlations on them is also significantly different. However, for the correlated depolarizing and bit-phase flip channels, the robustness of two special three-qubit pure states is exactly the same. Moreover, compared with the random three-qubit pure states, they are neither the most robust states nor the most fragile states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]