Quantum map approach to entanglement transfer and generation in spin chains

Quantum information processing protocols are efficiently implemented on spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ networks. A quantum communication protocol generally involves a certain number of parties having local access to a subset of a larger system, whose intrinsic dynamics are exploited in order to perform a specific task. In this chapter, we address such a scenario with the quantum dynamical map formalism, where the dynamics of the larger system is expressed as a quantum map acting on the parties' access to their respective subsets of spins. We reformulate widely investigated protocols, such as one-qubit quantum state transfer and two-qubit entanglement distribution, with the quantum map formalism and demonstrate its usefulness in exploring less investigated protocols such as multi-qubit entanglement generation.