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  • Featured in Physics
  • Open Access

Practical and efficient verification of entanglement with incomplete measurement settings

Jiheon Seong1,*, Jin-Woo Kim1,2,*, Seungchan Seo1, Seung-Hyun Nam3, Anindita Bera4, Dariusz Chruściński5, June-Koo Kevin Rhee1, Heonoh Kim6,†, and Joonwoo Bae1,‡

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: quantumkho@kaist.ac.kr
  • ‡Contact author: joonwoo.bae@kaist.ac.kr
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APS Open Sci. 1, 000008 – Published 29 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sgbs-7228

Abstract

In this work, we present a practical and efficient framework for verifying entangled states when only a tomographically incomplete measurement setting is available—specifically, when access to observables is severely limited. We show how the experimental estimation of a small number of observables can be directly exploited to construct a large family of entanglement witnesses, enabling the efficient identification of entangled states. Moreover, we introduce an optimization approach, formulated as a semidefinite program, that systematically searches for those witnesses best suited to reveal entanglement under the given measurement constraints. We demonstrate the practicality of the approach in a proof-of-principle experiment with photon-polarization qubits, where entanglement is certified using only a fraction of the full measurement data. These results reveal the maximal usefulness of incomplete measurement settings for entanglement verification in realistic scenarios.

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synopsis

Verifying Entanglement with Limited Data

Published 29 April, 2026

A new technique efficiently detects quantum entanglement using just a small set of measurements.

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Article Text

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Outline

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APS Open Sci. 1, 000008– Published 29 April, 2026
Vol. 1
  • Received 27 January 2026
  • Revised 19 March 2026
  • Accepted 26 March 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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