ua nt - p h / 06 01 04 5 v 1 7 J an 2 00 6 Entanglement and Teleportation of Gaussian States of the Radiation Field

We propose a reliable entanglement measure for a two-mode squeezed thermal state of the quantum electromagnetic field in terms of its Bures distance to the set of all separable states of the same kind. The requisite Uhlmann fidelity of a pair of two-mode squeezed thermal states is evaluated as the maximal transition probability between two four-mode purifications. By applying the Peres-Simon criterion of separability we find the closest separable state. This enables us to derive an insightful expression of the amount of entanglement. Then we apply this measure of entanglement to the study of the BraunsteinKimble protocol of teleportation. We use as input state in teleportation a mixed one-mode Gaussian state. The entangled state shared by the sender (Alice) and the receiver (Bob) is taken to be a two-mode squeezed thermal state. We find that the properties of the teleported state depend on both the input state and the entanglement of the two-mode resource state. As a measure of the quality of the teleportation process, we employ the Uhlmann fidelity between the input and output mixed one-mode Gaussian states.