Long-range (LR) quantum spin systems offer promising advantages for quantum information processing and sensing. Here, we investigate parameter estimation in an long-range XX spin model coupled to a reservoir, which gives rise to an effective long-range RT-symmetric non-Hermitian iXY Hamiltonian. The interactions extend up to a tunable coordination range and decay algebraically with distance, enabling a direct comparison between long-range and short-range (SR) regimes. Focusing on the estimation of the transverse magnetic field and anisotropy parameter, we initialize the system in a fully polarized state and analyze the resulting dynamical quantum Fisher information (QFI). We show that, with suitable tuning of the system parameters, both the time and system-size scaling of the QFI are enhanced in the LR regime relative to their SR counterparts. Moreover, the non-Hermitian LR model can exhibit superior dynamical QFI compared with the corresponding Hermitian model, demonstrating a genuine metrological advantage induced by the interplay of long-range interactions and non-Hermitian effects. In contrast, we establish a no-go result at the critical magnetic field: when the probe is prepared in the lowest-energy eigenstate, the QFI scaling remains identical for the Hermitian and non-Hermitian cases.

The non-Hermitian model exhibits counter-intuitive phenomena which are not observed in the Hermitian counterparts. To probe the competition between non-Hermitian and Hermitian interacting components of the Hamiltonian, we focus on a system containing non-Hermitian XY spin chain and Hermitian Kaplan-Shekhtman-Entin-Aharony (KSEA) interactions along with the transverse magnetic field. We show that the non-Hermitian model can be an effective Hamiltonian of a Hermitian XX spin-1/2 with KSEA interaction and a local magnetic field that interacts with local and non-local reservoirs. The analytical expression of the energy spectrum divides the system parameters into two regimes -- in one region, the strength of Hermitian KSEA interactions dominates over the imaginary non-Hermiticity parameter while in the other, the opposite is true. In the former situation, we demonstrate that the nearest-neighbor entanglement and its derivative can identify quantum critical lines with the variation of the magnetic field. In this domain, we determine a surface where the entanglement vanishes, similar to the factorization surface, known in the Hermitian case. On the other hand, when non-Hermiticity parameters dominate, we report the exceptional and critical points where the energy gap vanishes and illustrate that bipartite entanglement is capable of detecting these transitions as well. Going beyond this scenario, when the ground state evolves after a sudden quench with the transverse magnetic field, both rate function and the fluctuation of bipartite entanglement quantified via its second moment can detect critical lines generated without quenching dynamics.

In quantum networks, decoherence is often mitigated by eliminating connections between nodes via performing measurements on selected nodes. We introduce the notion of ”regionally localized entanglement” for the resulting smaller network as the average entanglement concentrated over a two-qubit region. We calculate the total regionally localized entanglement over all two-qubit regions sharing a specific common ”hub” qubit, and prove it to be bounded above and below via the localizable block entanglement between the hub and the rest of the system for a number of paradigmatic pure states. Numerical simulations support the extension of the validity of the bounds derived for permutation-symmetric pure states to the cases of Haar-uniformly generated pure states, and when each of the qubits is sent through local Markovian and non-Markovian phase-flip channels. Further, arbitrary states from a particular excitation sector yield bounds that are distinct from the permutation-symmetric states, highlighting the structurally unique entanglement properties of the former.

We examine the cooling of networks of oscillators through repeated unitary evolution followed by conditional measurement on a finite-dimensional auxiliary system, coupled via Jaynes-Cummings type interaction. We prove that near-perfect cooling of the oscillator to vacuum is fundamentally impossible when the auxiliary system is a qubit, establishing a no-cooling theorem for a two-level regulator. Moving beyond this limitation, we reveal a twofold dimensional advantage of higher-dimensional auxiliaries - reducing the number of required cycles, and enabling the efficient cooling of oscillators with higher initial energies. We further show that, while extending the network leads to a saturation of this dimensional advantage at moderate auxiliary dimensions, near-perfect cooling remains achievable for linear network configurations but fails for star networks. Moreover, we highlight the adaptability of the proposed protocol by demonstrating efficient cooling of hybrid continuous- and discrete-variable systems that naturally support the generation of non-Gaussian and entangled quantum resources.

