Separability for Positive Operators on Tensor Product of Hilbert Spaces

The separability and the entanglement (that is, inseparability) of the composite quantum states play important roles in quantum information theory. Mathematically, a quantum state is a trace-class positive operator with trace one acting on a complex separable Hilbert space. In this paper, in more general frame, the notion of separability for quantum states is generalized to bounded positive operators acting on tensor product of Hilbert spaces. However, not like the quantum state case, there are different kinds of separability for positive operators with different operator topologies. Four types of such separability are discussed; several criteria such as the finite rank entanglement witness criterion, the positive elementary operator criterion and PPT criterion to detect the separability of the positive operators are established; some methods to construct separable positive operators by operator matrices are provided. These may also make us to understand the separability and entanglement of quantum states better, and may be applied to find new separable quantum states.