Unextendible entangled bases and more nonlocality with less entanglement

Abstract

We consider a general version of the phenomenon of more nonlocality with less entanglement, within the framework of the unambiguous (i.e., conclusive) quantum state discrimination problem under local quantum operations and classical communication. We show that although the phenomenon was obtained before for two qutrits, it can also be observed for two qubits, while still being at the single-copy level. We establish that the phenomenon is intrinsically connected to the concept of unextendible entangled bases, in the two-qubit case. In the process, we demonstrate a hierarchy of nonlocality among sets of two-qubit orthogonal pure states, where the "nonlocality" is in the sense of a difference between global and local abilities of quantum state discrimination. We present a complete characterization of two-qubit pure orthogonal state sets of cardinality three with respect to their nonlocality in terms of unambiguous local distinguishability, the status for other cardinalities being already known. The results are potentially useful for secure quantum communication technologies with an optimal amount of resources.