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# Short-Distance Correlation Properties of the Lieb-Liniger System and Momentum Distributions of Trapped One-Dimensional Atomic Gases

## Abstract

We derive exact closed-form expressions for the first few terms of the short-distance Taylor expansion of the one-body correlation function of the Lieb-Liniger gas. As an intermediate result we obtain the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the momentum distribution of both free and harmonically trapped atoms and show that it obeys a universal $`1/p^4`$ law for all values of the interaction strength. We discuss the ways to observe the predicted momentum distributions experimentally, regarding them as a sensitive identifier for the Tonks-Girardeau regime of strong correlations.

Introduction. Even though the correlation functions for the Lieb-Liniger gas of $`\delta `$-interacting one-dimensional bosons  have been an object of intense research in the Integrable Systems community since the late 70s , the full closed-form expressions are known only in the Tonks-Girardeau limit of infinitely strong interactions . While the scaling properties of the long-range  asymptotics of the correlation functions can be derived from Haldane’s theory of quantum liquids , Conformal Field Theory , and Quantum Inverse Scattering method , virtually nothing is known about short-range one-body correlations at finite coupling strength . One of the goals of this paper is to extend the existing knowledge in this direction.

It is known that while for weak interactions the Lieb-Liniger system is well-described by the mean-field theory, the opposite, Tonks-Girardeau regime of infinitely strong interactions  constitutes a strongly correlated system dual to a free Fermi gas. In experiments with one-dimensional atomic gases  the one-body momentum distribution of the gas, along with the density profiles  and phase fluctuations , can readily help to distinguish between the two quantum regimes. In the Tonks-Girardeau limit, the momentum distribution for both free and harmonically confined gases was investigated by several authors . In this paper, we address the question of the momentum distribution in the intermediate, in between mean-field and Tonks-Girardeau, regime, as more realistic from the experimental point of view.

System of interest. Consider a one-dimensional gas of $`N`$ $`\delta `$-interacting bosons confined in a length $`L`$ box with periodic boundary conditions. The Hamiltonian of the system reads

$`\widehat{H}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{z_j^2}}+g_{1\mathrm{D}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=i+1}{\overset{N}{}}}\delta \left(z_iz_j\right)`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{L/2}^{+L/2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}_z\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}_z\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{1\mathrm{D}}}{2}}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }},`$ (2)
where $`m`$ is the atomic mass, and $`g_{1\mathrm{D}}`$ is the one-dimensional coupling constant, whose expression for real atomic traps is given in . This Hamiltonian can be diagonalized via Bethe ansatz . At zero temperature, the energy of the system is given through

$`E/N={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}n^2e(\gamma ),`$ (3)
where the dimensionless parameter $`\gamma =2/n|a_{1\mathrm{D}}|`$ is inversely proportional to the one-dimensional gas parameter $`n\left|a_{1\mathrm{D}}\right|`$, $`n`$ is the one-dimensional number density of particles, $`a_{1\mathrm{D}}=2\mathrm{}^2/mg_{1\mathrm{D}}`$ is the one-dimensional scattering length introduced in , and the function $`e(\gamma )`$ is given by the solution of Lieb-Liniger system of equations : it is tabulated in . Note the asymptotic behavior of $`e(\gamma )`$ (first computed in ):

$`e(\gamma )\stackrel{\gamma 0}{}\gamma ;e(\gamma )\stackrel{\gamma \mathrm{}}{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\pi ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{\gamma +2}}\right)^2,`$ (4)
where $`\gamma 0`$ corresponds to the mean-field or Thomas-Fermi regime, whereas $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$ corresponds to the Tonks-Girardeau regime.

High-$`p`$ momentum distribution. Our first object of interest is the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the one-body momentum distribution in the ground state. To evaluate it, we need two mathematical facts, (a) and (b):

(a) The presence of the delta-function interactions in the Hamiltonian (1) implies that its eighenfunctions undergo, at the point of contact of any two particles $`i`$ and $`j`$, a kink in the derivative proportional to the value of the eigenfunction at this point :

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(z_1,\mathrm{},z_i,\mathrm{},z_j,\mathrm{},z_N)`$ (5)
$`=\mathrm{\Psi }(z_1,\mathrm{},Z_{ji},\mathrm{},Z_{ji},\mathrm{},z_N)`$ (6)
$`\times \left\{1|z_{ji}|/a_{1\mathrm{D}}+\epsilon (|z_{ji}|;\{𝒵_{ji}\})\right\}`$ (7)
$`\epsilon (|z_{ji}|;\{𝒵_{ji}\})=𝒪(|z_{ji}|^2),`$ (8)
where $`Z_{ji}=(z_i+z_j)/2`$ and $`z_{ji}=z_jz_i`$ are the center-of-mass and relative coordinates of the $`ij`$ pair of particles, respectively, and $`\{𝒵_{ji}\}=\{Z_{ji},z_1,\mathrm{},z_{i1},z_{i+1},\mathrm{},z_{j1},z_{j+1},\mathrm{},z_N\}`$ denotes a set consisting of the center-of-mass coordinate of the $`i`$-th and $`j`$-th particles and the coordinates of all the other particles.

(b) Imagine that a periodic function $`f(z)`$, defined on the interval $`[L/2,+L/2]`$, has a singularity of the form $`f(z)=|zz_0|^\alpha F(z)`$, where $`F(z)`$ is a regular function, $`\alpha >1`$ and $`\alpha 0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}\mathrm{}`$. Then the leading term in the asymptotics of the Fourier transform of $`f`$ reads

$`{\displaystyle _{L/2}^{+L/2}}𝑑ze^{ikz}f(z)`$ (9)
$`\stackrel{|k|\mathrm{}}{=}2\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}(\alpha +1))\mathrm{\Gamma }(\alpha +1)e^{ikz_0}F(z_0){\displaystyle \frac{1}{|k|^{\alpha +1}}}`$ (10)
$`+𝒪({\displaystyle \frac{1}{|k|^{\alpha +2}}}),`$ (11)
where $`k=(2\pi /L)s`$ and $`s`$ is an integer. For multiple singular points of the same order, the full asymptotics is the sum of the corresponding partial asymptotics of the form (10).

Let us evaluate, using (6) and (10), the momentum representation of the ground state wavefunction of the Hamiltonian (1) with respect to the first particle:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(p_1,z_2,\mathrm{},z_N)`$ (12)
$`=L^{\frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{L/2}^{+L/2}}𝑑z_1e^{p_1z_1/\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Psi }(z_1,z_2,\mathrm{},z_N)`$ (13)
$`\stackrel{i:\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}2}iN}{=}L^{\frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{L/2}^{+L/2}}𝑑z_1e^{ip_1z_1/\mathrm{}}`$ (14)
$`\times \mathrm{\Psi }(z_1=Z_{1i},\mathrm{},z_i=Z_{1i},\mathrm{},z_N)`$ (15)
$`\times \left\{1|z_{1i}|/a_{1\mathrm{D}}+\mathrm{}\right\}`$ (16)
$`\stackrel{|p_1|\mathrm{}}{=}{\displaystyle \underset{i=2}{\overset{N}{}}}(2L^{\frac{1}{2}}/a_{1\mathrm{D}})e^{ip_1z_i/\mathrm{}}`$ (17)
$`\times \mathrm{\Psi }(z_1=z_i,\mathrm{},z_i,\mathrm{},z_N){\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p_1/\mathrm{})^2}}`$ (18)
Here $`p_1=(2\pi \mathrm{}/L)s`$, where $`s`$ is an integer.

Let us now turn to the one-body momentum distribution per se. After a lengthy but straightforward  calculation it takes the form

$`w(p)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{L/2}^{+L/2}}𝑑z_2\mathrm{}{\displaystyle _{L/2}^{+L/2}}𝑑z_N|\mathrm{\Psi }(p,z_2,\mathrm{},z_N)|^2`$ (19)
$`\stackrel{|p|\mathrm{}}{=}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4(N1)\rho _2(0,0,0,0)}{a_{1\mathrm{D}}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p/\mathrm{})^4}},`$ (20)
where $`\rho _2(z_1,z_2;z_1^{},z_2^{})`$ is the two-body density matrix, normalized as $`_{L/2}^{+L/2}𝑑z_1_{L/2}^{+L/2}𝑑z_2\rho _2(z_1,z_2;z_1,z_2)=1`$, and $`w(p)`$ is the momentum distribution, normalized as $`_{s=\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}w(2\pi \mathrm{}s/L)=1`$.

The expression (20) involves the two-body density matrix whose form is unknown for a finite system. However, an elegant thermodynamic limit formula for $`\rho _2(0,0,0,0)`$ does exist due to Gangardt and Shlyapnikov , who derived it using the Hellmann-Feynman theorem : $`L^2\rho _2(0,0,0,0)=e^{}(\gamma )`$. We are now ready to give a closed-form thermodynamic limit expression for the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the one-body momentum distribution for one-dimensional $`\delta `$-interacting bosons in a box with periodic boundary conditions:

$`W(p)\stackrel{|p|\mathrm{}}{=}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}n}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2e^{}(\gamma )}{2\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}n}{p}}\right)^4,`$ (21)
where $`W(p)=(L/2\pi \mathrm{})w(p)`$ is normalized as $`_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑pW(p)=1`$. Notice that this asymptotics is universally described by a $`1/p^4`$ law for all values of the coupling strength $`\gamma `$. (Note that for $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$, this law was predicted in .) Formula (21) is the first of the two principal results of our paper.

Harmonically trapped 1D gas: momentum distribution. To evaluate the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the momentum distribution of atoms confined in a harmonic oscillator potential, we are going to employ the local density approximation (LDA). It is based on an intuitive, but hard to justify rigorously assumption that in the thermodynamic limit the short-range correlation properties of a trapped gas are indistinct from the ones of a uniform gas of the same local density: $`\sigma (z,z^{})\stackrel{zz^{}l}{}\sigma _u(zz^{}|n((z+z^{})/2)`$, where $`\sigma (z,z^{})`$ and $`\sigma _u(zz^{}|n)`$ are one-body density matrix of the trapped gas and one-body density matrix of a density $`n`$ uniform gas respectively, both normalized to the respective number of particles, $`n(z)`$ is the density profile of the trapped gas, $`l`$ is the typical length on which the density changes. (Tested against the exact results on correlation function of the trapped Tonks-Giradeau gas  this assumption can be shown to lead to an exact prediction for the value of the coefficient in front of the $`(zz^{})^2`$ term in the Taylor expansion around $`z^{}=z0`$.) From this ansatz it immediately follows that the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the momentum distribution (sensitive to the short-range correlations only) is given by the spatial average of the uniform case expression (21) over the density profile of the atomic cloud. The density profiles themselves can also be obtained using LDA (, Eqns. 21 and 22, where the governing parameter $`\eta `$ should be replaced by $`2/\gamma _{\mathrm{TF}}^0`$, see below), and this is the method we used. The final result is presented in Fig.1. There the dimensionless coefficient $`\mathrm{\Omega }=lim_{|p|\mathrm{}}W(p)p^4/(\mathrm{}n^0)^3`$ in front of the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the momentum distribution is plotted as a function of the interaction strength parameter $`\gamma ^0`$ in the center of the cloud; $`\gamma ^0`$ in turn depends on of the experimental parameters, such as the number of particles $`N`$, the coupling constant $`g_{1\mathrm{D}}`$, and the longitudinal trap frequency $`\omega `$, through a system of implicit equations . Here $`n^0`$ is the density in the center of the trap. To establish a link to the experimental parameters we also present a plot for the Thomas-Fermi (weak interactions) prediction for $`\gamma `$ in the center of the atomic cloud, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{TF}}^0=(8/3^{2/3})(Nma^2\omega /\mathrm{})^{2/3}`$, as a function of $`\gamma ^0`$.

