Absolutely $k$-Incoherent Quantum States and Spectral Inequalities for Factor Width of a Matrix

Abstract

We investigate the set of quantum states that can be shown to be $k$-incoherent based only on their eigenvalues (equivalently, we explore which Hermitian matrices can be shown to have small factor width based only on their eigenvalues). In analogy with the absolute separability problem in quantum resource theory, we call these states "absolutely $k$-incoherent", and we derive several necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in this set. We obtain many of our results by making use of recent results concerning hyperbolicity cones associated with elementary symmetric polynomials.