Christandl's PPT2^2 conjecture for entanglement-breaking compositions

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Let Φ1,Φ2∈Tn(C)\Phi_1,\Phi_2\in\mathcal{T}_n(\mathbb{C}) be linear maps. A map Φ\Phi is PPT when both Φ\Phi and Φ∘T\Phi\circ\mathsf{T} are completely positive, and it is entanglement breaking when [In⊗Φ](Y)∈SEP⁡n[I_n\otimes\Phi](Y)\in\operatorname{SEP}_n for every Y∈Herm⁡(Cn⊗Cn)+Y\in\operatorname{Herm}(\mathbb{C}^n\otimes\mathbb{C}^n)_+. PPT2^2 conjecture. The composition Φ1∘Φ2\Phi_1\circ\Phi_2 of two arbitrary PPT linear maps Φ1,Φ2\Phi_1,\Phi_2 is entanglement breaking. Equivalently, if ρ1,ρ2∈Herm⁡(Cn⊗Cn)\rho_1,\rho_2\in\operatorname{Herm}(\mathbb{C}^n\otimes\mathbb{C}^n) are the corresponding Choi states and ρ1,ρ2∈DPS⁡n(1)\rho_1,\rho_2\in\operatorname{DPS}^{(1)}_n, then

J(Φρ1∘Φρ2)∈SEP⁡n.J(\Phi_{\rho_1}\circ\Phi_{\rho_2})\in\operatorname{SEP}_n.

Christandl posed this conjecture in 2012; it asks whether composing two PPT maps always destroys entanglement, and its resolution remains open.

References

Primary source

Jonas Britz and Monique Laurent, “Semidefinite hierarchies for diagonal unitary invariant bipartite quantum states”, arXiv:2512.06551 (2026).

Additional references

6 papers in this index state this conjecture (2017–2025). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2207.02510, arXiv:2002.09614, arXiv:1807.01266, arXiv:1801.05542, arXiv:1710.08475.

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