In the limiting, Thomas-Fermi and Tonks-Girardeau regimes the momentum distribution is given by

$`W(p)\stackrel{|p|\mathrm{},\gamma 0}{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_{\mathrm{HO}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{23^{\frac{2}{3}}}{5\pi }}N^{\frac{2}{3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a_{\mathrm{HO}}}{|a_{1\mathrm{D}}|}}\right)^{\frac{5}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_{\mathrm{HO}}}{p}}\right)^4`$ (22)
$`W(p)\stackrel{|p|\mathrm{},\gamma \mathrm{}}{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_{\mathrm{HO}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}128}{45\pi ^3}}N^{\frac{3}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_{\mathrm{HO}}}{p}}\right)^4`$ (23)
where $`a_{\mathrm{HO}}=(\mathrm{}/m\omega )^{1/2}`$ and $`p_{\mathrm{HO}}=\mathrm{}/a_{\mathrm{HO}}`$.

Short-range expansion for the correlation function. Let us now redirect our attention to the ground state one-body correlation function

$`g_1(z)=\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(z)\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(0),`$ (24)
and in particular to its Taylor expansion around zero:

$`g_1(z)/n=1+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}c_i|nz|^i.`$ (25)
In the limit of infinitely strong interactions $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$, this expansion is known to all orders :

$`c_1^{\mathrm{TG}}=0;c_2^{\mathrm{TG}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}};c_3^{\mathrm{TG}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{9}};c_4^{\mathrm{TG}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^4}{120}};\mathrm{}`$ (26)
Our goal now is to obtain the first few (through the order $`|z|^3`$) coefficients of the expansion (25) for an arbitrary interaction strength $`\gamma `$.

The knowledge of the momentum distribution (21) is crucial for determining the $`c_1`$ and $`c_3`$ coefficients. Let us look at the relation between the momentum distribution and the correlation function, where the former is simply the Fourier transform of the latter: $`W(p)=(2\pi \mathrm{}n)^1_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑ze^{ipz/\mathrm{}}g_1(z)`$. Since the leading term in the asymptotics of $`W(p)`$ is $`1/p^4`$ we may conclude, using the Fourier analysis theorem (10), that the lowest odd power in the short-range expansion of the correlation function $`g_1(z)`$ is $`|z|^3`$, and therefore the $`|z|`$ term is absent from the expansion:

$`c_1=0.`$ (27)
Furthermore, the theorem (10) allows one to deduce the coefficient $`c_3`$ from the momentum distribution (21):

$`c_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}\gamma ^2e^{}(\gamma ).`$ (28)
To obtain the coefficient $`c_2`$, we employ the Hellmann-Feynman theorem  again. Let a Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}(w)`$ depend on a parameter $`w`$. Let $`E(w)`$ be an eigenvalue of this Hamiltonian. Then the mean value of the derivative of the Hamiltonian with respect to the parameter can be expressed through the derivative of the eigenvalue: $`\mathrm{\Psi }_E(w)|\frac{d}{dw}\widehat{H}(w)|\mathrm{\Psi }_E(w)=\frac{d}{dw}E(w)`$. Let us now denote the fraction $`\mathrm{}^2/m`$ as $`\kappa `$ and differentiate the Hamiltonian (2) with respect to $`\kappa `$. According to the Hellmann-Feynman theorem, we get $`\frac{1}{2}_{L/2}^{+L/2}𝑑z(^2/zz^{})\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(z)\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(z^{})|_{z^{}=z}=dE/d\kappa `$. Now, using $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(z)\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(z^{})=\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(zz^{})\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(0)`$, we obtain $`\frac{1}{2}L[(d^2/dz^2)g_1(z)]|_{z=0}=dE/d\kappa `$, and finally

$`c_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left\{e(\gamma )\gamma e^{}(\gamma )\right\},`$ (29)
where we have used the known expression for the energy (3).

Note that, as expected, our expressions for the coefficients $`c_{13}`$ converge, in the limit $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$, to the known results for the impenetrable bosons (26). This can be easily verified using the $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$ expansion for the function $`e(\gamma )`$ (4).

Expressions (27), (29), and (28) constitute the second principal result obtained in our paper.

Concluding remarks. Below we present a discussion on empirical observation of and applications for the $`1/p^4`$ momentum distribution tails, in experiments with harmonically trapped atomic gases.

(a) First of all, we would like to discuss the momentum range where the $`1/p^4`$ tail should be looked for experimentally. Relying on the $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$ results  and an analysis of the predicted-by-Bogoliubov’s-theory momentum distribution (corresponding to $`\gamma 0`$), we conjecture that in the whole range of the interaction strength $`\gamma `$, the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the momentum distribution corresponds to the range of momenta given by $`p(m\mu /\mathrm{}^2)^{1/2}`$ for all $`\gamma `$, where $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential of the system. For the case of a harmonically confined gas at $`\gamma \begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}1`$ this leads to

$`p\sqrt{N}p_{\mathrm{HO}}`$ $`\text{for }\gamma \begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}1.`$ (32)
(b) Our zero-temperature results are valid as long as the temperature does not exceed the chemical potential, $`k_\mathrm{B}T\mu `$ (for all $`\gamma `$), or, for the Tonks-Giradeau case,

$`k_\mathrm{B}TN\mathrm{}\omega `$ $`\text{for }\gamma \begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}1.`$ (35)
For temperatures comparable to the chemical potential, the $`1/p^4`$ law should persist within the range (32), but the prefactor is not yet known and it is a subject of future research.

(c) Experimentally, the momentum distribution of the Tonks-Girardeau gas can be detected either in situ  or via a ballistic expansion . The latter option requires some caution, especially in the Tonks-Giradeau ($`\gamma \mathrm{}`$) case. If only the longitudinal confinement is released, the interactions will modify the momentum distribution during the expansion, and, as follows from the Bose-Fermi mapping , the detected momentum distribution will correspond to a free Fermi gas. Instead one should release both longitudinal and transverse confinements simultaneously. In this case rapid transverse ballistic expansion will lead to a quick drop-off of the density, making the interactions negligible.

(d) We believe that the coefficient in front of the high-$`p`$ tail of the momentum distribution (Fig.1) may provide a robust experimental identifier of the quantum regime of the gas of interest, and, in particular, serve to detect the Tonks-Girardeau regime. (i) The high-$`p`$ tail is not sensitive to the finite temperature corrections to the correlation function, which appear predominantly in the low-$`p`$ (long-range) domain. (ii) In experiments with 2D optical lattices, where a single cigar-shaped trap is replaced by an array of traps , the effect of the residual 3D mean-field pressure acting during the expansion becomes relevant: the high-$`p`$ part of the momentum distribution is far less sensitive to this effect as compared to the low-$`p`$ part. (iii) The theoretical interpretation of the experimental results is simpler in the high-$`p`$ case thanks to the applicability of the LDA. In the opposite low-$`p`$ case, the LDA leads to entirely wrong predictions .

Summary. In this paper, we present a short-range Taylor expansion (up to the order $`|z|^3`$) for the zero-temperature correlation function $`g_1(z)`$ of a one-dimensional $`\delta `$-interacting Bose gas (see Eqns. 25, 27, 29, and 28). We compute the leading term in the high-$`p`$ asymptotics of the momentum distribution for both free (Eqn. 21) and harmonically trapped (Fig.1) atoms. We regard the high-$`p`$ tail of the momentum distribution as an efficient tool for identification of the Tonks-Girardeau regime in experiments with dilute trapped atomic gases.

Acknowledgments. Authors are grateful to M. Girardeau, D.M. Gangardt and C. Menotti for enlightening discussions on the subject. M. O. would like to acknowledge the hospitality of the European Centre for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related areas (ECT$``$) during the 2002 BEC Summer Program, where the presented work was initiated. This work was supported by the NSF grant PHY-0070333 and ONR grant N000140310427. Authors appreciate financial support by NSF through the grant for Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.


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# Experimental detection of entanglement via witness operators and local measurements

## 1 Introduction

One of the key problems in experiments in quantum information theory is the generation and detection of entanglement . The generation of entangled states is practically always aimed at particular states that can then be used for various applications in quantum information processing. Very often one wants to produce certain pure states. The generation process in a laboratory is, however, never free of imperfections and noise. The states that one produces may, but not necessarily have the desired properties. In particular they may, but do not have to be entangled. For this reason it is important to develop efficient and easy to apply experimental procedures to detect entanglement.

Obviously, the ultimate goal of detection is to characterize the entanglement quantitatively, and to identify the regions in the parameter space which would allow to maximize entanglement useful for the particular application. Before this ambitious goal is realized, however, it is important to know whether the state one is dealing with is entangled at all, or not. The reasons for that are at least threefold: i) it is interesting from the fundamental point of view; ii) it is important to know it before applying more complex experimental tools to quantify entanglement; iii) it is essential, if one wants to use the generated states for any of the distillation or purification protocols .

For the detection of entanglement several strategies are known: First of all there is the possibility of quantum state tomography , and then direct application of known necessary or sufficient entanglement criteria . Determining the density matrix via quantum state tomography requires, however, typically a lot of measurements. Note also that only for $`2\times 2`$ and $`2\times 3`$ systems necessary and sufficient criterion is known, the famous Peres-Horodecki criterion of positivity of partial transpose . In general, it might be difficult to find a sufficient criterion for a given state. One could also look for a violation of some Bell inequalities, although there exist entangled states (bound entangled states) that do not violate any known Bell-like inequality . In fact, there is even a conjecture that these states admit a local hidden variable model . Looking for a violation of Bell inequalities may thus not be sufficient.

Recently, there have been several proposals for the detection of entanglement without estimating the whole density matrix . Although being attractive from both experimental and theoretical point of view, these possibilities have some disadvantages. The recent proposals require collective measurements on several qubits or the construction of quantum gates and networks. These requirements are possible, but not easy to fulfill with the present experimental techniques of local measurements.

On the other hand, the methods for the detection of entanglement mentioned above are in some sense too general for experiments. They assume that no a priori knowledge about the density matrix is given. But, as we already mentioned, in an experimental situation one usually tries to prepare some particular state. Although one fights with the problems of noise and imperfections, in any case the produced state cannot be considered completely arbitrary.

In this paper, which expands our earlier study , we address the problem of checking whether a state $`\varrho `$ is entangled or not, when some knowledge about the density matrix is given. We want to solve this problem using only local von Neumann measurements which can be implemented in a laboratory using the present techniques. We also aim at using the smallest possible number of measurements.

