Characterization of Equivariant Maps and Application to Entanglement Detection

We study equivariant linear maps between finite-dimensional matrix algebras, as introduced in Collins et al. (Linear Algebra Appl 555:398–411, 2018). These maps satisfy an algebraic property which makes it easy to study their positivity or k -positivity. They are therefore particularly suitable for applications to entanglement detection in quantum information theory. We characterize their Choi matrices. In particular, we focus on a subfamily that we call ( a , b )-unitarily equivariant. They can be seen as both a generalization of maps invariant under unitary conjugation as studied by Bhat (Banach J Math Anal 5(2):1–5, 2011) and as a generalization of the equivariant maps studied in Collins et al. (2018). Using representation theory, we fully compute them and study their graphical representation and show that they are basically enough to study all equivariant maps. We finally apply them to the problem of entanglement detection and prove that they form a sufficient (infinite) family of positive maps to detect all k -entangled density matrices.