We introduce noise-adaptive quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, in which the honest parties optimize the encoding (state preparation) and decoding (measurement basis) operations according to the noise models affecting the honest subsystems induced by an eavesdropper. This extends conventional QKD schemes that employ fixed encoding and decoding strategies independent of the noise characteristics of the communication channel. We investigate three representative protocols: entanglement-based secure dense coding (SDC), the entanglement-free Lucamarini and Mancini (LM05), and a two-way prepare-and-measure Bennett Brassard (BB84) protocols. Using entropic uncertainty relations, we derive the corresponding secret key rates for both adaptive and conventional non-adaptive scenarios under collective attacks. For independent but identical noise acting on the forward and backward transmission channels, as well as for correlated and non-Markovian environments, we identify classes of channels for which adaptive schemes yield enhanced secret key rates for the considered protocols. In contrast, we also determine Pauli channels, including depolarizing and bit flip channels, for which adaptive strategies provide no benefit. We further show that these optimal sets are generally non-unique and can differ substantially from the unitaries that maximize dense-coding capacity in the absence of security constraints. Our results establish noise-adaptive encoding and decoding as a powerful framework for improving secure communication over realistic noisy quantum channels.

A spin-s variable-range interacting Ising model may display qualitatively different behaviors depending on the fall-off rate of the interactions, as already seen in equilibrium studies of spin-1/2 systems. We propose a dynamical method using weighted graph states, generated through time evolution that confirms the existence of the transition point in the fall-off rate for the spin-s Ising model. Moreover, the dependence of local dimension on information spreading and multipartite entanglement profile in this model remains unclear, which we establish here. In particular, our analysis shows that the maximum of genuine multipartite entanglement (GME) with the fall-off rate serves as a clear indicator of the information spreading, which aligns with changes in the profile of the Lieb-Robinson bound. Further, in the case of an open chain, the spread of information is related to the divergence in the first derivative of GME. Additionally, we validate this signature by performing a scaling analysis of the time-averaged mutual information.

We present a review on quantum metrology and sensing, from its foundations to current applications. Highlights of the review include consideration of both frequentist and Bayesian approaches to parameter estimation; single as well as multiparameter estimation; estimation for different encoding processes comprising unitary as well as noisy channels, quantum thermometry, and channels involving indefinite causal order; different estimation strategies incorporating also recent advances like quantum error correction-aided methods and reservoir engineering; usefulness of quantum Fisher information to detect resources; applications of quantum metrology in diverse arenas covering quantum many-body sensors, sensing protocols in atomic ensembles, atom-photon systems, and continuous-variable systems, quantum imaging, quantum illumination, atomic clocks and atom interferometry, etc; and experimental realizations of quantum sensors in different physical platforms.

The dynamics of a quantum system encode signatures of whether the underlying Hamiltonian is integrable or chaotic, giving rise to the concept of quantum information scrambling through the properties of the resulting dynamical states or operators. We introduce an information-theoretic framework based on the Haar-averaged sum of total correlations (aSTC), together with average genuine multipartite entanglement generated dynamically from initially fully separable states, as robust probes of quantum information scrambling. Using the long-range quantum XYZ spin model in transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields, whose integrable limit is the nearest-neighbor transverse XY model, we demonstrate that the long-time average and, more importantly, the temporal fluctuations of the aSTC provide a faithful and system-size-independent signature of integrable and chaotic dynamics, similar to the conventional measure of scrambling, out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC). When the system is in contact with the thermal reservoir and system-bath coupling follows Markovianity, we find that the fluctuations of the aSTC and OTOC continue to distinguish integrable and chaotic dynamics only at intermediate times. However, we observe that in the non-Markovian domain, information backflow restores the scrambling dynamics, enabling the aSTC to retain its distinguishing power even at long times. Interestingly, we exhibit that, under Markovian amplitude damping and non-Markovian dephasing noise, the temporal fluctuations of the aSTC can discriminate between integrability and non-integrability in the weak Markovian regime, even when OTOC fails to do so.

