Exponential Clustering of Bipartite Quantum Entanglement at Arbitrary Temperatures

Abstract

Many inexplicable phenomena in low-temperature many-body physics are a result of macroscopic quantum effects. Such macroscopic quantumness is often evaluated via long-range entanglement, that is, entanglement in the macroscopic length scale. Long-range entanglement is employed to characterize novel quantum phases and serves as a critical resource for quantum computation. However, the conditions under which long-range entanglement is stable, even at room temperatures, remain unclear. In this regard, this study demonstrates the unstable nature of bipartite long-range entanglement at arbitrary temperatures, which exponentially decays with distance. The proposed theorem is a no-go theorem pertaining to the existence of long-range entanglement. The obtained results are consistent with existing observations, indicating that long-range entanglement at nonzero temperatures can exist in topologically ordered phases, where tripartite correlations are dominant. The derivation in this study introduces a quantum correlation defined by the convex roof of the standard correlation function. Further, an exponential clustering theorem for generic quantum many-body systems under such a quantum correlation at arbitrary temperatures is established, which yields the primary result by relating quantum correlation with quantum entanglement. Moreover, a simple application of analytical techniques is demonstrated by deriving a general limit on the Wigner-Yanase-Dyson skew and quantum Fisher information; this is expected to attract significant attention in the field of quantum metrology. Notably, this study reveals the novel, general aspects of low-temperature quantum physics and clarifies the characterization of long-range entanglement.