The scheme we use for the detection of entanglement relies on the well known concept of witness operators . Let us briefly recall what these operators are. A Hermitean operator $`W`$ is called an entanglement witness detecting the entangled state $`\varrho _e`$ if $`Tr(W\varrho _e)<0`$ and $`Tr(W\varrho _s)0`$ for all separable states $`\varrho _s.`$ So, if we have a state $`\varrho `$ and we measure $`Tr(W\varrho )<0,`$ we can be sure that $`\varrho `$ is entangled. For every entangled state there exists an entanglement witness. There has also been an enormous progress in constructing witnesses for different classes of states .

After having constructed a witness operator we decompose it into a weighted sum of projectors onto product vectors. In this way the expectation value of the witness can be measured locally: Alice and Bob measure the expectation value of the projector and add their results with the weights to receive the expectation value of the witness. Knowing the value of $`Tr(W\varrho )`$ they can decide if the state is detected to be entangled, or not. The decomposition of the witness into projectors onto product vectors should be optimal, i.e. contain in a certain sense a possibly small number of terms.

The paper is divided in four sections. In the first section we illustrate our proposal and our notation with a simple example: We consider a pure two-qubit state affected by white noise. The main parts of this paper are the extensions of this example: In the second section we investigate the two-qubit scenario if the noise is not white. We also investigate the limits of our scheme and the errors that may occur. The third section deals with extensions of the decomposition of the witness from the first section. We derive decompositions for witnesses in three-qubit case. With these operators GHZ-states and W-states can be detected. Eventually, we discuss how one can decompose witnesses for bipartite systems in higher dimensions. In the last section we apply our method to bound entangled states. We mainly discuss how some types of bound entanglement in $`3\times 3`$ and $`2\times 4`$ systems can be detected.

## 2 Two qubits with white noise

We consider a setup that is intended to produce a particular pure state $`|\psi \psi |,`$ but due to the imperfections some noise is added. So, it produces a mixed state $`\varrho `$ of the form

$$\varrho (p,d):=p|\psi \psi |+(1p)\sigma ,$$
(1)
where we know that the noise added to the state $`|\psi `$ is close to the totally mixed state, i.e.

$$\sigma \frac{1}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}d.$$
(2)
If $`d=0`$ the noise would be white, but in general this does not have to be the case. In the beginning, we do not make any assumption on $`|\psi ,`$ but when we discuss the case $`d>0`$ we restrict ourselves to the important case that $`|\psi `$ is a Bell state: $`|\psi ^+=1/\sqrt{2}(|01+|10).`$ Further we do not make any restriction on $`p`$, i.e. we assume that it is unknown to us. As a byproduct the witness will later donate us a possibility to determine $`p.`$ Our aim is to give a scheme to check whether $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is entangled or not.

Now we have to clarify our notation. We will denote the set of all density matrices by $`M`$ and the set of separable matrices by $`S.`$ We can endow the space of all matrices with the scalar product $`A|B_{HS}:=Tr(A(B^{}))`$ and the corresponding Hilbert-Schmidt norm $`A:=\sqrt{Tr(A(A^{}))}.`$ For any $`\varrho M`$ and $`r0`$ we can define by

$$B(\varrho ,r):=\{\varrho ^{}M,\varrho ^{}\varrho r\}$$
(3)
the ball around $`\varrho `$ with radius $`r.`$ We denote by $`B_{p,d}`$ the ball which must include $`\varrho (p,d)`$ for a given $`p`$ and $`d.`$ It is given by $`B_{p,d}=B(\frac{1p}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}+p|\psi ^+\psi ^+|,(1p)d).`$ Finally we define $`L`$ as the line between $`\mathrm{𝟙}/4`$ and $`|\psi \psi |;`$ we have: $`L=\{\varrho (p,0),p[0,1]\}.`$

### 2.1 Construction of the witness

The optimal witness for an entangled $`\varrho (p,0)`$ is easy to construct . First, one has to compute the eigenvector corresponding to the negative eigenvalue of $`\varrho (p,0)^{T_B},`$ then the witness is given by the partially transposed projector onto this eigenvector.

If the Schmidt decomposition of $`|\psi `$ is $`|\psi =a|01+b|10`$ with $`a,b0,`$ the spectrum of $`\varrho (p,0)^{T_B}`$ is given by $`\{(1p)/4+pa^2;(1p)/4+pb^2;(1p)/4+pab;(1p)/4pab\}.`$ Therefore $`\varrho (p,0)`$ is entangled iff $`p>1/(1+4ab).`$ The eigenvector corresponding to the minimal eigenvalue $`\lambda _{}`$ is given by

$$|\varphi _{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|00|11),$$
(4)
and thus the witness $`W_0`$ is given by

$$W_0=|\varphi _{}\varphi _{}|^{T_B}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(5)
Note that this witness does neither depend on $`p,`$ nor on the Schmidt coefficients $`a,b.`$ It detects $`\varrho (p,0)`$ iff it is entangled, since we have $`Tr(|\varphi _{}\varphi _{}|^{T_B}\varrho (p,0))=Tr(|\varphi _{}\varphi _{}|\varrho (p,0)^{T_B})=\lambda _{}.`$ For our special case of white noise $`W_0`$ has also the advantage that from $`Tr(W_0\varrho (p,0))0`$ it follows that $`\varrho (p,0)`$ is separable. This is not a general property of witnesses, and indeed if the noise is not white this is not true anymore.

### 2.2 Decomposition of the witness

For an experimental setup it is necessary to decompose the witness into operators which can be measured locally. Thus we need a decomposition into projectors onto product vectors of the form

$$W=\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}c_i|e_ie_i||f_if_i|.$$
(6)
Such a decomposition can be measured locally: Alice and Bob measure the expectation value of the $`|e_ie_i||f_if_i|`$ and add their results with the weights $`c_i.`$ One can construct such a decomposition in many ways, but it is reasonable to do it in a way which corresponds to expenses of Alice and Bob which are as small as possible. There are several possibilities to define an optimal decomposition:

One possibility is to look for the optimal number of product vectors (ONP), i.e. one can try to minimize $`k`$ in (6). This optimization strategy looks very natural and has already been considered in the literature. For $`2\times 2`$ systems it was proven in  that in general the ONP, which we denote as $`k_{},`$ is five. Also a constructive way for computing this optimal decomposition was given.

What is the “cost” Alice and Bob have to pay when measuring $`W`$ via such a decomposition? It is the number of measurements they have to perform. When we talk about measurements here, we consider only von Neumann measurements. We do not look at POVMs since their implementation would require additional ancilla systems. One measurement on Alice’s side in this sense consists of a choice of one orthonormal basis for Alice’s Hilbert space. For an particle with spin $`s`$ one may interpret this as the choice of a direction for a Stern-Gerlach-like apparatus. Alice sets up her device in the desired direction and is able to distinguish between $`2s+1`$ different states.

For one local measurement Bob also has to choose an orthonormal basis in his Hilbert space; all together this yields one orthonormal product basis for both. Thus, if we are in a $`N\times N`$ system a term of the form

$$\underset{k,l=1}{\overset{N}{}}c_{kl}|A_kA_k||B_lB_l|$$
(7)
with $`A_s|A_t=B_s|B_t=\delta _{st}`$ can be measured with one collective setting of measurement devices of Alice and Bob. Alice and Bob can discriminate between the states $`|A_kB_l,`$ measure the probabilities of these states and add their results with the weights $`c_{kl}`$ using one collective setting and some classical communication. We call such a collective setting of measurement devices a local von Neumann measurement (LvNM).

It is therefore reasonable to find a decomposition of the form

$$W=\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}\underset{k,l=1}{\overset{N}{}}c_{kl}^i|A_k^iA_k^i||B_l^iB_l^i|$$
(8)
with $`A_s^i|A_t^i=B_s^i|B_t^i=\delta _{st}`$ and an optimal number of devices’ settings (ONS), i.e. a minimal $`m.`$ In this sense $`m`$ is the minimal number of measurements Alice and Bob have to perform. The construction of a decomposition of the form (8), and the determination of the minimal $`m`$ is the problem we want to solve in this section.

Please note that a decomposition like (6) with the minimal $`k_{}`$ (ONP) requires in general $`k_{}`$ LvNMs because the out-coming vectors on Alice’s side $`|e_ie_i|`$ do not have to be orthogonal.

We also would like to emphasize that a decomposition of the form (8) is more general than a decomposition into a sum of tensor products of operators:

$$W=\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}\gamma _iA_iB_i.$$
(9)
The decomposition (9) has the advantage that Alice and Bob do not have to distinguish between some states, they only have to measure locally some expectation values of Hermitean operators. A decomposition like (8) can be written in the form of (9) if for all $`i`$ the matrices $`(c_{kl}^i)`$ are of rank one. In the following we will see that for qubit systems there is not a big difference between (8) and (9). From the optimal decomposition in the sense of (8) we can derive a decomposition of the form (9) where some of the operators are the identity ($`\mathrm{𝟙}`$), so they do not require new measurement settings. For $`N\times N`$-systems we will see that it is straightforward to derive the optimal decomposition in the sense of (9).

Our witness $`W_0`$ has a special form: It is a partially transposed projector $`|\psi \psi |^{T_B}.`$ It is therefore natural to look at the Schmidt decomposition of $`|\psi =\alpha |00+\beta |11.`$ For our $`W_0`$ we have the special case $`\alpha =1/\sqrt{2}=\beta ,`$ but we want to deal with the most general $`|\psi .`$

When we compute the ONP-decomposition with the minimal $`k_{}`$ according to  we arrive at

$$|\psi \psi |^{T_B}=\frac{(\alpha +\beta )^2}{3}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}|A_i^{}B_i^{}A_i^{}B_i^{}|\alpha \beta (|0101|+|1010|),$$
(10)
where we have used the definitions

$`|A_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\frac{\pi }{3}}\mathrm{cos}(\theta )|0+e^{i\frac{\pi }{3}}\mathrm{sin}(\theta )|1=|B_1^{}`$
$`|A_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\frac{\pi }{3}}\mathrm{cos}(\theta )|0+e^{i\frac{\pi }{3}}\mathrm{sin}(\theta )|1=|B_2^{}`$
$`|A_3^{}`$ $`=`$ $`|A_1^{}+|A_2^{}=|B_3^{}`$
$`\mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\alpha /(\alpha +\beta )}`$
$`\mathrm{sin}(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\beta /(\alpha +\beta )}.`$ (11)
This decomposition into five product vectors requires four correlated settings for Alice and Bob. But we can measure $`W_0`$ with less settings: If we define the spin directions by $`|z^+=|0,|z^{}=|1,|x^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0\pm |1,|y^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0\pm i|1`$ we have the decomposition

$`|\psi \psi |^{T_B}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^2|z^+z^+z^+z^+|+\beta ^2|z^{}z^{}z^{}z^{}|+\alpha \beta (|x^+x^+x^+x^+|+`$ (12)
$`+|x^{}x^{}x^{}x^{}||y^+y^{}y^+y^{}||y^{}y^+y^{}y^+|)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}+\sigma _z\sigma _z+(\alpha ^2\beta ^2)(\sigma _z\mathrm{𝟙}+\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z)`$
$`+2\alpha \beta (\sigma _x\sigma _x+\sigma _y\sigma _y)).`$
This decomposition into six product vectors requires only a measurement of three settings: Alice and Bob have only to set up their Stern-Gerlach devices in the $`x`$-, $`y`$\- and $`z`$-direction to measure $`|\psi \psi |^{T_B}.`$

