Bound Entangled Gaussian States

Abstract

We discuss the entanglement properties of bipartite states with Gaussian Wigner functions. For the separability, and the positivity of the partial transpose, we establish explicit necessary and sufficient criteria in terms of the covariance matrix of the state. It is shown that, for systems composed of a single oscillator for Alice and an arbitrary number for Bob, positivity of the partial transpose implies separability. However, this implication fails with two oscillators on each side, as we show by constructing a five parameter family of bound entangled Gaussian states.