Data-driven criteria for quantum correlations
This work addresses the challenge of distinguishing subtle quantum correlations for quantum information researchers, though it is incremental as it builds on existing methods with a novel architecture.
The authors tackled the problem of detecting quantum correlations in three-qubit systems using an unsupervised neural network, finding that it performs better at identifying quantum discord than entanglement, with high accuracy in reproducing non-discordant separable states.
We build a machine learning model to detect correlations in a three-qubit system using a neural network trained in an unsupervised manner on randomly generated states. The network is forced to recognize separable states, and correlated states are detected as anomalies. Quite surprisingly, we find that the proposed detector performs much better at distinguishing a weaker form of quantum correlations, namely, the quantum discord, than entanglement. In fact, it has a tendency to grossly overestimate the set of entangled states even at the optimal threshold for entanglement detection, while it underestimates the set of discordant states to a much lesser extent. In order to illustrate the nature of states classified as quantum-correlated, we construct a diagram containing various types of states -- entangled, as well as separable, both discordant and non-discordant. We find that the near-zero value of the recognition loss reproduces the shape of the non-discordant separable states with high accuracy, especially considering the non-trivial shape of this set on the diagram. The network architecture is designed carefully: it preserves separability, and its output is equivariant with respect to qubit permutations. We show that the choice of architecture is important to get the highest detection accuracy, much better than for a baseline model that just utilizes a partial trace operation.