Going beyond short-range interactions, we explore the role of long-range interactions in the extended XY model for transferring quantum states through evolution. In particular, employing a spin-1/2 chain with interactions decaying as a power law, we demonstrate that long-range (LR) interactions significantly enhance the efficiency of a quantum state transfer (QST) protocol, improving the achievable fidelity, mitigating its slow decline as compared with the nearest-neighbor setting, associated with increasing system-size. Our study identifies the LR regime as providing an optimal balance between interaction range and transfer efficiency, outperforming the protocol with the short-range interacting model. Our detailed analysis reveals the impact of system parameters, such as anisotropy, magnetic field strength, and coordination number, on QST dynamics. Specifically, we find that intermediate coordination numbers lead to a faster and more reliable state transfer, while extreme values diminish performance. Furthermore, we exhibit that the presence of LR interactions considerably reduces the minimum time required to achieve fidelity beyond the classical limit.

In quantum metrology, adaptive and causal-superposition strategies are proven to be beneficial over parallel schemes for a finite number of channel uses, but their advantages disappear in the asymptotic limit. We show that quantum operations with indefinite time direction, specifically, time-flip (TF)-assisted strategies, referred to as indefinite time-directed metrology (ITDM), can overcome this asymptotic equivalence. Using semidefinite programming, we rigorously demonstrate that TF-assisted protocols can achieve quantum Fisher information (QFI) strictly exceeding the maximum value attainable by parallel, adaptive, and causal-superposition strategies, both for finite and asymptotically many channel uses. Moreover, we identify a class of Pauli noise channels for which ITDM achieves Heisenberg scaling, while all parallel, adaptive, and causal-superposition strategies remain restricted to standard scaling. We call this phenomenon as metrological activation. Interestingly, this activation can be used to exhibit that the quantum time-flip and transposition supermaps cannot be simulated by conventional quantum circuits or causal-superposition strategies using any finite number of channel queries, thereby establishing indefinite time direction as a genuine resource for quantum metrology.

We introduce a novel multipartite entanglement-assisted classical communication task, referred to as dense coding swapping, in which legitimate parties collaboratively swap the dense codeability from one communication channel to another through suitable joint unitary operations. Due to the dense coding (DC) exclusion principle, the scheme enhances the dense codeability of a target pair while simultaneously reducing it for a non-target branch in the network. This swapping capability has broader implications, as it may be viewed as a form of process swapping, distinct from resource swapping, while also providing a prevention measure when one of the receivers is compromised. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions, expressed in terms of the Schmidt coefficients, for three-qubit pure states to support DC swapping, while we obtain a sufficient criterion for mixed states using their Bloch correlation parameters. Furthermore, we identify the optimal two-qubit unitary operators capable of realizing the swapping of dense codeability between communication channels. We further examine the tolerance of these eligible states against both colored and white noise, demonstrating the resilience of the proposed task under environmental perturbations. We also show that multipartite states supporting DC swapping require only a small amount of genuine multipartite entanglement and that this requirement decreases with increasing system size.

We identify single-mode Gaussian probes, generated by displacement and squeezing operations on the vacuum state, which are optimal for the simultaneous estimation of displacement and squeezing operations in continuous-variable quantum systems. Importantly, our results reveal that the best precision at a fixed energy is achieved not by an experimentally costly squeezing resource, but rather by redirecting some of the energy towards displacement, thus allowing for more resource-effective operations. Furthermore, introducing indefinite causal order (ICO) in either the probe preparation or parameter encoding step can surpass the Gaussian precision bound, even though the optimal Gaussian probe state is agnostic to the ordering of the operations. Specifically, we observe that odd-parity superpositions of the two definite orders can enhance precision over optimal Gaussian probes in specific parameter regimes. Further, the observed advantage cannot be attributed solely to non-Gaussianity, as quantified by the relative entropy of non-Gaussianity, highlighting ICO as an independent resource for enhancing multiparameter estimation.

