Total versus quantum correlations in quantum states

On the premises that total correlations in a bipartite quantum state are measured by the quantum mutual information, and that separation of total correlations into quantum and classical parts satisfies an intuitive dominance relation, we examine to what extent various entropic entanglement measures, such as the distillable entanglement, the relative entropy entanglement, the squashed entanglement, the entanglement cost, and the entanglement of formation, can be regarded as consistent measures of quantum correlations. We illustrate that the entanglement of formation often overestimates quantum correlations and thus is too big to be a genuine measure of quantum correlations. This indicates that the entanglement of formation does not quantify the quantum correlations intrinsic to a quantum state, but rather characterizes the pure entanglement needed to build the quantum state via local operations and classical communication. Furthermore, it has the consequence that, if the additive conjecture for the entanglement of formation is true (as is widely believed), then the entanglement cost, which is an operationally defined measure of entanglement with significant physical meaning, cannot be a consistent measure of quantum correlations in the sense that it may exceed total correlations. Alternatively, if the entanglement cost is dominated by total correlations, as our intuition suggests, then we can immediately disprove the additive conjecture. Both scenarios have their counterintuitive and appealing aspects, and a natural challenge arising in this context is to prove or disprove that the entanglement cost is dominated by the quantum mutual information.