Characterization of equivariant maps and application to entanglement detection (Q2204008)

The authors study equivariant linear maps between finite-dimensional matrix algebras introduced by \textit{B. Collins} et al. [Linear Algebra Appl. 555, 398--411 (2018; Zbl 1406.15005)]. The study of their positivity or \(k\)-positivity is indeed of great interest. This result is applicable to entanglement detection in quantum information theory. A linear map \(\Phi : M_n(\mathbb{C})\to M_N(\mathbb{C})\) is called: (i) equivariant, if for every unitary matrix \(U\in M_n(\mathbb{C})\) there exists \(V = V (U )\in M_N(\mathbb{C})\) such that \(\Phi (U XU^{\ast }) = V(U ) \Phi (X) V (U)^{\ast }\) \( \forall X\in M_n(\mathbb{C})\); (ii) unitarily equivariant, if furthermore the operator \( V (U )\) in the previous definition can be taken unitary; (iii) \((a, b)\)-unitarily equivariant, if there are special natural numbers \(a, b\) such that \(N = n^{a+b}\) and a special \(M_N(\mathbb{C})\) such that for every unitary \(U\in M_n (C)\) the following equality hold: \[\Phi (U XU^{\ast }) = (\bar{U}^{\bigotimes a}\bigotimes U^{\bigotimes b})\Phi (X) (\bar{U}^{\bigotimes a}\bigotimes U^{\bigotimes b})^{\ast } \] for all \(X\in M_N(\mathbb{C})\). Here, \((a, b)\)-unitarily equivariant maps are a subfamily of unitarily equivariant maps. It is shown that every unitarily equivariant map, where \(U \to V (U )\) is a unitary representation, can be seen as a corner of a sum of \((a, b)\)-unitarily equivariant maps. An essential result is that the following two assertions are equivalent: (i) \(\Phi \) is \((a, b)\)-unitarily equivariant; (ii) \([C_{\Phi },\overline{U}^{\bigotimes a+1}\bigotimes U^{\bigotimes b}]=0\) \(\forall U\in \mathcal{U}_n\), where \(C_{\Phi }\) is the Choi matrix of \(\Phi \). Moreover, there exists \(f: S_{k+1}\to \mathbb{C}\) such that \[C_{\Phi }=\sum\limits_{\pi \in S_{k+1}}f(\pi ) (\theta_n^{\bigotimes a+1}\bigotimes i_n^{\bigotimes b})[\sigma_{k+1}(\pi )], \] where \(\theta_n\) is the transpose map on \(M_n(\mathbb{C})\). Here, Choi matrices are used. It turns out that they can be determined as a generalization of maps invariant under unitary conjugation as studied by \textit{B. V. R. Bhat} [Banach J. Math. Anal. 5, No. 2, 1--5 (2011; Zbl 1228.46056)] and at the same time as a generalization of the equivariant maps studied in [\textit{B. Collins} et al., Linear Algebra Appl. 555, 398--411 (2018; Zbl 1406.15005)]. Finally, the authors prove the existence of a sufficient family of positive maps to detect all \(k\)-entangled density matrices.