Bargmann Invariants Are Insufficient for Complete Local-Unitary Orbit Discrimination

Abstract

Bargmann invariants constructed from a bipartite density operator and its two lifted marginals are polynomial invariants of local-unitary conjugation. We determine the precise information encoded in these invariants. Whenever one subsystem is a qubit, the ordinary marginal-word family determines the full spectrum of the partial transpose and hence decides whether the state has the positive-partial-transpose property. In $2\otimes2$ and $2\otimes3$ systems, this yields complete separability criteria. For the two-qubit system, a finite subfamily additionally separates local-unitary orbits, and a finite extension generates the polynomial invariant ring. These three tasks already diverge for qubit-qutrit states: we exhibit full-rank, locally maximally mixed states that agree on all ordinary marginal-word invariants yet have different operator-Schmidt ranks, together with a quartic correlation invariant that separates them. When both local dimensions are at least three, the analogous collapse on the locally maximally mixed sector produces isospectral pairs consisting of one separable state and one entangled state with negative partial transpose. The ordinary Bargmann algebra therefore coincides with the full local unitary invariant ring if and only if both subsystems are qubits. The missing data are geometric: they encode the placement of global eigenspaces relative to the tensor-product decomposition