Sufficient conditions placed on initial system-environment states for positive maps

Abstract

A system interacting with its environment will give rise to a quantum evolution. After tracing over the environment the net evolution of the system can be described by a linear Hermitian map. It has recently been shown that a necessary and sufficient condition for this evolution to be completely positive is for the initial state to have vanishing quantum discord. In this paper, we provide a sufficient condition for the map to be positive with respect to the initial system-environment correlation. This could lead to ways in which to identify positive but not completely positive maps. Illustrative examples and suggestive procedures are also provided.