One of the most challenging open problems in quantum information theory is to clarify and quantify how entanglement behaves when part of an entangled state is sent through a quantum channel. Of central importance in the description of a quantum channel or completely positive map (CP-map) is the dual state associated to it. The present paper is a collection of well-known, less known and new results on quantum channels, presented in a unified way. We will show how this dual state induces nice characterizations of the extremal maps of the convex set of CP-maps, and how normal forms for states defined on a Hilbert space with a tensor product structure lead to interesting parameterizations of quantum channels.
The concept of divisibility of dynamical maps is used to introduce an analogous concept for quantum channels by analyzing the \textit{simulability} of channels by means of dynamical maps. In particular, this is addressed for Lindblad divisible, completely positive divisible and positive divisible dynamical maps. The corresponding L-divisible, CP-divisible and P-divisible subsets of channels are characterized (exploiting the results by Wolf et al., Comm. Math. Phys., 279(1):147-168, 2008) and visualized for the case of qubit channels. We discuss the general inclusions among divisibility sets an…
We investigate the problem of reversing quantum dynamics, specifically via optimal Petz recovery maps. We focus on typical decoherence channels, such as dephasing, depolarizing and amplitude damping. We illustrate how well a physically implementable recovery map simulates an inverse evolution. We extend this idea to explore the use of recovery maps as an approximation of inverse maps, and apply it in the context of non-Markovian dynamics. We show how this strategy attenuates non-Markovian effects, such as the backflow of information.
We present an "uncertainty principle" for quantum channels, showing a relationship between the dimensions of the range of a channel and the range of its complement. We examine some interesting specific cases, and discuss consequences for privacy of quantum channels.
On the relevance of Hermitian-preserving trace-preserving linear maps in asymptotic information retrieval in quantum communication
Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar（印度技术研究所布巴内斯瓦尔分校）；Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science（韩国标准科学研究院）；The Institute of Mathematical Sciences（数学科学研究院）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴巴国立研究所）
We initiate the systematic study of resource theories of quantum channels, i.e. of the dynamics that quantum systems undergo by completely positive maps, in abstracto: Resources are in principle all maps from one quantum system to another, but some maps are deemed free. The free maps are supposed to satisfy certain axioms, among them closure under tensor products, under composition and freeness of the identity map (the latter two say that the free maps form a monoid). The free maps act on the resources simply by tensor product and composition. This generalizes the much-studied resource theorie…
We study the problem of accessibility in a set of classical and quantum channels admitting a group structure. Group properties of the set of channels, and the structure of the closure of the analyzed group $G$ plays a pivotal role in this regard. The set of all convex combinations of the group elements contains a subset of channels that are accessible by a dynamical semigroup. We demonstrate that accessible channels are determined by probability vectors of weights of a convex combination of the group elements, which depend neither on the dimension of the space on which the channels act, nor on…
We formulate the notion of quantum channels in the framework of quantum tomography and address there the issue of whether such maps can be regarded as classical stochastic maps. In particular kernels of maps acting on probability representation of quantum states are derived for qubit and bosonic systems. In the latter case it results that a single mode Gaussian quantum channel corresponds to non-Gaussian classical channels.
Quantum non-Markovianity of channels can be produced by mixing Markovian channels, as observed recently by various authors. We consider an analogous question of whether singularities of the channel can be produced by mixing non-singular channels, i.e., ones that lack them. Here we answer the question in the negative in the context of qubit Pauli channels. On the other hand, mixing channels with a singularity can lead to the elimination of singularities in the resultant channel. We distinguish between two types of singular channels, which lead under mixing to broadly quite different properties …
We introduce a spin polarization-scaling map for spin-$j$ particles, whose physical meaning is the decrease of spin polarization along three mutually orthogonal axes. We find conditions on three scaling parameters under which the map is positive, completely positive, entanglement breaking, 2-tensor-stable positive, and 2-locally entanglement annihilating. The results are specified for maps on spin-$1$ particles. The difference from the case of spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles is emphasized.
