Entanglement of a Pair of Quantum Bits

Preprint
Abstract
The ``entanglement of formation'' of a mixed state of a bipartite quantum system can be defined in terms of the number of pure singlets needed to create the state with no further transfer of quantum information. We find an exact formula for the entanglement of formation for all mixed states of two qubits having no more than two non-zero eigenvalues, and we report evidence suggesting that the formula is valid for all states of this system.