Now we want to prove that three LvNM are really necessary. Our proof is a special case of a theorem about $`N\times N`$ systems we will show later. But in the two-qubit case the proof is particularly simple, and therefore we present it here separately.
Proposition 1. In a two qubit system a decomposition of $`|\psi \psi |^{T_B}`$ of the form (8) requires at least three measurements.
*Proof.* Consider a decomposition requiring two measurements:

$$|\psi \psi |^{T_B}=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2}{}}c_{ij}^1|A_i^1A_i^1||B_j^1B_j^1|+\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2}{}}c_{ij}^2|A_i^2A_i^2||B_j^2B_j^2|.$$
(13)
With the help of a Schmidt decomposition as above we can write $`|\psi \psi |^{T_B}=_{i,j=0}^3\lambda _{ij}\sigma _i\sigma _j`$ with

$$(\lambda _{ij})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\frac{1}{4}& 0& 0& \frac{\alpha ^2\beta ^2}{4}\\ 0& \frac{\alpha \beta }{2}& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& \frac{\alpha \beta }{2}& 0\\ \frac{\alpha ^2\beta ^2}{4}& 0& 0& \frac{1}{4}\end{array}\right).$$
(14)
Note that the 3x3 submatrix in the right bottom corner is of rank 3. Now we write any projector on the rhs of (13) as a vector in the Bloch sphere: $`|A_1^1A_1^1|=_{i=0}^3s_i^A\sigma _i`$ is represented by the vector $`\stackrel{}{s}_{A_1^1}=(1/2,s_1^A,s_2^A,s_3^A)`$ and $`|A_2^1A_2^1|`$ by $`\stackrel{}{s}_{A_2^1}=(1/2,s_1^A,s_2^A,s_3^A);`$ $`|B_1^1B_1^1|`$ can be written similarly. If we expand the first sum on the rhs of (13) in the ($`\sigma _i\sigma _j`$) basis, the 3x3 submatrix in the right bottom corner is given by $`(c_{11}^1c_{12}^1c_{21}^1+c_{22}^1)(s_1^A,s_2^A,s_3^A)^T(s_1^B,s_2^B,s_3^B).`$ This matrix is of rank one. The corresponding submatrix from the second sum on the rhs of (13) is also of rank one and we arrive at a contradiction: No matrix of rank 3 can be written as a sum of two matrices of rank one.$`\mathrm{}`$

The idea of a generalization of this proposition to $`N\times N`$ systems is straightforward: One expands both sides of an equation of the type (13) in some product basis of the space of all operators. Then one tries to reach lower bounds for the rank of some submatrix of the coefficient matrix (14) and upper bounds for the rank of the matrix corresponding to one LvNM. This gives a lower bound for the number of LvNMs.

## 3 The case of non-white noise

Our investigation of this case proceeds in two steps. First, we argue why the witness $`W_0`$ should also be used in this instance. We also show that under some circumstances, i.e. if $`Tr(W_0\varrho (p,d))`$ is large enough, we can make a sure decision that $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is separable. For the case that we cannot make a sure decision we derive analytical bounds and show numerical estimates for the error. This is done in the second step.

We would like to remind the reader that if $`d>0,`$ we only consider maximally entangled states, so everywhere in this section we set $`a=b=1/\sqrt{2}.`$

### 3.1 Properties of $`W_0`$

Let us note some typical distances in $`M`$:
Remark 1.  (a) The states on $`M,`$ the boundary of $`M,`$ closest to $`\mathrm{𝟙}/4`$ have a distance of $`1/\sqrt{12}0.29.`$ The states with the largest distance to $`\mathrm{𝟙}/4`$ are just the pure states, for which the distance is $`\sqrt{3}/20.87.`$
(b) The states on $`S`$ closest to $`\mathrm{𝟙}/4`$ have also distance of $`1/\sqrt{12}.`$
*Proof.* These distances can be calculated simply by maximizing or minimizing $`\mathrm{𝟙}/4\varrho `$ under some conditions, for instance for (b) under the condition that $`\text{det}(\varrho ^{T_B})=0.`$ $`\mathrm{}`$

From part (a) it follows that we have to assume that $`d1/\sqrt{12}.`$ Please note also that the point where $`L`$ crosses the border of separability, $`S,`$ is given by $`\varrho (1/3,0)`$ and this point has just the distance $`1/\sqrt{12}`$ from $`\mathrm{𝟙}/4,`$ this means it is as close as possible.
Remark 2. For all $`p`$ the point on $`S`$ closest to $`\varrho (p,0)`$ is given by $`\varrho (1/3,0).`$
*Proof.* For $`p<1/3`$ we have mentioned it already. For $`p>1/3`$ we have a look at the set

$$𝒩(W_0):=\left\{\varrho M;Tr(W_0\varrho )=0\right\}.$$
(15)
We have $`\varrho (1/3,0)𝒩(W_0),`$ and one can directly compute that for an arbitrary $`N𝒩(W_0)`$ and $`\varrho (p,0)`$ the relation $`\varrho (1/3,0)\varrho (p,0)|\varrho (1/3,0)N_{HS}=0`$ holds. Therefore $`𝒩(W_0)`$ and $`L`$ are orthogonal. From this and the properties of a witness operator the claim for $`p>1/3`$ follows. $`\mathrm{}`$
Remark 3. The witness $`W_0`$ is the best possible witness in the following sense: For all $`p`$ and $`d`$ there is no other witness that detects a subset of $`B_{p,d}`$ as entangled which has a bigger volume than the subset of $`B_{p,d}`$ which is detected as entangled by $`W_0.`$
*Proof.* From the second remark it follows that if $`B_{p,d}S=\mathrm{}`$ the witness $`W_0`$ detects the whole ball, independent of $`d.`$

Thus, we can assume that $`p`$ has a value such that $`B_{p,d}`$ contains separable and entangled states and that there exists a witness $`W^{},`$ which detects a bigger volume of $`B_{p,d}`$. Then we look at the set $`𝒩(W^{}),`$ defined analogous to (15). If $`p<1/3`$ the minimal distance between matrices of $`𝒩(W^{})`$ and $`\varrho (p,0)`$ must be smaller than the minimal distance between $`𝒩(W_0)`$ and $`\varrho (p,0),`$ which is $`\varrho (p,0)\varrho (1/3,0).`$ This means that there exist entangled states (and therefore states on $`S`$) which are closer to $`\varrho (p,0)`$ than $`\varrho (1/3,0)`$ and we have a contradiction to Remark 2. If $`p1/3`$ the minimal distance between matrices of $`𝒩(W^{})`$ and $`\varrho (p,0)`$ must be bigger than the distance between $`𝒩(W_0)`$ and $`\varrho (p,0),`$ but then $`W^{}`$ must “detect” the separable state $`\varrho (1/3,0),`$ which is a contradiction. $`\mathrm{}`$

The critical reader may ask at this point why we are so innocent and use the term of a “volume” in $`M.`$ It seems that it is difficult to say something about volumes in our norm, since we are not in the $`^n`$ with the Euclidean norm . But we are not too far away from the $`^n:`$ We can write any density matrix as $`\varrho =_{i=0}^{15}\mu _iG_i`$ where $`\mu _i,`$ $`G_0\mathrm{𝟙}`$ and the $`G_1,\mathrm{},G_{15}`$ are the traceless generators of the $`SU(4).`$ The $`G_i`$ can be normalized in a way that they form an orthonormal basis: $`G_i|G_j_{HS}=\delta _{ij}.`$ We will explain and use this decomposition in greater detail later. Here we only point out that $`\varrho ^2=_{i=0}^{15}\mu _i^2`$ and so our norm in the space of Hermitean operators is just the Euclidean norm in $`^{16}.`$ $`M`$ corresponds to a subset of a $`15`$-dimensional hyperplane since $`\mu _0`$ is fixed, and the usual formulas for volumes of balls can be applied.

Now having proven that it is reasonable to use $`W_0,`$ one may ask what the expectation value of $`W_0`$ tells us for the case $`d>0.`$ From the definition of a witness operator it follows that if the expectation value is negative we can be sure that $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is entangled. On the first view it seems that if it is positive we can not make a sure decision if $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is entangled or not. But if $`Tr(W_0\varrho (p,d))0`$ this means that $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is far away from $`𝒩(W_0)`$ and since we know that $`\varrho (p,d)B_{p,d}`$ for some $`p,`$ the state $`\varrho (p,d)`$ must be separable. So there must exist a $`\tau (d)`$ such that from $`Tr(\varrho (p,d)W_0)\tau `$ it follows that $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is separable. We can directly compute $`\tau ,`$ but first we introduce some new definitions.

If we measure $`Tr(\varrho W_0)=\alpha `$ the expectation value $`\alpha `$ tells us that $`\varrho `$ is in some hyperplane cutting $`M.`$ This hyperplane is orthogonal to $`L,`$ as we have shown in the proof of remark 2. It intersects this line at some $`\varrho (q,0)`$ and so we denote this plane by $`𝒫(q).`$ For instance an essential part of the proof of Remark 2 was the statement that $`𝒫(1/3)=𝒩(W_0).`$ The connection between the expectation values of $`W_0`$ and the planes $`𝒫`$ is given by:

$$Tr(\varrho W_0)=\alpha \varrho 𝒫(q)\text{with}q=\frac{1}{3}\frac{4}{3}\alpha .$$
(16)
Since we do not deal with general $`\varrho ,`$ but with some $`\varrho (p,d),`$ it will be useful to consider the set of all possible $`\varrho (p,d).`$ This is

$$K(d):=\underset{p[0,1]}{}B_{p,d}.$$
(17)
We can now define the intersections

$`SP(q)`$ $`:=`$ $`S𝒫(q),`$
$`KP(q,d)`$ $`:=`$ $`K(d)𝒫(q),`$
$`BP(q,p,d)`$ $`:=`$ $`B_{p,d}𝒫(q),`$
$`XP(q)`$ $`:=`$ $`B({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{𝟙},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{12}}})𝒫(q).`$ (18)
$`SP`$ is the set of all separable states which belong to one possible expectation value. $`KP`$ is the set of all possible $`\varrho (p,d)`$ yielding the same expectation value. It is clear that $`BP(q,p,d)KP(q,d).`$ Since we know already from Remark 1 that the states in $`B(\mathrm{𝟙}/4,1/\sqrt{12})`$ are separable, we can conclude that $`XP(q)SP(q).`$ For the sake of notational simplicity we often suppress the parameters $`q,p,d.`$