Quantum supermaps are a higher-order generalization of quantum maps, taking quantum maps to quantum maps. It is known that any completely positive, trace non-increasing (CPTNI) map can be performed as part of a quantum measurement. By providing an explicit counterexample we show that, instead, not every quantum supermap sending a quantum channel to a CPTNI map can be realized in a measurement on quantum channels. We find that the supermaps that can be implemented in this way are exactly those transforming quantum channels into CPTNI maps even when tensored with the identity supermap. We link t…
Divisibility of dynamical maps turns out to be a fundamental notion in characterising Markovianity of quantum evolution, although the decision problem for divisibility itself is computationally intractable. In this work, we propose the operational characterisation of divisibility of dynamical maps by exploiting distinguishability of quantum channels. We prove that distinguishability for any pair of quantum channels does not increase under divisible maps, and then, in terms of channel distinguishability with entanglement between system and $k$-dimensional ancillas, provide the operational chara…
Very recently a conjecture saying that the so-called structural physical approximations (SPAa) to optimal positive maps (optimal entanglement witnesses) give entanglement breaking (EB) maps (separable states) has been posed [J. K. Korbicz {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 78}, 062105 (2008)]. The main purpose of this contribution is to explore this subject. First, we extend the set of entanglement witnesses (EWs) supporting the conjecture. Then, we ask if SPAs constructed from other than the depolarizing channel maps also lead to EB maps and show that in general this is not the case. On the othe…
We present a method to detect properties of quantum channels, assuming that some a priori information about the form of the channel is available. The method is based on a correspondence with entanglement detection methods for multipartite density matrices based on witness operators. We first illustrate the method in the case of entanglement breaking channels and non separable random unitary channels, and show how it can be implemented experimentally by means of local measurements. We then study the detection of non separable maps and show that for pairs of systems of dimension higher than two …
The notion of potential output purity of a completely positive map is introduced as a generalization of the regularized output purity. An upper bound is derived for this quantity, and for several classes of maps (including CQ, QC and Hadamard channels) it is shown that potential purity does not exceed the standard output purity. As an application the potential purity is used to bound the logarithmic Sobolev constant of a product of depolarizing channel semigroups.
Using the known possibility to associate the completely positive maps with density matrices and recent results on expressing the density matrices with sets of classical probability distributions of dichotomic random variables we construct the probability representation of the completely positive maps. In this representation, any completely positive map of qudit state density matrix is identified with the set of classical coin probability distributions. Examples of the maps of qubit states are studied in detail. The evolution equation of quantum states is written in the form of the classical-li…
We analyze the geometrical properties of trace-preserving Pauli maps. Using the Choi-Jamio\lkowski isomorphism, we express the Hilbert-Schmidt line and volume elements in terms of the eigenvalues of the Pauli map. We analytically compute the volumes of positive, trace-preserving Pauli maps and Pauli channels. In particular, we find the relative volumes of the entanglement breaking Pauli channels, as well as the channels that can be generated by a time-local generator. Finally, we show what part of the Pauli channels are P and CP-divisible, which is related to the notion of Markovianity.
We briefly review a recently proposed method to detect properties of quantum noise processes and quantum channels. We illustrate in detail the method for detecting non separable random unitary channels and consider in particular the explicit examples of the CNOT and CZ gates. We analyse their robustness in the presence of noise for several quantum noise models.
Simulation of Adjoints and Petz Recovery Maps for Unknown Quantum Channels
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)（香港科技大学（广州））；Wuhan University（武汉大学）；Hubei Center for Applied Mathematics（湖北应用数学中心）；Hubei Key Laboratory of Computational Science（湖北省计算科学重点实验室）；Wuhan Institute of Quantum Technology（武汉量子技术研究院）
On account of the Abel-Galois no-go theorem for the algebraic solution to quintic and higher order polynomials, the eigenvalue problem and the associated characteristic equation for a general noise dynamics in dimension $d$ via the Choi-Jamiolkowski approach cannot be solved in general via radicals. We provide a way around this impasse by decomposing the Choi matrix into simpler, not necessarily positive, Hermitian operators that are diagonalizable via radicals, which yield a set of `positive' and `negative' Kraus operators. The price to pay is that the sufficient number of Kraus operators is …
The set of Entanglement Saving (ES) quantum channels is introduced and characterized. These are completely positive, trace preserving transformations which when acting locally on a bipartite quantum system initially prepared into a maximally entangled configuration, preserve its entanglement even when applied an arbitrary number of times. In other words, a quantum channel $ψ$ is said to be ES if its powers $ψ^n$ are not entanglement-breaking for all integers $n$. We also characterize the properties of the Asymptotic Entanglement Saving (AES) maps. These form a proper subset of the ES channels …
