Local Distinguishability and Schmidt Number of Orthogonal States

Abstract

Now, the known ensembles of orthogonal states which are distinguishable by local operators and classical communication (LOCC) satisfy the condition that the sum of Schmidit numbers of the orthogonal states is not bigger than the dimensions of the whole space. A natural question is whether an arbitary ensembles of LOCC-distinguishable orthogonal states satisfies the condition. We first show that, in this paper, the answer is positive. Then we generalize it into multipartite systems, and show that a necessary condition for LOCC-distinguishability of multipartite orthogonal quantum states is that the sum of the least numbers of the product states (For bipartite system, the least number of product states is Schmidit number) of the orthogonal states is not bigger than the dimensions of the Hilbert space of the multipartite system. This necessary condition is very simple and general, and one can get many cases of indistinguishability by it. It means that the least number of the product states acts an important role in distinguishablity of states, and implies that the least number of the product states may be an good manifestion of quantum nonlocality in some sense. In fact, entanglement emphases the "amount" of nonlocality, but the least number of the product states emphases the types of nonlocality. For example, the known W states and GHZ states have different least number of the product states, and are different in type.