Quantum Protocols involving Multiparticle Entanglement and their Representations in the zx-calculus.

Quantum entanglement, described by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”, is a key resource in many quantum protocols, like quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography. Yet entanglement makes protocols presented in Dirac notation difficult to follow and check. This is why Coecke nad Duncan have introduced a diagrammatic language for multi-qubit systems, called the red/green calculus or the zx-calculus [23]. This diagrammatic notation is both intuitive and formally rigorous. It is a simple, graphical, high level language that emphasises the composition of systems and naturally captures the essentials of quantum mechanics. One crucial feature that will be exploited here is the encoding of complementary observables and corresponding phase shifts. Reasoning is done by rewriting diagrams, i.e. locally replacing some part of a diagram. Diagrams are defined by their topology only; the number of inputs and outputs and the way they are connected. This exemplifies the ‘flow’ of information. For protocols involving multipartite entangled states, such as the GreenbergerHorne-Zeilinger and W -state, it will be shown that the zx-calculus provides a relatively easy and more intuitive presentation. Moreover, in this representation it is easier to check that protocols are correct. Protocols that will be discussed in detail are quantum teleportation, quantum cryptography, leader election, superdense coding and quantum direct communication with multipartite entangled states.