Quantum Discord-Breaking Channels

Through comparisons with an entanglement breaking (EB) channel, we characterize the local quantum channels that destroy quantum correlations, especially for quantum discord, and give a detailed description of a discord-breaking (DB) channel. We prove that the quantum discord can be broken if and only if the local quantum channel is a commutativity-creating (CoC) channel. Then we show which kind of channels is a CoC channel, and address the relation between EB and DB channels. Furthermore we apply our results to three typical noise channels.