The quantum speed of evolution for the phase covariant map is investigated. This involves absorption, emission and dephasing processes. We consider the maps under various combinations of the above processes to investigate the effect of phase covariant maps on quantum speed limit time. For absorption-free phase covariant maps, combinations of dissipative and CP-(in)divisible (non)-Markovian dephasing noises are considered. The role of coherence-mixedness balance on the speed limit time is checked in the presence of both vacuum and finite temperature effects. We also investigate the rate at whic…
We present two projects concerning the main part of my PhD work. In the first one we study quantum channels, which are the most general operations mapping quantum states into quantum states, from the point of view of their divisibility properties. We introduced tools to test if a given quantum channel can be implemented by a process described by a Lindblad master equation. This in turn defines channels that can be divided in such a way that they form a one-parameter semigroup, thus introducing the most restricted studied divisibility type of this work. Using our results, together with the stud…
In this work we examine quantum states which have non-negative amplitudes (in a fixed basis) and the channels which preserve them. These states include the ground states of stoquastic Hamiltonians and they are of interest since they avoid the Sign Problem and can thus be efficiently simulated. In optimization theory, the convex cone generated by such states is called the set of completely positive (CP) matrices (not be confused with completely positive superoperators). We introduce quantum channels which preserve these states and call them completely positive completely positive. To study thes…
Absolutely separable states $\varrho$ remain separable under arbitrary unitary transformations $U \varrho U^†$. By example of a three qubit system we show that in multipartite scenario neither full separability implies bipartite absolute separability nor the reverse statement holds. The main goal of the paper is to analyze quantum maps resulting in absolutely separable output states. Such absolutely separating maps affect the states in a way, when no Hamiltonian dynamics can make them entangled afterwards. We study general properties of absolutely separating maps and channels with respect to b…
State transformations in quantum mechanics are described by completely positive maps which are constructed from quantum channels. We call a finest sharp quantum channel a context. The result of a measurement depends on the context under which it is performed. Each context provides a viewpoint of the quantum system being measured. This gives only a partial picture of the system which may be distorted and in order to obtain a total accurate picture, various contexts need to be employed. We first discuss some basic definitions and results concerning quantum channels. We briefly describe the relat…
Decoherence of quantum systems is described by quantum channels. However, a complete understanding of such channels, especially in the multi-particle setting, is still an ongoing difficult task. We propose the family of quantum maps that preserve or completely erase the components of a multi-qubit system in the basis of Pauli strings, which we call Pauli component erasing maps. For the corresponding channels, it is shown that the preserved components can be interpreted as a finite vector subspace, from which we derive several properties and complete the characterization. Moreover, we show that…
In the first part of this work we show how certain techniques from quantum information theory can be used in order to obtain very sharp embeddings between noncommutative $L_p$-spaces. Then, we use these estimates to study the classical capacity with restricted assisted entanglement of the quantum erasure channel and the quantum depolarizing channel. In particular, we exactly compute the capacity of the first one and we show that certain nonmultiplicative results hold for the second one.
We introduce a non-Markovianity measure for continuous variable open quantum systems based on the idea put forward in H.-P. Breuer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.\textbf{103}, 210401 (2009), i.e., by quantifying the flow of information from the environment back to the open system. Instead of the trace distance we use here the fidelity to assess distinguishability of quantum states. We employ our measure to evaluate non-Markovianity of two paradigmatic Gaussian channels: the purely damping channel and the quantum Brownian motion channel with Ohmic environment. We consider different classes of Gaussian…
In this paper we initiate the study of entanglement-breaking (EB) superchannels. These are processes that always yield separable maps when acting on one side of a bipartite completely positive (CP) map. EB superchannels are a generalization of the well-known EB channels. We give several equivalent characterizations of EB supermaps and superchannels. Unlike its channel counterpart, we find that not every EB superchannel can be implemented as a measure-and-prepare superchannel. We also demonstrate that many EB superchannels can be superactivated, in the sense that they can output non-separable c…
In this paper we introduce a way to quantify the noise level associated to a given quantum transformation. The key mechanism lying at the heart of the proposal is "noise addition": in other words we compute the amount of extra noise we need to add to the system, through convex combination with a reference noisy map or by reiterative applications of the original map, before the resulting transformation becomes entanglement-breaking. We also introduce the notion of entanglement-breaking channels of order n (i.e. maps which become entanglement-breaking after n iterations), and the associated noti…
Classical capacity of unital qubit channels is well known, whereas that of nonunital qubit channels is not. We find lower and upper bounds on classical capacity of nonunital qubit channels by using a recently developed decomposition technique relating nonunital and unital positive qubit maps.
