Convexity and the separability problem of quantum mechanical density matrices (Q1602988)

A finite-dimensional quantum mechanical system is modelled by a density \(\varrho\), a trace one, positive semi-definite matrix on a suitable tensor product space \(H^{[N]}\). For the system to demonstrate experimentally certain non-classical behavior, \(\varrho\) cannot be in \(S\), a closed convex set of densities whose extreme points have a specified tensor product form. Two mathematical problems in the quantum computing literature arise from this context: 1. The determination whether a given \(\varrho\) is in \(S\), and 2. A measure of the ``entanglement'' of such a \(\varrho\) in terms of its distance from \(S\). In this paper the authors describe these two problems in detail discuss some recent results from the quantum computing literature, and prove some new results. The paper is divided into the sections of Introduction; Notation and the separability problem; Measures of entanglement; Basic theory; Orthogonality; Entanglement witnesses; and Variations in the bivariate case.