Beating detection loophole in nonlinear entanglement witnesses

Abstract

Detectors in the laboratory are often unlike their ideal theoretical cousins. They have non-ideal efficiencies, which may then lead to non-trivial implications. We show how it is possible to predict correct answers about whether a shared quantum state is entangled in spite of finite detector efficiencies, when the tool for entanglement detection is a nonlinear entanglement witness. We first consider the detection loophole for shared quantum states with nonpositive partial transpose. We subsequently find nonlinear witness operators for bound entangled states with positive partial transpose, and show how the detection loophole can be closed also in such instances.