Necessary and sufficient condition for saturating the upper bound of quantum discord

Abstract

We revisit the upper bound of quantum discord given by the von Neumann entropy of the measured subsystem. Using the Koashi-Winter relation, we obtain a trade-off between the amount of classical correlation and quantum discord in the tripartite pure states. The difference between the quantum discord and its upper bound is interpreted as a measure on the classical correlative capacity. Further, we give the explicit characterization of the quantum states saturating the upper bound of quantum discord, through the equality condition for the Araki-Lieb inequality. We also demonstrate that the saturating of the upper bound of quantum discord precludes any further correlation between the measured subsystem and the environment.