Absolutely maximally entangled (AME) states are multipartite entangled states that are maximally entangled for any possible bipartition. In this paper, we study the description of AME states within the graph state formalism. The graphical representation provides an intuitive framework to visualize the entanglement in graph states, which makes them a natural candidate to describe AME states. We show two different methods of determining bipartite entanglement in graph states and use them to define various AME graph states. We further show that AME graph states exist for all number of parties, and that any AME graph states shared between an even number of parties can be used to describe quantum secret sharing schemes with a threshold or ramp access structure directly within the graph states formalism.

We investigate absolutely maximally entangled (AME) states, which are multipartite quantum states that are maximally entangled with respect to any possible bipartition. These strong entanglement properties make them a powerful resource for a variety of quantum information protocols. In this paper, we show the existence of AME states for any number of parties, given that the dimension of the involved systems is chosen appropriately. We prove the equivalence of AME states shared between an even number of parties and pure state threshold quantum secret sharing (QSS) schemes, and prove necessary and sufficient entanglement properties for a wider class of ramp QSS schemes. We further show how AME states can be used as a valuable resource for open-destination teleportation protocols and to what extend entanglement swapping generalizes to AME states.

We study the existence of absolutely maximally entangled (AME) states in quantum mechanics and its applications to quantum information. AME states are characterized by being maximally entangled for all bipartitions of the system and exhibit genuine multipartite entanglement. With such states, we present a parallel teleportation protocol which teleports multiple quantum states between groups of senders and receivers. The notable features of this protocol are that (i) the partition into senders and receivers can be chosen after the state has been distributed, and (ii) one group has to perform joint quantum operations while the parties of the other group only have to act locally on their system. We also prove the equivalence between pure state quantum secret sharing schemes and AME states with an even number of parties.

The generation of heralded pure Fock states via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (PDC) relies on perfect photon-number correlations in the output modes. Correlations in any other degree of freedom, however, degrade the purity of the heralded state. In this paper, we investigate spectral entanglement between the two output modes of a periodically poled waveguide. With the intent of generating heralded one-and two-photon Fock states, we expand the output state of the PDC to second order in photon number. We explore the effects of spectral filtering and inefficient detection, of the heralding mode, on the count rate, g((2)), and purity of the heralded state, as well as the fidelity between the resulting state and an ideal Fock state. We find that filtering can decrease spectral correlations, however, at the expense of the count rate and increased photon-number mixedness in the heralded output state. As a physical example, we model a type II PP-KTP waveguide pumped by lasers at wavelengths of 400 nm, 788 nm and 1.93 mu m. The latter two allow the fulfillment of extended phase-matching conditions in an attempt to eliminate spectral correlations in the PDC output state without the use of filtering; however, we find that, even in these cases, some filtering is needed to achieve states of very high purity.

For a tripartite pure state of three qubits, it is well known that there are two inequivalent classes of genuine tripartite entanglement, namely the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) class and the W class. Any two states within the same class can be transformed into each other with stochastic local operations and classical communication with a nonzero probability. The optimal conversion probability, however, is only known for special cases. Here, lower and upper bounds are derived for the optimal probability of transformation from a GHZ state to other states of the GHZ class. A key idea in the derivation of the upper bounds is to consider the action of the local operations and classical communications (LOCC) protocol on a different input state, namely 1/root 2[vertical bar 000 > - vertical bar 111 >], and to demand that the probability of an outcome remains bounded by 1. We also find an upper bound for more general cases by using the constraints of the so-called interference term and 3-tangle. Moreover, some of the results are generalized to the case in which each party holds a higher dimensional system. In particular, the GHZ state generalized to three qutrits; that is, vertical bar GHZ3 > = 1/root 3[vertical bar 000 > + vertical bar 111 > + vertical bar 222 >] shared among three parties can be transformed to any tripartite three-qubit pure state with probability 1 via LOCC. Some of our results can also be generalized to the case of a multipartite state shared by more than three parties.

Every security analysis of quantum-key distribution (QKD) relies on a faithful modeling of the employed quantum states. Many photon sources, such as for instance a parametric down-conversion (PDC) source, require a multimode description but are usually only considered in a single-mode representation. In general, the important claim in decoy-based QKD protocols for indistinguishability between signal and decoy states does not hold for all sources. We derive bounds on the single-photon transmission probability and error rate for multimode states and apply these bounds to the output state of a PDC source. We observe two opposing effects on the secure key rate. First, the multimode structure of the state gives rise to a new attack that decreases the key rate. Second, more contributing modes change the photon number distribution from a thermal toward a Poissonian distribution, which increases the key rate.

Quantum key distribution is among the foremost applications of quantum mechanics, both in terms of fundamental physics and as a technology on the brink of commercial deployment. Starting from principal schemes and initial proofs of unconditional security for perfect systems, much effort has gone into providing secure schemes which can cope with numerous experimental imperfections unavoidable in real world implementations. In this paper, we provide a comparison of various schemes and protocols. We analyse their efficiency and performance when implemented with imperfect physical components. We consider how experimental faults are accounted for using effective parameters. We compare various recent protocols and provide guidelines as to which components propose best advances when being improved.

In recent years tremendous research progress was made in the field of quantum key distribution (QKD). By now a variety of protocols exists for which security has been proven even for realistic imperfect devices. The proofs based on the idea of Shor and Preskill, provide us with a lower bound on the secure key generation rate. The security of BB84 relies on the fact, that well defined single-mode photonic states are prepared by the sender and used as information carriers. However, potential sources for QKD implementations like parametric down conversion (PDC) sources emit states with a multi-mode spectral distribution. These states have to be described in a higher-dimensional Hilbert space. We investigate to what extent these spectral properties affect the security considerations. We further present a comparison of the theoretical bounds on the secure key rates for different protocols and the dependence on various experimental imperfections, e.g., dark-counts, detector efficiency, channel attenuation etc. Only single-photon signals contribute to the secure key, but unfortunately such sources don't exist at present. Hence we consider different photon statistics in our simulations.

Quantum key distribution is among the foremost applications of quantum mechanics, both in terms of fundamental physics and as a technology on the brink of commercial deployment. Starting from principal schemes and initial proofs of unconditional security for perfect systems, much effort has gone into providing secure schemes which can cope with numerous experimental imperfections unavoidable in real world implementations. In this paper, we provide a comparison of various schemes and protocols. We analyse their efficiency and performance when implemented with imperfect physical components. We consider how experimental faults are accounted for using effective parameters. We compare various protocols and provide guidelines as to which components propose best advances when being improved.