We categorize quantum gates according to their capability to generate genuine multipartite entanglement based on the hierarchy of multipartite separable states. In particular, when a fixed unitary operator acts on the set of k-separable states, the maximal (average) genuine multipartite entanglement (GME) content produced via that particular unitary operator is determined after maximizing over the set of k-separable input states. We identify unitary operators that are beneficial for generating high GME when the input states are entangled in some bipartition, although the picture can also be reversed in which entanglement in inputs does not help. We characterize maximum entangling power of a variety of unitary operators including special classes of quantum gates, diagonal, permutation and Haar uniformly generated unitary operators by computing generalized geometric measure (GGM) as GME quantifier. We determine the unitary operators and their corresponding inputs which can create the resulting states having maximum GGM.

We design a setup for creating almost maximally entangled two-qudit link between distant nodes which are weakly coupled with the interacting spin-s bulk (processor). We exhibit that such a quantum link between spins of arbitrary spin quantum number can be formed when the system is prepared at sufficiently low temperature. We find that the Heisenberg and the bilinear-biquadratic (BBQ) spin-1 models are the potential candidates to obtain long-distance near-maximal entanglement in equilibrium. Beyond the static regime, we further show that initializing the bulk in a fully polarized state and the link in an appropriate qudit state allows the system to dynamically evolve into a highly entangled state under both Heisenberg and BBQ Hamiltonians. Our findings reveal that both the static and the dynamical protocols presented here remain efficient towards creating highly entangled two-qudit states even if the spin quantum numbers of the bulk is lower than that of the link.

We analyze the security of two-way quantum key distribution using arbitrary finite-dimensional systems, considering both individual and collective eavesdropping attacks, without the effective use of entangled states, by incorporating two mutually unbiased bases and Heisenberg-Weyl operators in higher dimensions. For individual attacks, we consider cloning operations by the eavesdropper and demonstrate a dimensional advantage where secret keys can be generated for greater strengths of interception. To analyze security under collective attacks, we employ a purification scheme and derive the key rate using entropic uncertainty relations. Further, we exhibit how the protocol is more robust against eavesdropping with increasing dimension of the systems used, and compare the performance with that of the entangled two-way secure dense coding protocol when the presence of the eavesdropper is modeled by correlated and uncorrelated noise.

We develop a thermodynamic characterization of multimode entanglement in pure continuous-variable systems by quantifying the gap between globally and locally extractable work (ergotropy). For arbitrary pure multimode Gaussian states, we prove that the 2-local ergotropic gap is a faithful entanglement monotone across any bipartition and constitutes a functionally independent upper bound to the Renyi-2 entanglement entropy. We further introduce the k-ergotropic score, the minimum k-local ergotropic gap, and show that it faithfully quantifies multimode entanglement across k partitions. For pure three-mode Gaussian states, we derive its closed-form relation with the geometric measure for genuine multimode entanglement (k=2), and total Gaussian multimode entanglement (k=3). For systems with more than three modes, the k-ergotropic score becomes a functionally independent measure of multimode entanglement to the standard geometric measures. Our results reveal a direct operational hierarchy linking Gaussian multimode entanglement to work extraction under locality constraints, and provide a computable and experimentally accessible thermodynamic framework for characterizing quantum correlations.

