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Exact maximum purity of absolutely separable qubit–qudit states

Establish the exact maximum purity of absolutely separable states ρ ∈ M_2 ⊗ M_n for n ≥ 3 by proving that the maximum equals 2/(3n) when n is even and equals (6n+4)/( (3n+1)^2 ) when n is odd, and demonstrate that the maximizers are precisely those states whose spectra satisfy λ1 = … = λ_{n/2} = 1/n and λ_{n/2+1} = … = λ_{2n} = 1/(3n) for even n, and λ1 = … = λ_{(n+1)/2} = 3/(3n+1) and λ_{(n+3)/2} = … = λ_{2n} = 1/(3n+1) for odd n.

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Background

Using the qubit–qudit absolute separability spectral criterion, the authors numerically maximized purity under the constraint and observed a pattern across dimensions. These computations suggest explicit formulas for the exact maximum purity and identify spectra at which the maximum is attained.

A rigorous proof of these formulas would resolve the optimization problem for all qubit–qudit dimensions and, geometrically, determine the exact Euclidean radius of the smallest Hilbert–Schmidt ball around the maximally mixed state containing all absolutely separable states in M_2 ⊗ M_n.

References

On the basis of these numerical estimates, we propose the following conjecture regarding the exact maximum purity. Conjecture \ref{conj1} The maximum purity of absolutely separable states \rho \in M_2\otimes M_n, n\ge 3, is given by \frac{2}{3n} if n is even, and \frac{6n+4}{(3n+1)2} if n is odd. Furthermore, this maximum value is reached when \lambda_1= \cdots =\lambda_{\frac{n}{2}}=\frac{1}{n}, \lambda_{\frac{n}{2}+1}=\cdots=\lambda_{2n}=\frac{1}{3n} if n is even, and \lambda_1= \cdots =\lambda_{\frac{n+1}{2}}=\frac{3}{3n+1}, \lambda_{\frac{n+3}{2}}=\cdots=\lambda_{2n}=\frac{1}{3n+1} if n is odd.

On the maximum purity of absolutely separable bipartite states (2510.19508 - Dung et al., 22 Oct 2025) in Section 3.2 (Conjecture 1)