Manipulation of entanglement and its realisation using trapped ions

Entanglement is a fundamental physical resource at the heart of quantum information theory. This Thesis contributes to its study by approaching it from two separate directions: the laws governing its manipulation, and its creation within a concrete physical setting. I begin by studying the manipulation of entangled pure states of two quantum systems when (i) only a single copy of each system is available and (ii) only a restricted class of physical operations are allowed to be performed on them. One physically reasonable class, denoted LQCC, is the set of all possible quantum operations realised on each system by local agents, who are allowed to communicate with each other only by classical means. Given these conditions, I find a minimal set of entropic-like state functions that completely determine which manipulations can be realised. Applications to useful protocols such as entanglement concentration are discussed. Further elaboration allows also the determination of the most faithful approximation to a given target state that can be attained under LQCC, and the most faithful teleportation protocol achievable when only partial entanglement is available. The study of a more general class of transformations demonstrates that entanglement can also be a re-usable resource. Specifically, I show that the mere presence of further entanglement allows the realisation of transformations which are impossible under LQCC alone. The extra entanglement is not consumed in any way, acting as a 'catalyst'. Applications of this counter-intuitive effect are discussed. In the second part of the Thesis, I turn to the concrete creation and manipulation of entanglement within the system of laser-cooled, trapped ions. After a brief survey of known schemes, I propose a new method for realising two-qubit quantum logic gates within this system. The scheme is based on the AC Stark shift (lightshift) induced by laser light resonant with the ionic transition frequency. At specific laser intensities, the ionic level shift allows the resonant excitation of transitions involving the exchange of motional quanta. I compare this scheme's performance with that of related ion-trap proposals and find that, for an experimental realisation using travelling-wave radiation and working in the Lamb-Dicke regime, an improvement of over an order of magnitude in the gate switching rate is possible. (author)Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN058394 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo