Entanglement of identical particles and reference phase uncertainty

Abstract

We have recently introduced a measure of the bipartite entanglement of identical particles, E_P, based on the principle that entanglement should be accessible for use as a resource in quantum information processing. We show here that particle entanglement is limited by the lack of a reference phase shared by the two parties, and that the entanglement is constrained to reference-phase invariant subspaces. The super-additivity of E_P results from the fact that this constraint is weaker for combined systems. A shared reference phase can only be established by transferring particles between the parties, that is, with additional nonlocal resources. We show how this nonlocal operation can increase the particle entanglement.

8 pages, no figures. Invited talk given at EQIS'03, Kyoto, September, 2003. Minor typos corrected, 1 reference added