Dynamics of entanglement and non-classical correlation for four-qubit GHZ state

Abstract

Many-qubit entanglement is crucial for quantum information processing although its exploitation is hindered by the detrimental effects of the environment surrounding the many-qubit system. It is thus of importance to study the dynamics of general multipartite non-classical correlation, including but not restricted to entanglement, under noise. We did this study for four-qubit Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinga (GHZ) state under most common noises in an experiment and found that non-classical correlation is more robust than entanglement except when it is imposed to dephasing channel. Quantum discord presents a sudden transition in its dynamics for Pauli-X and Pauli-Y noises as well as Bell-diagonal states interacting with dephasing reservoirs and it decays monotonically for Pauli-Z and isotropic noises.