High validity entanglement verification with finite copies of a quantum state

Detecting entanglement of multipartite quantum states is an inherently probabilistic process due to a finite number of measured samples. The level of confidence of entanglement detection can be used to quantify the probability that the measured signal is coming from a separable state and provides a meaningful figure of merit for big data sets. Yet, for limited sample sizes, to avoid serious misinterpretations of the experimental results, one should not only consider the probability that a separable state gave rise to the measured signal, but should also include information about the probability that the signal came from an entangled state. We demonstrate this explicitly and propose a comprehensive method of entanglement detection when only a very limited amount of data is available. The method is based on a non-linear combination of correlation functions and is independent of system size. As an example, we derive the optimal number of measurement settings and clicks per setting revealing entanglement with only 20 copies of a state.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure