In this paper, we consider the generation of a three-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-like thermal state by applying the entanglement swapping scheme of Zukowski et al. [Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 755, 91 (1995)] to three pairs of two-qubit Heisenberg $XY$ chains. The quality of the resulting three-qubit entanglement is studied by analyzing the teleportation fidelity, when it is used as a resource in the teleportation protocol of Karlsson et al. [Phys. Rev. A 58, 4394 (1998)]. We show that even though thermal noise in the original two-qubit states is amplified by the entanglement swapping process, we are still able to achieve nonclassical fidelities for the anisotropic Heisenberg $XY$ chains at finitely higher and higher temperatures by adjusting the strengths of an external magnetic field. This has a positive implication on the solid-state realization of a quantum computer.

• Received 28 June 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.062302