Recovering quantum entanglement after its certification

Abstract

Entanglement is a crucial quantum resource with broad applications in quantum information science. For harnessing entanglement in practice, it is a prerequisite to certify the entanglement of a given quantum state. However, the certification process itself destroys the entanglement, thereby precluding further exploitation of the entanglement. Resolving this conflict, here we present a protocol that certifies the entanglement of a quantum state without complete destruction, and then, probabilistically recovers the original entanglement to provide useful entanglement for further quantum applications. We experimentally demonstrate this protocol in a photonic quantum system, and highlight its usefulness for selecting high-quality entanglement from a realistic entanglement source. Moreover, our study reveals various tradeoff relations among the physical quantities involved in the protocol. Our results show how entanglement certification can be made compatible with subsequent quantum applications, and more importantly, be beneficial to sort entanglement for better performance in quantum technologies.