Nonlocal and controlled unitary operators of Schmidt rank three

Abstract: Implementing nonlocal unitary operators is an important and hard question in quantum computing and cryptography. We show that any bipartite nonlocal unitary operator of Schmidt rank three on the $(d_A \times d_B)$-dimensional system is locally equivalent to a controlled unitary when $d_A$ is at most three. This operator can be locally implemented assisted by a maximally entangled state of Schmidt rank $r=\min{d_A^2,d_B}$. We further show that stochastic-equivalent nonlocal unitary operators are indeed locally equivalent, and propose a sufficient condition on which nonlocal and controlled unitary operators are locally equivalent. We also provide the solution to a special case of a conjecture on the ranks of multipartite quantum states.