Keyring models: an approach to steerability

Abstract

If a measurement is made on one half of a bipartite system, then, conditioned on the outcome, the other half has a new reduced state. If these reduced states defy classical explanation -- that is, if shared randomness cannot produce these reduced states for all possible measurements -- the bipartite state is said to be steerable. Determining which states are steerable is a challenging problem even for low dimensions. In the case of two-qubit systems a criterion is known for T-states (that is, those with maximally mixed marginals) under projective measurements. In the current work we introduce the concept of keyring models -- a special class of local hidden state models. When the measurements made correspond to real projectors, these allow us to study steerability beyond T-states. Using keyring models, we completely solve the steering problem for real projective measurements when the state arises from mixing a pure two-qubit state with uniform noise. We also give a partial solution in the case when the uniform noise is replaced by independent depolarizing channels.