Schmidt numbers of low rank bipartite mixed states

Abstract

We prove a lower bound for Schmidt numbers of bipartite mixed states. This lower bound can be applied easily to low rank bipartite mixed states. From this lower bound it is known that generic low rank bipartite mixed states have relatively high Schmidt numbers and thus entangled. We can compute Schmidt numbers exactly for some mixed states by this lower bound as shown in Examples. This lower bound can also be used effectively to determine that some mixed states cannot be convertible to other mixed states by local operations and classical communication. The results in this paper are proved by ONLY using linear algebra, thus the results and proof are easy to understand.