Imaginarity, stemming from the complex structure of quantum mechanics, has recently emerged as a fundamental resource, yet its dynamical generation remains largely unexplored. In this work, we introduce the notion of imaginarity-generating power (IGP) of unitary dynamics, which quantifies the ability of unitary operations to produce imaginarity from initially real quantum states. To quantify imaginarity, we employ a measure based on the Hilbert–Schmidt norm, which we show to be monotone under real unital operations. Within the framework of dynamical resource theories, we derive an exact expression for the purity-constrained IGP in arbitrary dimensions and show that, for pure real input states, it depends solely on intrinsic and experimentally accessible properties of the unitary. We further analyze its average behavior over ensembles of states with varying purity under both uniform and Hilbert–Schmidt distributions. We prove that it satisfies the essential properties of a valid resource monotone within the dynamical resource theory of imaginarity. We also characterize the unitaries that maximize the IGP and determine the corresponding bounds. Moreover, for Haar-random unitaries, we show that the IGP concentrates near its maximal value in high dimensions with small fluctuations, indicating that typical high-dimensional quantum dynamics are highly effective at generating imaginarity.

In distributed quantum networks, interacting spin systems can mediate the generation of highly entangled links between distant nodes. We investigate the role of effective parity-time (PT)-symmetric non-Hermitian spin-1/2 bulks weakly coupled to two quantum links, obtained due to the environmental interactions affecting both the bulk and the links. Focusing on effective non-Hermitian nearest-neighbor (NN) Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) models, we analyze how non-Hermiticity influences the dynamical formation of long-distance entanglement (LDE). For a paradigmatic model consisting of a quantum XX bulk subjected to imaginary staggered magnetic fields, we analytically determine the exceptional points arising from the resulting bulk-mediated interactions between the links. Combining analytical and numerical methods, we demonstrate that an initially fully separable state can dynamically evolve into highly entangled link states near these exceptional points in the broken regime. Further, after optimizing over time and system parameters, near-unit time-averaged entanglement between the links emerges under weak imaginary magnetic fields and bulk-link couplings, which cannot be attained in the corresponding Hermitian systems. Moreover, the non-Hermitian dynamics exhibit a freezing of high entanglement in the vicinity of exceptional points, a feature absent in Hermitian counterparts. We also identify regimes of long-range interaction strengths that yield a higher time-averaged entanglement than the corresponding NN models. Furthermore, we establish that LDE persists in the stationary regime, highlighting the promise of engineered non-Hermitian dynamics for realizing robust and frozen entangled links in quantum networks.

Building on the recently developed quantum state texture resource theory, we exhibit that the difference between maximum and minimum textures is a valid purity monotone in any dimension and provide a lower bound for existing purity measures. We introduce a texture-based resource monotone applicable across general convex resource theories, encompassing quantum coherence, non-stabilizerness, and entanglement. In particular, we propose the notion of non-local texture, which corresponds to the geometric measure of bipartite and multipartite entanglement in pure states. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the texture of the entire ground state or its subsystems can effectively signal quantum phase transitions in the Ising chain under both transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields, offering a powerful tool for characterizing quantum criticality.

The quantum Mpemba effect is a counterintuitive phenomenon in which a state initially farther from equilibrium relaxes more rapidly than one that starts nearer to equilibrium. In the context of finite-dimensional quantum batteries interacting with an environment, we introduce the notion of an ergotropic Mpemba crossing (EMC), defined by the intersection of ergotropy trajectories during the dynamics. For qubit batteries subjected to amplitude damping noise, we derive a condition for the occurrence of EMC in terms of the relative coherence of the initial states and fully characterize the region of state space that exhibits EMC with respect to a fixed reference state. Interestingly, our analysis reveals that under anisotropic Pauli noise, the emergence of EMC is jointly governed by the coherence and the energy of the initial states. To elucidate the physical origin of EMC, we decompose ergotropy into coherent and incoherent contributions and show that, in qubit systems, the coherent component plays a crucial role for EMC, an observation that strikingly does not extend to three-level batteries. Further, by extending our analysis to non-Markovian environments, we demonstrate that, unlike the Markovian case, non-Markovian dynamics can give rise to multiple Mpemba crossings, with the total number of crossings always being odd. Moreover, analyzing the connection between the EMC and the conventional state Mpemba effect reveals that, for qubits, an EMC necessarily entails a state Mpemba crossing while this correspondence breaks down for qutrits, where EMCs may arise without any state Mpemba crossing.