Binary Correlation Measurements

Abstract

We search a simplest and minimal way to determine whether a given quantum system is entangled or separable. For this end, we propose binary correlation measurements in which restricted knowledge of only zero or non-zero correlations is available. We consider the concrete investigation on a pure state for two particles, each particle having two basis states (the 2x2 system). We show that, even with this limited information from the binary correlation measurements, we can still reach the known minimum of three measurements for entanglement detection. We next consider the comparable problem applied to the mixed density matrix. The mixed quantum case appears to require more detailed information, which we illustrate by studying the concrete example of the Werner density matrix.