The strategy of computing $`\tau `$ is now clear: We have to find the values of $`q`$ for which $`KP(q)SP(q)`$ holds. For the corresponding expectation values of $`W_0`$ our knowledge that $`\varrho (p,d)K`$ guarantees us that $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is separable. Since it is difficult to characterize $`SP`$ we replace it by $`XP.`$ This replacement is justified later.
Proposition 2. Let

$$\tau =\frac{1}{4}d^2\sqrt{\left(\frac{1}{12}d^2\right)\left(\frac{3}{4}d^2\right)}.$$
(19)
Then we have:

$$Tr(\varrho (p,d)W_0)\tau \varrho (p,d)\text{ is separable.}$$
(20)
Furthermore: The $`\tau `$ defined in (19) is the minimal $`\tau `$ with the property (20), i.e. for all $`0\tau ^{}<\tau `$ there exists an entangled state $`\varrho (p,d)`$ with $`Tr(\varrho (p,d)W_0)=\tau ^{}.`$
*Proof.* The idea of the proof is as described above: First, we compute the parameter $`q_{},`$ such that for $`qq_{}`$ we have $`KP(q)SP(q).`$ Via (16) we arrive at $`\tau .`$ Finally we show that for $`q>q_{}`$ we have $`KP(q)SP(q).`$

$`KP`$ is just like $`BP`$ a ball in the hyperplane $`𝒫`$. The radius of $`BP`$ is determined by $`r^2(BP)=(1p)^2d^2\varrho (q,0)\varrho (p,0)^2=(1p)^2d^2(3/4)(qp)^2.`$ Maximizing this over all $`p`$ yields

$$r^2(KP)=\frac{3d^2}{34d^2}(1q)^2.$$
(21)
The ball $`XP`$ has the squared radius

$$r^2(XP)=\frac{1}{12}\frac{3}{4}(q)^2.$$
(22)
If we choose $`q`$ small enough, it follows from $`XP(q)SP(q)`$ that $`KP(q)XP(q)SP(q).`$ So we can determine $`q_{}`$ by the equation $`r^2(KP(q_{}))=r^2(XP(q_{})),`$ apply (16) and arrive at $`\tau .`$

Why can we not use a smaller $`\tau `$? The reason is that for any $`q[0,1/3]`$ the ball $`XP(q)`$ contains at least one state of $`S.`$ This means that from $`KP(q)XP(q)`$ it follows that $`KP(q)SP(q).`$ To see the existence of a state $`S`$ in $`XP(q)`$ first note that if we take our first Bell state $`|\psi ^+=(1/\sqrt{2})(|01+|10)=:(1/\sqrt{2})(|0^{}0^{}+|1^{}1^{})`$ and another Bell state $`|\varphi ^+=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|00+|11)`$ we have:

$$(\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}|\psi ^+\psi ^+|)|(\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}|\varphi ^+\varphi ^+|)_{HS}=\frac{1}{4}<0.$$
(23)
We can transform the bases $`|0^{}0^{}|00,|1^{}1^{}|11,`$ in a continuous way and thereby construct a continuous map

$$\gamma :[0,2]M;t\gamma (t)$$
(24)
with $`\gamma (0)=|\psi ^+\psi ^+|`$ and $`\gamma (2)=|\varphi ^+\varphi ^+|`$ and for all $`t,`$ $`\gamma (t)`$ is a maximally entangled state. There must exist a $`t_0`$ (and without loosing generality we can set $`t_0=1`$) with

$$(\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}|\psi ^+\psi ^+|)|(\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}\gamma (1))_{HS}=0.$$
(25)
This equation implies that $`\gamma (1)𝒫(q=0).`$ The map $`\gamma `$ induces another continuous map by

$$\eta :[0;1]S;t\eta (t)=\frac{2}{3}\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}+\frac{1}{3}\gamma (t).$$
(26)
Since $`\gamma (t)`$ is a maximally entangled state $`\eta (t)`$ is a point on $`S.`$ Furthermore all $`\eta (t)`$ have a distance of $`1/\sqrt{12}`$ to the state $`\mathrm{𝟙}/4,`$ i.e. $`\eta (t)B(\mathrm{𝟙}/4,1/\sqrt{12}).`$ Since $`\eta (0)𝒫(1/3)`$ and $`\eta (1)𝒫(0),`$ for any $`q[0,1/3],`$ $`𝒫(q)`$ contains one $`\eta (t_q)`$ and therefore $`XP(q)`$ contains a state on $`S.`$ $`\mathrm{}`$

If one knows the value of $`p`$ one can sharpen the statement of the last proposition:
Proposition 3. Let $`p`$ be fixed, $`\varrho (p,d)B_{p,d}`$ and

$$\vartheta :=\frac{1}{4}\frac{1}{24p}\frac{3p}{8}+\frac{(1p)^2d^2}{2p}.$$
(27)
Then we have:

$$Tr(\varrho (p,d)W_0)\vartheta \varrho (p,d)\text{ is separable.}$$
(28)
Furthermore: The $`\vartheta `$ defined in (27) is the minimal $`\vartheta `$ with the property (28) i.e. for all $`0\vartheta ^{}<\vartheta `$ there exists an entangled state $`\varrho (p,d)`$ with $`Tr(\varrho (p,d)W_0)=\vartheta ^{}.`$
*Proof.* The proof is essentially the same as the proof of Proposition 2. One just has to replace $`K`$ by $`B_{p,d}`$ and therefore $`KP(q)`$ by $`BP(q).`$ $`\mathrm{}`$

### 3.2 Error estimates

Consider the case that one has measured $`Tr(W_0\varrho (p,d))=\alpha `$ with $`\alpha [0,\tau ].`$ For such expectation value one cannot make a sure decision whether $`\varrho `$ is entangled or not. Nevertheless one can make a decision, if one accepts to make some error. Here we want to estimate the probability of making an error. First we give some analytical bounds on the error, then we perform some numerical simulations to rate the error.

For an estimate of an error, we have to make one further assumption on $`\varrho (p,d):`$ We have to assume some probability distribution. We always assume that for all $`p`$ and $`d,`$ $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is uniformly distributed in $`B_{p,d}.`$

#### 3.2.1 Analytical estimates

Our analytical estimation scheme relies on the fact that all states in the ball $`B(\mathrm{𝟙}/4,1/\sqrt{12})`$ are separable. Thus we know at least some separable states yielding expectation values $`\alpha [0,\tau ].`$ If we assume that $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is separable, this gives us an upper bound on the probability of the error.

For an illustration of this idea let us first assume that we know the fixed value of $`p`$ and we have measured $`Tr(W_0\varrho (p,d))=\alpha .`$ Via (16) we can compute the $`q`$ such that $`\varrho (p,d)𝒫(q).`$ We know then that $`\varrho (p,d)BP(q).`$ If we now assume that $`\varrho (p,d)`$ is separable, the probability of guessing right is given by the ratio of the volumes

$$e_r=\frac{\text{vol}(SP(q))}{\text{vol}(BP(q))},$$
(29)
and the probability of being wrong is bounded by

$$e_wE_w=\frac{\text{vol}(BP(q))\text{vol}(XP(q))}{\text{vol}(BP(q)}.$$
(30)
These terms can be calculated with the standard formulas for balls in higher dimensions: $`\text{vol}(BP(q))=(\pi ^7/7!)((1p)^2d^23/4(pq)^2)^7`$ and $`\text{vol}(XP(q))=(\pi ^7/7!)(1/123/4q^2)^7.`$

Since we do not know the value of $`p`$ we have to maximize $`E_w`$ over all $`p`$, then we arrive at

$$E_{}=\underset{p[0,1]}{sup}E_w=1\frac{\left(\alpha (\alpha \frac{1}{2})(d^2\frac{3}{4})\right)^7}{\left(d(\alpha +\frac{1}{2})\right)^{14}}.$$
(31)
This function is plotted together with numerical results in Fig. 1.

Let us mention that with the same method as above one can also estimate the error for other scenarios, for instance if one generally assumes that for $`Tr(W_0\varrho (p,d))0`$ $`\varrho `$ is separable without looking at the precise expectation value; we will not discuss further this direction here, however.

#### 3.2.2 Numerical calculations

One can investigate the properties of the witness also with numerical calculations. For this purpose one can generate random matrices  and compare the result of the witness with the PPT criterion, which is a necessary and sufficient criterion of separability for $`2\times 2`$ systems . We have generated a sample of 50000 random matrices (in Hilbert-Schmidt norm) in the ball $`B(\mathrm{𝟙}/4,1/\sqrt{12}).`$ By scaling we have retrieved then a set of 50000 random matrices $`\varrho (p,d)`$ for all $`p`$ and $`d.`$ With these matrices we have obtained our numerical estimates.

First, we investigated the error estimate with $`E_{}`$ from Eq. (31). For this purpose we computed $`e_w`$ and then $`e_{}`$ as the supremum of $`e_w`$ over all $`p.`$ This is shown in Fig. 1.

One may ask how big the error is, if one generally concludes from $`Tr(W_0\varrho (p,d))0`$ that $`\varrho (p,d)S.`$ We have estimated the error (maximized over all $`p`$). The result is given in Fig. 2.

## 4 Applications for 3-qubit and $`N\times N`$ systems

First, we consider three-qubit systems. For these systems two types of tripartite entanglement are known: The GHZ-states and the W-states . Also families of witnesses for these states are known  and we show how to decompose them locally. Then we say something about a decomposition of a projector in $`N\times N`$ systems.

### 4.1 Three qubits

Three qubits can be entangled in different ways: They might be separable, biseparable of fully tripartite entangled . The genuine threepartite entanglement consists of two classes: The GHZ-class and the W-class .

Witnesses for detection of GHZ-type states and W-type states have also been constructed in . Here we want to show that these witnesses can be decomposed within our scheme.

For the GHZ-class a witness is given by

$$W_{GHZ}=\frac{3}{4}\mathrm{𝟙}|GHZGHZ|,$$
(32)
where $`|GHZ`$ is a pure state of the GHZ-class: $`|GHZ=1/\sqrt{2}(|000+|111).`$ If $`\varrho `$ is a mixed state with $`Tr(\varrho W_{GHZ})<0`$ the state $`\varrho `$ belongs to the GHZ-class. A decomposition of $`W_{GHZ}`$ can be achieved with similar calculations as above. The result is:

$`W_{GHZ}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}(5\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z\sigma _z\sigma _z\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z\sigma _z\sigma _z\mathrm{𝟙}`$
$`\sigma _x\sigma _x\sigma _x+\sigma _x\sigma _y\sigma _y+\sigma _y\sigma _y\sigma _x+\sigma _y\sigma _x\sigma _y).`$
This witness can be measured with five collective measurement settings: Alice, Bob and Charly have to perform correlated measurements in the $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$, $`x`$-$`x`$-$`x`$, $`x`$-$`y`$-$`y`$,$`y`$-$`x`$-$`y`$ and the $`y`$-$`y`$-$`x`$ direction.

