Continuous-variable entanglement distillation and noncommutative central limit theorems

Entanglement distillation transforms weakly entangled noisy states into highly entangled states, a primitive to be used in quantum repeater schemes and other protocols designed for quantum communication and key distribution. In this work, we present a comprehensive framework for continuous-variable entanglement distillation schemes that convert noisy non-Gaussian states into Gaussian ones in many iterations of the protocol. Instances of these protocols include (a) the recursive-Gaussifier protocol, (b) the temporally reordered recursive-Gaussifier protocol, and (c) the pumping-Gaussifier protocol. The flexibility of these protocols gives rise to several beneficial trade-offs related to success probabilities or memory requirements, which can be adjusted to reflect experimental demands. Despite these protocols involving measurements, we relate the convergence in this protocol to new instances of noncommutative central limit theorems, in a formalism that we lay out in great detail. Implications of the findings for quantum repeater schemes are discussed. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.87.042330