Complementarity, distillable secret key, and distillable entanglement

Abstract

We consider controllability of two conjugate observables Z and X by two parties with classical communication. The ability is specified by two alternative tasks, (i) agreement on Z and (ii) preparation of an eigenstate of X with use of an extra communication channel. We prove that their feasibility is equivalent to that of key distillation if the extra channel is quantum, and to that of entanglement distillation if it is classical. This clarifies the distinction between two entanglement measures, distillable key and distillable entanglement.