Abstract
The operator-Schmidt decomposition is useful in quantum information theory for quantifying the nonlocality of bipartite unitary operations. We construct a family of unitary operators on n ⊗ n whose operator-Schmidt decompositions are computed using the discrete Fourier transform. As a corollary, we produce unitaries on 3 ⊗ 3 with operator-Schmidt number S for every S ∊ {1, ..., 9}. This corollary was unexpected, since it contradicted reasonable conjectures of Nielsen et al (2003 Phys. Rev. A 67 052301) based on intuition from a striking result in the two-qubit case. By the results of Dür et al (2002 Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 057901), who also considered the two-qubit case, our result implies that there are nine equivalence classes of unitaries on 3 ⊗ 3 which are probabilistically interconvertible by (stochastic) local operations and classical communication. As another corollary, a prescription is produced for constructing maximally-entangled unitaries from biunimodular functions. Reversing tact, we state a generalized operator-Schmidt decomposition of the quantum Fourier transform considered as an operator M1 ⊗ M2 → N1 ⊗ N2, with M1M2 = N1N2. This decomposition shows (by Nielsen's bound) that the communication cost of the QFT remains maximal when a net transfer of qudits is permitted. In an appendix, a canonical procedure is given for removing basis-dependence for results and proofs depending on the 'magic basis' introduced in S Hill and W Wootters (1997 Entanglement of a pair of quantum bits Phys Rev. Lett. 78 5022–5).