For the W-states several witnesses are known. One example is the operator

$$W_{W1}=\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{𝟙}|WW|,$$
(34)
where $`|W`$ is now a pure state of the W-class: $`|W=1/\sqrt{3}(|100+|010+|001.`$ This witness detects states belonging to the W-class and the GHZ-class, i.e. it’s expectation value is positive on all biseparable and fully separable states. A decomposition is given by

$`W_{W1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}(13\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z+`$ (35)
$`+\sigma _z\sigma _z\mathrm{𝟙}+\sigma _z\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z+\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _z\sigma _z+3\sigma _z\sigma _z\sigma _z)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}(\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _x\sigma _x+\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _y\sigma _y+\sigma _z\sigma _x\sigma _x+\sigma _z\sigma _y\sigma _y+`$
$`\sigma _x\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _x+\sigma _y\mathrm{𝟙}\sigma _y+\sigma _x\sigma _z\sigma _x+\sigma _y\sigma _z\sigma _y+`$
$`\sigma _x\sigma _x\mathrm{𝟙}+\sigma _y\sigma _y\mathrm{𝟙}+\sigma _x\sigma _x\sigma _z+\sigma _y\sigma _y\sigma _z).`$
Although this decomposition is a little bit longer, only seven correlated measurements are necessary.

Another witness for W-class states is given by

$$W_{W2}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{𝟙}|GHZGHZ|.$$
(36)
This witness can be measured locally with the same decomposition as (LABEL:ghzwitnesszerlegung). It also can serve for a detection of states of the type $`(1p)\mathrm{𝟙}/8+p|WW|,`$ as explained in .

### 4.2 $`N\times N`$ systems

Now we want to generalize our results to higher dimensions. First we consider $`N\times N`$ systems, and the end of this section we make some remarks about $`N\times M`$ systems.

A witness for an entangled state $`\varrho `$ with a non positive partial transpose can be constructed just like in the two-qubit case. First, one computes one eigenvector corresponding to one negative eigenvalue of $`\varrho ^{T_B}.`$ The partially transposed projector onto this vector is an entanglement witness. We want to decompose such witnesses for NPT states in this section. We only look at projectors, the partial transposition can be performed later.

Our discussion proceeds as follows: After explaining our notation we construct a decomposition of a projector onto a state with Schmidt rank $`l`$ using about $`2l`$ measurements. This decomposition is a generalization of the decomposition for the two qubit case. It is not clear whether this decomposition is optimal. Then we derive a lower bound for the number of measurements needed if the Schmidt rank $`l`$ is maximal. We show that if $`l=N`$ at least $`l+1`$ measurements are necessary.

We first explain some notational and technical details (the reader should consult  for more explanations). We denote the real vector space of all Hermitean operators on $`_A`$ by $`𝒮_A.`$ In this space one can use the orthogonal basis $`\{\mathrm{𝟙},G_i^A,i=1\mathrm{}N^21\}`$ where the $`G_i^A`$ are the traceless generators of the $`SU(N),`$ normalized to $`Tr(G_i^2)=1.`$ For $`N=2`$ they are the Pauli matrices, for $`N=3`$ the Gell-Mann matrices, etc. We can define $`G_0^A:=\mathrm{𝟙}`$ and can expand every projector (and any other element of $`𝒮_A`$) in this basis:

$$|\varphi \varphi |=\underset{i=0}{\overset{N^21}{}}f_iG_i^A,$$
(37)
where the entries of the Bloch vector $`f_i`$ are real, $`f_0=1/N,`$ and from the fact that $`|\varphi \varphi |`$ is a pure state it follows that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{N^21}{}}f_i^2=1\frac{1}{N}.$$
(38)
We sometimes write $`(f_0,\mathrm{},f_{N^21})=(f_0,\stackrel{}{f})=\widehat{f}.`$ It is easy to see that an operator described by $`\widehat{g}`$ is a projector onto a vector orthogonal to $`|\varphi `$ if and only if $`\stackrel{}{g}`$ fulfills (38) and

$$<\stackrel{}{f},\stackrel{}{g}>:=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N^21}{}}f_ig_i=\frac{1}{N}.$$
(39)
One can also expand any projector (as every operator) on $`_A_B`$ as

$$|\psi \psi |=\underset{i,j=0}{\overset{N^21}{}}\lambda _{ij}G_i^AG_j^B$$
(40)
since the $`G_i^AG_j^B`$ form a product basis of the space $`𝒮=𝒮_A𝒮_B.`$

Before we show our decomposition please note that is easy to decompose any operator $`A𝒮`$ into $`N^2`$ local measurements. One can always write

$$A=\underset{i,j=0}{\overset{N^21}{}}\mu _{ij}G_i^AG_j^B=\underset{i=0}{\overset{N^21}{}}G_i^A\left(\underset{j=0}{\overset{N^21}{}}\mu _{ij}G_j^B\right)$$
(41)
to obtain such a decomposition. This is also a decomposition of the form (9).
Theorem 1. Let $`|\psi \psi |`$ be a projector onto a state with Schmidt rank $`l.`$ If $`l`$ is even, $`|\psi \psi |`$ can be decomposed into $`2l1`$ local measurements. If $`l`$ is odd, $`|\psi \psi |`$ can be decomposed into $`2l`$ local measurements.
*Proof.* If we have $`|\psi =_{i=1}^ls_i|ii`$ we can write

$$|\psi \psi |=\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}s_i^2|iiii|+\underset{i,j=1,i<j}{\overset{l}{}}s_is_jK(i,j)$$
(42)
with $`K(i,j)=|iijj|+|jjii|.`$ The first sum corresponds to one measurement and every of the $`l(l1)/2`$ terms of the second sum can be decomposed by defining for every $`K(i,j)`$ the directions $`|X_{i,j}^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|i\pm |j,|Y_{i,j}^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|i\pm i|j`$ and writing:

$`K(i,j)`$ $`=`$ $`|X_{i,j}^+X_{i,j}^+X_{i,j}^+X_{i,j}^+|+|X_{i,j}^{}X_{i,j}^{}X_{i,j}^{}X_{i,j}^{}|`$ (43)
$`|Y_{i,j}^+Y_{i,j}^+Y_{i,j}^+Y_{i,j}^+||Y_{i,j}^{}Y_{i,j}^{}Y_{i,j}^{}Y_{i,j}^{}|),`$
as we have done before for $`2\times 2`$ systems. This corresponds to $`2`$ measurements for each $`K(i,j).`$

The idea is now to sum up the terms from (43) for different $`K(i,j)`$ and $`K(m,n)`$ in a way that the terms from different $`K(i,j)`$ and $`K(m,n)`$ can be measured with one measurement.

Let us first consider the case that $`l`$ is even. We have $`l(l1)/2`$ index pairs $`(i,j).`$ These pairs can be grouped into $`l1`$ sets of $`l/2`$ pairs in a way that in every set every index $`1iN`$ appears exactly in one pair. For instance for $`l=4`$ the $`3`$ sets may be defined as $`\{(1,2),(3,4)\},\{(1,3),(2,4)\},\{(1,4),(2,3)\}.`$ If we look at the $`l/2`$ $`K(i,j)`$ belonging to one set, the corresponding vectors $`|X_{i,j}^\pm `$ are mutually orthogonal, they form an orthogonal basis of $`_A`$ and $`_B.`$ So all these vectors can be viewed as eigenvectors of some Hermitean operator on $`_A`$ and $`_B`$ and can be measured with one measurement. The vectors $`|Y_{i,j}^\pm `$ can also be measured with one measurement. So we need $`2`$ measurements for one set and $`2(l1)`$ measurements for all $`K(i,j).`$ Finally we need one measurement for the first sum on the rhs of (42) and this completes the proof for even $`l.`$

If $`l`$ is odd, we can similarly group the $`l(l1)/2`$ index pairs into $`l`$ sets of $`(l1)/2`$ pairs. This time in every set every index appears at most one time, one index is missing in every set and every index is missing in exactly one set. As before we need $`2`$ measurements for one set and therefore $`2l`$ measurements for all $`K(i,j).`$ For the first sum on the rhs of (42) we do not need another measurement since we can put vector $`|i`$ to the set of index pairs where $`i`$ is missing. $`\mathrm{}`$

Now we want to give a lower bound for the number of required measurements for a projector. This bound is based on the same idea as the proof of Proposition 2 and needs three lemmata. In Lemma 1 we give a lower bound for the rank of some matrix of the form (14) in $`N\times N`$-systems. In the Lemmata 2 and 3 we show that the matrix coming from one measurement has a low rank. Together this proves our bound.
Lemma 1. If $`|\psi _A_B`$ has the full Schmidt rank $`N`$ then the matrix $`(\lambda _{ij})`$ in (40) has the full rank $`N^2`$.
*Proof.* First, notice that the rank of $`(\lambda _{ij})`$ is independent of the choice of the basis $`G_i^AG_j^B.`$ If one has another basis $`H_i^AH_j^B`$ with $`G_i^A=_la_{il}H_l^A`$ and $`G_j^B=_rb_{jr}H_r^B`$ the new matrix of coefficients is given by $`(\lambda _{lr}^{})=_{i,j}a_{li}^T\lambda _{ij}b_{jr}`$ and since the matrices $`(a_{il})`$ and $`(b_{jr})`$ have full rank the matrix $`(\lambda _{ij}^{})`$ has the same rank as $`(\lambda _{ij}).`$

Now we simply construct an orthonormal product basis of $`𝒮`$ where $`(\lambda _{ij}^{})`$ is diagonal and the diagonal elements do not vanish. Starting from the Schmidt-decomposition $`|\psi =_{i=1}^Ns_i|ii`$ we define on $`_A,`$ as well as on $`_B:`$

$`P_k`$ $`=`$ $`|kk|,1kN`$ (44)
$`Q_{jk}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|jk|+|kj|),1j<kN`$ (45)
$`R_{jk}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}}(|jk||kj|),1j<kN.`$ (46)
These $`N^2`$ operators form an orthonormal basis of $`𝒮_A`$ (resp. $`𝒮_B`$), denoted by $`H_i^A`$ (resp. $`H_i^B`$), and if one computes

$$\lambda _{rs}^{}=\underset{\alpha ,\beta =1}{\overset{N}{}}s_\alpha s_\beta \alpha |H_r^A|\beta \alpha |H_s^B|\beta $$
(47)
one can directly verify that $`(\lambda _{rs}^{})`$ is in the basis $`H_r^AH_s^B`$ diagonal and has the full rank. $`\mathrm{}`$
Corollary 1. If $`|\psi _A_B`$ has the Schmidt rank $`l`$ then the matrix $`(\lambda _{ij})`$ in (40) has the rank $`l^2`$.
*Proof.* The proof is essentially the same as the proof of Lemma 1. We can view $`|\psi `$ as a vector in a $`l\times l`$-system. $`\mathrm{}`$
Corollary 2. If $`|\psi _A_B`$ has the Schmidt rank $`l`$ then a decomposition in the sense of (9) requires $`l^2`$ Hermitean operators for every party.
*Proof.* If one would need less, this would be a direct contradiction to Lemma 1 and Corollary 1. Please note that we have already computed this decomposition – see (41). $`\mathrm{}`$
Lemma 2. Let $`\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_r^n`$ be some vectors obeying the equations

$$<\stackrel{}{v}_i,\stackrel{}{v}_j>=C0ij.$$
(48)
$`\stackrel{}{v}_r`$ should be uniquely defined by $`\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_{r1}`$ and the equations (48) while $`\stackrel{}{v}_{r1}`$ should not be uniquely defined by $`\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_{r2}`$ and the equations (48). Then we have

$$\stackrel{}{v}_r\text{Lin}(\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_{r1})$$
(49)
and

$$\text{dim}(\text{Lin}(\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_r))=r1$$
(50)
where $`\text{Lin}(\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_r)`$ denotes the linear subspace spanned by $`\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_r.`$
*Proof.* We can split $`\stackrel{}{v}_r`$ in two parts:

$$\stackrel{}{v}_r=\stackrel{}{v}_r+\stackrel{}{v}_{r_{},}$$
(51)
where $`\stackrel{}{v}_r\text{Lin}(\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_{r1})`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v}_r\text{Lin}(\stackrel{}{v}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{v}_{r1}).`$ Since $`\stackrel{}{v}_r`$ is unique, it follows that $`\stackrel{}{v}_r=0`$ (otherwise $`\stackrel{}{v}_r=\stackrel{}{v}_r\stackrel{}{v}_r`$ would be a different solution) and the first part of the statement is proven. The equality in (50) comes from the fact that $`\stackrel{}{v}_{r1}`$ is not unique. $`\mathrm{}`$
Lemma 3. Let $`M`$ be one LvNM in the sense of (7) expanded in the $`G_i^AG_j^B`$ basis:

$$M=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}c_{ij}|A_iA_i||B_jB_j|=\underset{i,j=0}{\overset{N^21}{}}\mu _{ij}G_i^AG_j^B$$
(52)
Then the $`(N^21)\times (N^21)`$ submatrix in the right bottom corner of the $`N^2\times N^2`$ matrix $`(\mu _{ij})`$ (called $`(\mu _{ij})_{red}=(\mu _{ij})_{i,j=1,\mathrm{}N^21}`$) has the rank $`N1.`$
*Proof.* We can write any of the projectors $`|A_iA_i|`$ and $`|B_jB_j|`$ as Bloch vectors $`\widehat{A}_i`$ and $`\widehat{B}_j`$ (resp. $`\stackrel{}{A}_i`$ and $`\stackrel{}{B}_j`$) with the help of (37). Then we have

$$(\mu _{ij})_{red}=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}c_{ij}(\stackrel{}{A}_i)^T(\stackrel{}{B}_j).$$
(53)
This is a $`(N^21)\times (N^21)`$ matrix, since every $`(\stackrel{}{A}_i)^T\stackrel{}{B}_j`$ is a $`(N^21)\times (N^21)`$ matrix. The range of this matrix is spanned by the vectors $`(\stackrel{}{A}_i)^T.`$ The vectors $`(\stackrel{}{A}_i)^T`$ correspond to the vectors $`|A_i,`$ and they obey relations of the form (39). Furthermore, $`\stackrel{}{A}_N`$ is uniquely determined by $`\stackrel{}{A}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{A}_{N1},`$ since $`|A_N`$ is uniquely determined by $`|A_1,\mathrm{},|A_{N1}.`$ Thus, we can apply our Lemma 2, and the rank of $`(\mu _{ij})_{red}`$ is $`N1.`$ $`\mathrm{}`$
Theorem 2. Let $`|\psi _A_B`$ have full Schmidt rank $`N>1.`$ Then a local measurement of the projector $`|\psi \psi |`$ requires at least $`N+1`$ measurements.
*Proof.* If we look at $`|\psi \psi |`$ in the form (40) the matrix $`\lambda _{ij}`$ has, according to Lemma 1, the full rank $`N^2,`$ the reduced matrix $`(\lambda _{ij})_{red}=(\lambda _{ij})_{i,j=1,\mathrm{}N^21}`$ has a rank of at least $`N^22.`$

Since the matrix $`(\mu _{ij})_{red}`$ corresponding to a single LvNM has, according to Lemma 3, the rank $`N1`$ we need at least $`(N^22)/(N1)=N+11/(N1)`$ measurements. This proves the statement for $`N3.`$ For $`N=2`$ please recall that we have already computed that the submatrix $`(\lambda _{ij})_{red}`$ is of rank $`N^21=3`$, not $`N^22.`$ This proves the claim for the case $`N=2.`$ $`\mathrm{}`$

The question remains, which of these results remain valid for $`N\times M`$-systems with $`M>N.`$ The answer is simple: All results remain valid. Since the maximal Schmidt rank in a $`N\times M`$-system is $`N,`$ Theorem 1 can be proven in just the same way. Also the arguments which led to Theorem 2 can be applied.

## 5 Bound entangled states

In Hilbert spaces with dimensions higher than $`2\times 3`$, there exist entangled states with positive partial transpose, the bound entangled states . For this kind of states no general operational entanglement criterion is known and thus even complete knowledge of the density matrix may not suffice to decide whether a state is entangled or not. There exists, however, an important class of bound entangled states, the so-called ”edge” states , for which the optimal witness operators can be constructed explicitly. In situations where an experiment is aimed at the generation of an edge state our method of local decomposition of a witness provides, therefore, a genuine experimental test.

A state $`\delta `$ is called an edge state iff it cannot be represented as $`\delta =q\delta ^{}+(1q)\sigma _s`$, where $`0q<1`$, $`\sigma _s`$ is a separable state and $`\delta ^{}`$ is a state with a positive partial transpose. In other words, for all product vectors $`|e,f`$ and $`ϵ>0`$, $`\delta ϵ|e,fe,f|`$ is not a bound entangled state anymore. This implies that the edge states lie on the boundary between the bound entangled states and the entangled states with non positive partial transpose. They violate the range criterion  in an extremal sense, i.e. $`\delta `$ is an entangled edge state with a positive partial transpose iff for all product vectors $`|e,fR(\delta )`$, $`|e,f^{}R(\delta ^{T_B})`$, where $`R(\delta )`$ denotes the range of $`\delta `$.

The generic form of an entanglement witness for such a state $`\delta `$ is

$$W=\overline{W}ϵ\mathrm{𝟙},$$
(54)
where

$`\overline{W}`$ $`=`$ $`(P+Q^{T_A})`$ (55)
$`ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{|e,f}{inf}e,f|\overline{W}|e,f,`$ (56)
and $`P`$ and $`Q`$ denote the projectors onto the kernel of $`\delta `$ and $`\delta ^{T_A}`$, respectively.

In the following we construct witnesses following this method for three kinds of bound entangled edge states from the literature, unextendable product basis (UPB) states introduced by Bennett et al. , ”chessboard” states from Bruß and Peres  and the bound entangled states in $`2\times 4`$ dimensions introduced by P. Horodecki , and decompose them locally optimizing the number of projectors onto product states or the number of settings as explained above. Note that for this particular construction it is from an experimentalist’s point of view natural to decompose and optimize $`\overline{W}`$ rather than $`W`$, because the term $`ϵ\mathrm{𝟙}`$ does not require any special setting.

### 5.1 UPB states in $`3\times 3`$ dimensions

The states

$`|\psi _0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}|0(|0|1),|\psi _2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}|2(|1|2),`$
$`|\psi _1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|0|1)|2,|\psi _3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|1|2)|0,`$
$`|\psi _4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(|0+|1+|2)(|0+|1+|2)`$ (57)
form a UPB , i.e. they are orthogonal to each other and there is no other product vector orthogonal to all of them. Therefore the state

$$\varrho _{\text{UPB}}=\frac{1}{4}(\mathrm{𝟙}\underset{i=0}{\overset{4}{}}|\psi _i\psi _i|),$$
(58)
which is the projection on the space orthogonal to that spanned by the UPB, does not contain any product state in its range. Furthermore, it has a positive partial transpose due to the orthonormality of the states $`|\psi _i`$. Therefore, $`\varrho _{\text{UPB}}`$ is an entangled edge state with a positive partial transpose.

The projectors $`P`$ and $`Q`$ are related to each other by

$$P_1=Q_1^{T_A}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{4}{}}|\psi _i\psi _i|,$$
(59)
therefore we skip $`Q^{T_A}`$ and write the witness as

$$W_{\text{UPB}}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{4}{}}|\psi _i\psi _i|ϵ\mathrm{𝟙}.$$
(60)
Five measurements are necessary to measure this witness, one for each of the five projectors, since the UPB is constructed in such a way that no two projectors can be evaluated in the same basis. The main problem of this construction is to find $`ϵ`$. An analytical bound obtained by Terhal  gives

$$ϵ\frac{1}{9}\frac{(6\sqrt{30})}{6}\frac{(2\sqrt{3})}{2}0.001297.$$
(61)
Numerical analysis leads however to the much bigger value $`ϵ0.02842`$.

In this case it is also interesting to optimize the number of local projection measurements needed for the measurement of the total witness $`W_{\text{UPB}}`$. We extend the set $`\{|\psi _i,i=0,\mathrm{},3\}`$ with the vectors

$`|\psi _5`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}|0(|0+|1),|\psi _7={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}|2(|1+|2),`$
$`|\psi _6`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|0+|1)|2,|\psi _8={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|1+|2)|0,`$
$`|\psi _9`$ $`=`$ $`|11`$ (62)
to an orthonormal basis which can be used to decompose the identity. Altogether we are then left with a pseudo-mixture containing 10 projectors. Denoting $`B_1=\{|0,|1,|2\}`$, $`B_2=\{(|0|1)/\sqrt{2},|2,(|0+|1)/\sqrt{2}\}`$, $`B_3=\{(|1|2)/\sqrt{2},|0,(|1+|2)/\sqrt{2}\}`$, and $`B_4=\{(|0|1)/\sqrt{2},(|0+|1+|2)/\sqrt{3},(|0+|12|2)/2\}`$, we easily see that measurement of $`W_{\text{UPB}}`$ decomposed in this form requires 6 correlated settings for Alice and Bob: $`B_1B_2,B_2B_1,B_1B_3,B_3B_1,B_4B_4,`$ and $`B_1B_1`$, therefore it is unfeasible to decompose the whole witness from the number of settings point of view as noted above. By subtracting in Eq. (54) some positive operator $`I`$ instead of $`\mathrm{𝟙}`$, one can reduce the number of projectors in the decomposition of $`W_{\text{UPB}}`$ to 9 – this gives an ONP, since the number of terms in any ONP must be larger than or equal to the rank of the witness, which is equal to 9. The idea is to form $`I`$ as a convex sum of projectors onto $`|\psi _i_{i=0,\mathrm{},4}`$ and onto 4 other product vectors that are obviously not orthogonal to the 5 UPB states, but can be chosen such that the set of the 9 vectors forms a basis. If we choose as the additional vectors $`|\overline{\psi }_i_{i=4,\mathrm{},7}`$ the decomposition contains 9 projectors in 5 settings. The bound for $`ϵ`$ has to be adapted as

$$ϵ^{}=\underset{|e,f}{inf}\frac{e,f|\overline{W}|e,f}{e,f|I|e,f}.$$
(63)
Numerical analysis leads to a value of $`ϵ^{}0.0311`$. Note that when the bound entangled state is affected by white noise, namely $`\rho _p=p\rho _{\text{UPB}}+(1p)\mathrm{𝟙}/9`$, the witness given above is still suitable for the detection of entanglement. For the witness in Eq. (60), $`Tr(W_{\text{UPB}}\rho _p)<0`$ when $`p>(19ϵ/5)`$.

