Quantumness of States and Unitary Operations

Abstract

This paper investigates various properties that may by possessed by quantum states, which are believed to be specifically “quantum” (entanglement, nonlocality, steerability, negative conditional entropy, non-zero quantum discord, non-zero quantum super discord and contextuality) and their opposites. It also considers their “absolute” counterparts in the following sense: a given state has a given property absolutely if after an arbitrary unitary transformation it still possesses it. The known relations between the listed properties and between their absolute counterparts are summarized. It is proven that the only two-qubit state that has zero quantum discord absolutely is the maximally mixed state. Finally, related conceptual issues concerning the terms “classical” and “quantum” are discussed.