Noisy evolution of graph-state entanglement

A general method for the study of the entanglement evolution of graph states under the action of Pauli maps was recently proposed in Cavalcanti et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 030502 (2009)]. This method is based on lower and upper bounds to the entanglement of the entire state as a function only of the state of a (typically) considerably smaller subsystem undergoing an effective noise process related to the original map. This provides a huge decrease in the size of the matrices involved in the calculation of entanglement in these systems. In the present paper we elaborate on this method in detail and generalize it to other natural situations not described by Pauli maps. Specifically, for Pauli maps we introduce an explicit formula for the characterization of the resulting effective noise. Beyond Pauli maps, we show that the same ideas can be applied to the case of thermal reservoirs at arbitrary temperature. In the latter case, we discuss how to optimize the bounds as a function of the noise strength. We illustrate our ideas with explicit exemplary results for several different graphs and particular decoherence processes. The limitations of the method are also discussed.