Separability and entanglement in superpositions of quantum states

Abstract: It is known that probabilistically mixing an arbitrary pair of pure quantum states, one of which is entangled and the other product, in any bipartite quantum system, one always obtains an entangled state, provided the entangled state of the pair appears with a nonzero probability. On the other hand, if we consider any superposition of the same pair, with a nonzero amplitude for the entangled state of the pair, the output state may not always be entangled. Motivated by this fact, in this work, we study the superpositions of a pure entangled state and a pure product state, when the amplitudes corresponding to the states appearing in any superposition are nonzero. We show, in particular, that all such superpositions produce only entangled states if the initial entangled state has Schmidt rank three or higher. Again, superposing a pure entangled state and a product state cannot lead to product states only, in any bipartite quantum system. These lead us to define conditional and unconditional inseparabilities of superpositions. These concepts in turn are useful in quantum communication protocols. We find that conditional inseparability of superpositions help in identifying strategies for conclusive local discrimination of shared quantum ensembles. We also find that the unconditional variety leads to systematic methods for spotting ensembles exhibiting the phenomenon of more nonlocality with less entanglement and two-element ensembles of conclusively and locally indistinguishable shared quantum states.