A paradox regarding monogamy of entanglement

Abstract

In density matrix theory, entanglement is monogamous. However, we show that qubits can be arbitrarily entangled in a different, recently constructed model of qubit entanglement [arXiv:1907.11805]. We illustrate the differences between these two models, analyse how the density matrix property of monogamy of entanglement originates in assumptions of classical correlations in the construction of that model, and explain the counterexample to monogamy in the alternative model. We conclude that monogamy of entanglement is a theoretical assumption, not necessarily a physical property, and discuss how contemporary theory relies on that assumption. The properties of entanglement entropy are very different in the two models; a priori, the entropy in the alternative model is classical.