Local quantum transformations requiring infinite rounds of classical communication.

In this Letter, we investigate the number of measurement and communication rounds needed to implement certain tasks by local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC), a relatively unexplored topic. To demonstrate the possible strong dependence on the round number, we consider the problem of converting three-qubit entanglement into two-qubit form, specifically in the random distillation setting of [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 260501 (2007)]. We find that the number of LOCC rounds needed for a transformation can depend on the amount of entanglement distilled. In fact, for a wide range of transformations, the required number of rounds is infinite (unbounded). This represents the first concrete example of a task needing an infinite number of rounds to implement.