Joint Seminar on Quantum Information and Technologies

Quantifying entanglement in composite systems is a fundamental challenge, yet exact results are available in only a few special cases. This is because hard optimisation problems are routinely involved, such as finding the convex decomposition of a mixed state with the minimal average pure-state entanglement -- the so-called convex roof. We show that under certain conditions such a problem becomes trivial. Precisely, we prove by a geometric argument that polynomial entanglement measures of degree 2 are independent of the choice of pure-state decomposition of a mixed state, when the latter has only one pure unentangled state in its range. This allows for the analytical evaluation of convex roof extended entanglement measures in classes of rank-2 states obeying such a condition. We give explicit examples for the square root of the three-tangle in three-qubit states, and we show that several representative classes of four-qubit pure states have marginals that enjoy this property. Additionally, we show the importance of states obeying this property by demonstrating their use in characterising generalised monogamy relations of four-qubit states.