Topology of quantum discord

Quantum discord is an important measure of quantum correlations that can serve as a resource for certain types of quantum information processing. \ Like entanglement, discord is subject to destruction by external noise. The routes by which this destruction can take place depends on the shape of the hypersurface of zero discord mathcal{C} in the space of generalized Bloch vectors. For 2 qubits, we show that with a few points subtracted, this hypersurface is a simply-connected 9-dimensional manifold embedded in a 15-dimensional background space. \ We do this by constructing an explicit\ homeomorphism from a known manifold to the subtracted version of mathcal{C}. We also construct a coordinate map on mathcal{C} that can be used for integration or other purposes. This topological characterization of % mathcal{C} has important implications for the classification of the possible time evolutions of discord in physical models. The classification for discord contrasts sharply with the possible evolutions of entanglement. Using topological methods, we classify the possible joint evolutions of entanglement and discord. There are 9 allowed categories: 6 categories for a Markovian process and 3 categories for a non-Markovian process, respectively. We illustrate these conclusions with an anisotropic XY spin model. All 9 categories can be obtained by adjusting parameters.