### 5.2 Chessboard states in $`3\times 3`$ dimensions

The states introduced in  are constructed from 4 entangled vectors,

$`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$ $`=`$ $`N{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}}|V_iV_i|,`$ (64)
$`|V_1`$ $`=`$ $`(m,0,s;0,n,0;0,0,0)`$
$`|V_2`$ $`=`$ $`(0,a,0;b,0,c;0,0,0)`$
$`|V_3`$ $`=`$ $`(n^{},0,0;0,m^{},0;t,0,0)`$ (65)
$`|V_4`$ $`=`$ $`(0,b^{},0;0,a^{},0;0,d,0),`$
where $``$ denotes complex conjugation and $`N=1/_jV_j|V_j`$. By choosing the phases of the $`|V_i`$ and the basis vectors, 6 of the parameters can be made real. Without loss of generality, $`t`$ and $`s`$ can be assumed to be complex. In matrix form, $`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$ can then be written as

$$\varrho _{\text{cb}}=N\left(\begin{array}{ccccccccc}m^2+n^2& 0& ms^{}& 0& 0& 0& nt^{}& 0& 0\\ 0& a^2+b^2& 0& 0& 0& ac& 0& bd& 0\\ sm& 0& |s|^2& 0& sn& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& a^2+b^2& 0& bc& 0& ad& 0\\ 0& 0& ns^{}& 0& m^2+n^2& 0& mt^{}& 0& 0\\ 0& ac& 0& cb& 0& c^2& 0& 0& 0\\ tn& 0& 0& 0& tm& 0& |t|^2& 0& 0\\ 0& bd& 0& da& 0& 0& 0& d^2& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right).$$
(66)
Bruß and Peres suggested two methods of ensuring that $`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$ is bound entangled. We will employ the first one, i.e. we demand that $`\rho _{\text{cb}}=\rho _{\text{cb}}^{T_A}`$, which is fulfilled for $`t=ad/m`$ and $`s=ac/n`$ real and implies that $`P=Q`$. The kernel of $`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$ (and of $`\rho _{\text{cb}}^{T_A}`$) is spanned by the (non-normalized) vectors

$`|k_1`$ $`=`$ $`|22`$ (67)
$`|k_2`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{m}{n}},0,{\displaystyle \frac{m^2+n^2}{ac}};0,1,0;0,0,0)`$ (68)
$`|k_3`$ $`=`$ $`(0,{\displaystyle \frac{ac}{a^2+b^2}},0;{\displaystyle \frac{bc}{a^2+b^2}},0,1;0,0,0)`$ (69)
$`|k_4`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{ad}{mn}},0,{\displaystyle \frac{d}{c}};0,0,0;1,0,0)`$ (70)
$`|k_5`$ $`=`$ $`(0,{\displaystyle \frac{bd}{a^2+b^2}},0;{\displaystyle \frac{ad}{a^2+b^2}},0,0;0,1,0).`$ (71)
In order to decompose the witness $`W`$ in terms of projectors onto product states we first examine whether there are more product vectors in the kernel of $`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$, so we try to solve

$$(a_1|0+a_2|1+a_3|2)(b_1|0+b_2|1+b_3|2)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{5}{}}x_i|k_i.$$
(72)
When writing down the equations one can see that the $`x_i`$ can be substituted by products of one $`a_j`$ and one $`b_k`$. Then it is possible to solve the set of equations which is then linear in the parameters $`b_k`$. This in turn gives two equations for the $`a_j`$. The first solution is given by

$$|k_4^{}=|k_4\frac{mn}{ac}|k_1=(\frac{ad}{mn},0,1)(1,0,\frac{mn}{ac}),$$
(73)
and with

$`\alpha _1`$ $``$ $`(m^2+n^2)bmn(a^2+b^2)am^2`$
$`\alpha _3`$ $``$ $`ad^2n^2`$
$`\alpha _{13}`$ $``$ $`(m^2+n^2)(mn+ab)d2abdm^2`$ (74)
$`\gamma _1^{0,1}`$ $``$ $`\left(\alpha _{13}\pm \sqrt{\alpha _{13}^24\alpha _1\alpha _3}\right)/2\alpha _3`$
$`\gamma _2^{0,1}`$ $``$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{am^2}}\left(bmn+d(mn+ab)\gamma _1^{0,1}+ad^2(\gamma _1^{0,1})^2\right)\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ (75)
the other solutions can be written as

$`|e,f=a_1(1,\pm \gamma _2^{0,1},\gamma _1^{0,1})b_2(\pm {\displaystyle \frac{m^2\gamma _2^{0,1}}{mn+ad\gamma _1^{0,1}}},1,{\displaystyle \frac{a^2+b^2+bd\gamma _1^{0,1}}{ac\gamma _2^{0,1}}}).`$ (76)
The parameters $`a_1`$ and $`b_2`$ can be used to normalize the vectors. We found 6 product vectors in the kernels. Of those vectors, 5 will be linearly independent in general. Since they do not form an orthonormal set, we cannot construct $`P`$ and $`Q`$ from them. However, the witness can also be constructed by using instead of the projector onto the kernel of $`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$ ($`\rho _{\text{cb}}^{T_A}`$) an operator $`\stackrel{~}{P}`$ ($`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$) which is strictly positive on the range of the kernel of $`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$ ($`\rho _{\text{cb}}^{T_A}`$). This will only affect the value of $`ϵ`$. Here $`\stackrel{~}{P}=\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ can be constructed by summing the projectors onto five linearly independent product vectors from the kernel of $`\rho _{\text{cb}}`$. Since the vectors are real, we have in addition that $`\stackrel{~}{P}=\stackrel{~}{Q}^{T_A}`$. Hence in general the ”pre-witness” $`\overline{W}`$ can be decomposed into 5 projectors onto product vectors requiring 5 settings to measure $`Tr(W_{\text{cb}}\rho )`$, one for each of the projectors.

### 5.3 Horodecki states in $`2\times 4`$ dimensions

The positive operators introduced in  can be written in matrix form as

$$\rho _b=\frac{1}{7b+1}\left(\begin{array}{cccccccc}b& 0& 0& 0& 0& b& 0& 0\\ 0& b& 0& 0& 0& 0& b& 0\\ 0& 0& b& 0& 0& 0& 0& b\\ 0& 0& 0& b& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& \frac{1}{2}(1+b)& 0& 0& \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{1b^2}\\ b& 0& 0& 0& 0& b& 0& 0\\ 0& b& 0& 0& 0& 0& b& 0\\ 0& 0& b& 0& \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{1b^2}& 0& 0& \frac{1}{2}(1+b)\end{array}\right),$$
(77)
where $`b[0,1]`$. For $`b=0,1`$, the matrix $`\rho _b`$ is separable, and bound entangled for all other values of $`b`$. In the following we assume $`b0,1`$. The kernel of $`\rho _b`$ is spanned by the entangled vectors

$`|k_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(1,0,0,0;0,1,0,0)`$ (78)
$`|k_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(0,1,0,0;0,0,1,0)`$ (79)
$`|k_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2+y^2}}}(0,0,1,0;y,0,0,1),`$ (80)
where $`y=\sqrt{(1b)/(1+b)}`$, so any vector in the kernel can be represented as

$$|k=(A,B,C,0;yC,A,B,C)$$
(81)
where $`A,B,C,D`$ are complex parameters. For $`|k`$ to be a product vector, it must be of the form

$$|e,f=(r,s)(A^{},B^{},C^{},D^{})(r(A^{},B^{},C^{},D^{});s(A^{},B^{},C^{},D^{})),$$
(82)
where $`r,s,A^{},B^{},C^{}`$ are complex parameters. It can be readily checked that there is no possibility to write $`|k`$ in this form, therefore there is no product vector in the kernel of $`\rho _b`$. On the other hand, the kernel of $`\rho _b^{T_B}`$ is spanned by the entangled vectors

$`|k_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(0,0,1,0;0,1,0,0)`$ (83)
$`|k_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(0,0,0,1;0,0,1,0)`$ (84)
$`|k_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2+y^2}}}(0,1,0,0;1,0,0,y),`$ (85)
and does not contain any product vector, either. Therefore, the decomposition of the witness from Eq. (54) in projectors onto product vectors is a rather tedious task. On the other hand, we can write down the witness $`W`$ as in Eq. (54) and then decompose it as in Eq. (9) and (41)

$$W=\underset{i=0}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{j=0}{\overset{15}{}}w_{ij}\sigma _i\tau _j\underset{i=0}{\overset{3}{}}\sigma _i\stackrel{~}{\tau }_i$$
(86)
in a straightforward manner. Here $`\sigma _i`$ and $`\tau _i`$, for $`i>0`$, are the generators of the SU(2) and SU(4), respectively, while $`\sigma _0=\mathrm{𝟙}_2/2`$ and $`\tau _0=\mathrm{𝟙}_4/4`$.

The matrices $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$ turn out to be

$$\stackrel{~}{\tau }_0=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}c& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& c& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& c& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& c\end{array}\right)+(68ϵ)\tau _0,$$
(87)
$$\stackrel{~}{\tau }_1=\frac{1}{4}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& cy^2& 2cy& 0\\ cy^2& 0& 2& 2cy\\ 2cy& 2& 0& c(4+y^2)\\ 0& 2cy& c(4+y^2)& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(88)
$$\stackrel{~}{\tau }_2=\frac{i}{4}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& cy^2& 2cy& 0\\ cy2& 0& 2& 2cy\\ 2cy& 2& 0& c(4+y^2)\\ 0& 2cy& c(4+y^2)& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(89)
and

$$\stackrel{~}{\tau }_3=cy^2\tau _0,$$
(90)
where $`c=1/(2+y^2)`$. The number of correlated settings is 4, but Alice and Bob need only 3 different settings each to measure the witness.

Summarizing, we have shown that for UPB states and ”chessboard” states in $`3\times 3`$ systems, one needs 5 LvNMs to detect the witness, whereas for Horodecki states in $`2\times 4`$ systems, 4 correlated measurements are necessary.

## 6 Conclusion

In this paper we have studied the problem of detection of entangled states using entanglement witnesses and few local measurements. Two optimization scenarios were discussed: the one corresponding to the decomposition of the witness operator into the optimal number of projectors on product vectors (ONP) and the one corresponding to the decomposition of the witness into the optimal number of settings of detecting devices (ONS). Several exact results and estimates have been obtained concerning optimal detection strategies for NPT states on $`2\times 2`$ and $`N\times M`$ systems, entangled states in 3 qubit systems, and bound entangled states in $`3\times 3`$ and $`2\times 4`$ systems. Despite numerous results and progress in understanding this problem, the general question of finding ONP and ONS for an arbitrary witness operator remains open.

We wish to thank K. Życzkowski, I. Cirac, S. Haroche, S. Huelga, B. Kraus, and H. Weinfurter for discussions. This work has been supported by DFG (Graduiertenkolleg 282 and Schwerpunkt “Quanteninformationsverarbeitung”), the ESF-Programme PESC, and the EU IST-Programme EQUIP.

While finishing this paper we became aware of a recent preprint by A. Pittenger and M. Rubin , where it was shown how, if $`N`$ is prime, a projector onto a pure maximally entangled state with full Schmidt rank can be measured with $`N+1`$ LvNMs. Thus, our bound from Theorem 2 can be reached for this case.