We show that the analysis of entanglement distillation protocols for qudits of arbitrary dimension $D$ benefits from applying basic concepts from number theory, since the set ${\mathbf{Z}}_D^n$ associated with Bell diagonal states is a module rather than a vector space. We find that a partition of ${\mathbf{Z}}_D^n$ into divisor classes characterizes the invariant properties of mixed Bell diagonal states under local permutations. We construct a very general class of recursion protocols by means of unitary operations implementing these local permutations. We study these distillation protocols depending on whether we use twirling operations in the intermediate steps or not, and we study them both analytically and numerically with Monte Carlo methods. In the absence of twirling operations, we construct extensions of the quantum privacy algorithms valid for secure communications with qudits of any dimension $D$. When $D$ is a prime number, we show that distillation protocols are optimal both qualitatively and quantitatively.

• Received 1 March 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.032313