In the study of d-dimensional quantum channels $(d \geq 2)$, an assumption which is not very restrictive, and which has a natural physical interpretation, is that the corresponding Kraus operators form a representation of a Lie algebra. Physically, this is a symmetry algebra for the interaction Hamiltonian. This paper begins a systematic study of channels defined by representations; the famous Werner-Holevo channel is one element of this infinite class. We show that the channel derived from the defining representation of SU(n) is a depolarizing channel for all $n$, but for most other representations this is not the case. Since the Bloch sphere is not appropriate here, we develop technology which is a generalization of Bloch's technique. Our method works by representing the density matrix as a polynomial in symmetrized products of Lie algebra generators, with coefficients that are symmetric tensors. Using these tensor methods we prove eleven theorems, derive many explicit formulas and show other interesting properties of quantum channels in various dimensions, with various Lie symmetry algebras. We also derive numerical estimates on the size of a generalized ``Bloch sphere'' for certain channels. There remain many open questions which are indicated at various points through the paper.
The diamond norm measures the distance between two quantum channels. From an operational vewpoint, this norm measures how well we can distinguish between two channels by applying them to input states of arbitrarily large dimensions. In this paper, we show that the diamond norm can be conveniently and in a physically transparent way computed by means of a Monte-Carlo algorithm based on the Fano representation of quantum states and quantum operations. The effectiveness of this algorithm is illustrated for several single-qubit quantum channels.
Being attracted by the property of classical polar code, researchers are trying to find its analogue in quantum fields, which is called quantum polar code. The first step and the key to design quantum polar code is to find out for the quantity which can measure the quality of quantum channels, whether there is a polarization phenomenon which is similar to classical channel polarization. Coherent information is believed to be the quantum analogue of classical mutual information and the quantity to measure the capacity of quantum channel. In this paper, we define a class of quantum channels call…
Using the axiomatic definition of the coherence measure, such as the $l_{1}$ norm and the relative entropy, we study the phenomena of two-qubit system quantum coherence through quantum channels where successive uses of the channels are memory. Different types of noisy channels with memory, such as amplitude damping, phase-damping, and depolarizing channels effect on quantum coherence have been discussed in detail. The results show that, quantum channels with memory can efficiently protect coherence from noisy channels. Particularly, as channels with perfect memory, quantum coherence is unaffec…
We give a sufficient condition that an operator sum representation of a separable quantum channel in terms of product operators is the unique product representation for that channel, and then provide examples of such channels for any number of parties. This result has implications for efforts to determine whether or not a given separable channel can be exactly implemented by local operations and classical communication. By the Choi-Jamiolkowski isomorphism, it also translates to a condition for the uniqueness of product state ensembles representing a given quantum state. These ideas follow fro…
Conjugate degradable channels are channels whose quantum capacity is calculable. They were defined and studied in [1] where, however, only channels that are both degradable and conjugate degradable were found. In this paper we bring the very first example of conjugate degradable channels that are not degradable. We also identify the physical origin of these channels and show that they belong to the class of optimal universal asymmetric cloners. We thus not only positively answer the question whether conjugate degradable channels form a new class of channels with a single-letter capacity formul…
The quantum channel capacity gives the ultimate limit for the rate at which quantum data can be reliably transmitted through a noisy quantum channel. Degradable quantum channels are among the few channels whose quantum capacities are known. Given the quantum capacity of a degradable channel, it remains challenging to find a practical coding scheme which approaches capacity. Here we discuss code designs for the detected-jump channel, a degradable channel with practical relevance describing the physics of spontaneous decay of atoms with detected photon emission. We show that this channel can be …
Within the framework of quantum memory channels we introduce the notion of repeatability of quantum channels. In particular, a quantum channel is called repeatable if there exist a memory device implementing the same channel on each individual input. We show that random unitary channels can be implemented in a repeatable fashion, whereas the nonunital channels cannot.
It is proved that every doubly stochastic quantum channel that is properly averaged with the completely depolarizing channel can be written as a convex combination of unitary channels. As a consequence, we find that the collection of channels expressible as convex combinations of unitary channels has non-zero Borel measure within the space of doubly stochastic channels.
We argue that a fundamental (conjectured) property of memoryless quantum channels, namely the strong superadditivity, is intimately related to the decreasing property of the quantum relative entropy. Using the latter we first give, for a wide class of input states, an estimation of the output entropy for phase damping channels and some Weyl quantum channels. Then we prove, without any input restriction, the strong superadditivity for several quantum channels, including depolarizing quantum channels, quantum-classical channels and quantum erasure channels.
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…
All communication channels are at bottom quantum mechanical. Quantum mechanics contributes both obstacles to communication in the form of noise, and opportunities in the use of intrinsically quantum representations for information. This paper investigates the trade-off between power and communication rate for coupled quantum channels. By exploiting quantum correlations such as entanglement, coupled quantum channels can communicate at a potentially higher rate than unentangled quantum channels given the same power. In particular, given the same overall power, M coupled, entangled quantum channe…
We obtain an explicit characterization of linear maps, in particular, quantum channels, which are covariant with respect to an irreducible representation ($U$) of a finite group ($G$), whenever $U \otimes U^c$ is simply reducible (with $U^c$ being the contragradient representation). Using the theory of group representations, we obtain the spectral decomposition of any such linear map. The eigenvalues and orthogonal projections arising in this decomposition are expressed entirely in terms of representation characteristics of the group $G$. This in turn yields necessary and sufficient conditions…
We show that the quantum discord and the measurement induced non-locality (MiN) in a bipartite quantum state is invariant under the action of a local quantum channel if and only if the channel is invertible. In particular, these quantities are invariant under a local unitary channel.
Quantum correlation can be created by local operations from a classically correlated state. We define quantum-correlating power (QCP) of a local quantum channel as the maximum amount of quantum correlation that can be created by the channel. The quantum correlation that we discuss in this article is defined on the left part of the bipartite state. We prove that for any local channel, the optimal input state, which corresponds to the maximum quantum correlation in the output state, must be a classical-classical state. Further, the single-qubit channels with maximum QCP can be found in the class…
We investigate the coherence of quantum channels and establish a resource theory for quantifying the coherence of quantum channels via Choi matrix. To this aim, we define the incoherent channels and incoherent superchannels. This theory recovers the case of quantum states when we view quantum states as a special case of quantum channels and also, this theory allows some analytical expressions for coherence measures.
Quantum capacity, as the key figure of merit for a given quantum channel, upper bounds the channel's ability in transmitting quantum information. Identifying different type of channels, evaluating the corresponding quantum capacity and finding the capacity-approaching coding scheme are the major tasks in quantum communication theory. Quantum channel in discrete variables has been discussed enormously involving various error models, while error model in the continuous variable channel has been less studied due to the infinite dimensional problem. In this paper, we investigate a general continuo…
A collection of quantum channels is called incompatible if they cannot be obtained as marginals from a single channel. No-cloning theorem is the most prominent instance of incompatibility of quantum channels. We show that every collection of incompatible channels can be more useful than compatible ones as preprocessings in a state discrimination task with multiple ensembles of states. This is done by showing that the robustness of channel incompatibility which is a measure for incompatibility of channels exactly quantifies the maximum advantage in the state discrimination. We also show that in…
In this work we aim at quantifying quantum channel output similarity. In order to achieve this, we introduce the notion of quantum channel superfidelity, which gives us an upper bound on the quantum channel fidelity. This quantity is expressed in a clear form using the Kraus representation of a quantum channel. As examples, we show potential applications of this quantity in the quantum control field.
An expression is derived characterizing the set of admissible rate pairs for simultaneous transmission of classical and quantum information over a given quantum channel, generalizing both the classical and quantum capacities of the channel. Although our formula involves regularization, i.e. taking a limit over many copies of the channel, it reduces to a single-letter expression in the case of generalized dephasing channels. Analogous formulae are conjectured for the simultaneous public-private capacity of a quantum channel and for the simultaneously 1-way distillable common randomness and enta…
Quantum channels can describe all transformations allowed by quantum mechanics. We provide an explicit universal protocol to construct all possible quantum channels, using a single qubit ancilla with quantum non-demolition readout and adaptive control. Our construction is efficient in both physical resources and circuit depth, and can be demonstrated using superconducting circuits and various other physical platforms. There are many applications of quantum channel construction, including system stabilization and quantum error correction, Markovian and exotic channel simulation, implementation …
The fidelity function of quantum states have been widely used in quantum information science and frequently arises in the quantification of optimal performances for the estimation and distinguish of quantum states. A fidelity function on quantum channel is expected to have same wide applications in quantum information science. In this paper we propose a fidelity function on quantum channels and show that various distance measures on quantum channels can be obtained from this fidelity function, for example the Bures angle and the Bures distance can be extended to quantum channels via this fidel…
Memory effects play an important role in the theory of open quantum systems. There are two completely independent insights about memory for quantum channels. In quantum information theory, the memory of the quantum channel is depicted by the correlations between consecutive uses of the channel on a set of quantum systems. In the theory of open quantum systems memory effects result from correlations which are created during the quantum evolution. Here, we study the quantum speed limit time for correlated quantum channel i.e. when there exist correlation between consecutive uses of quantum chann…
We report experimental studies on the effect of the depolarizing quantum channel on weak-pulse BB84 and SARG04 quantum cryptography. The experimental results show that, in real world conditions in which channel depolarization cannot be ignored, BB84 should perform better than SARG04.
Operator-sum or Kraus representations for single-mode Bosonic Gaussian channels are developed, and several of their consequences explored. Kraus operators are employed to bring out the manner in which the unphysical matrix transposition map when accompanied by injection of a threshold classical noise becomes a physical channel. The action of the quantum-limited attenuator and amplifier channels as simply scaling maps on suitable quasi-probabilities in phase space is examined in the Kraus picture. Consideration of cumulants is used to examine the issue of fixed points. In the cases of entanglem…
When classical information is sent through a quantum channel of nonorthogonal states, there is a possibility that transmittable classical information exceeds a channel capacity in a single use of the initial channel by extending it into multi-product channel. In this paper, it is shown that this remarkable feature of a quantum channel, so-called superadditivity, appears even in as low as the third extended coding of the simplest binary input channel. A physical implementation of this channel is indicated based on cavity QED techniques.
We investigate the approximate quantum state sharing protocol based on random unitary channels, which is secure against any exterior or interior attackers in principle. Although the protocol leaks small information for a security parameter $ε$, the scheme still preserves its information-theoretic secrecy, and reduces some pre-shared classical secret keys for a private quantum channel between a sender and two receivers. The approximate private quantum channels constructed via random unitary channels play a crucial role in the proposed quantum state sharing protocol.
Quantum simulation is of great importance in quantum information science. Here, we report an experimental quantum channel simulator imbued with an algorithm for imitating the behavior of a general class of quantum systems. The reported quantum channel simulator consists of four single-qubit gates and one controlled-NOT gate. All types of quantum channels can be decomposed by the algorithm and implemented on this device. We deploy our system to simulate various quantum channels, such as quantum-noise channels and weak quantum measurement. Our results advance experimental quantum channel simulat…
Based on the resource theory for quantifying the coherence of quantum channels, we introduce a new coherence quantifier for quantum channels via maximum relative entropy. We prove that the maximum relative entropy for coherence of quantum channels is directly related to the maximally coherent channels under a particular class of superoperations, which results in an operational interpretation of the maximum relative entropy for coherence of quantum channels. We also introduce the conception of sub-superchannels and sub-superchannel discrimination. For any quantum channels, we show that the adva…
We investigate the capacity of bosonic quantum channels for the transmission of quantum information. Achievable rates are determined from measurable moments of the channel by showing that every channel can asymptotically simulate a Gaussian channel which is characterized by second moments of the initial channel. We calculate the quantum capacity for a class of Gaussian channels, including channels describing optical fibers with photon losses, by proving that Gaussian encodings are optimal. Along the way we provide a complete characterization of degradable Gaussian channels and those arising fr…
By using the Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland (HSW) theorem and through solving eigenvalues of states out from the quantum noisy channels directly, or with the help of the Bloch sphere representation, or Stokes parametrization representation, we investigate the classical information capacities of some well-known quantum noisy channels.
The study of quantum channels is the fundamental field and promises wide range of applications, because any physical process can be represented as a quantum channel transforming an initial state into a final state. Inspired by the method performing non-unitary operator by the linear combination of unitary operations, we proposed a quantum algorithm for the simulation of universal single-qubit channel, described by a convex combination of 'quasiextreme' channels corresponding to four Kraus operators, and is scalable to arbitrary higher dimension. We demonstrate the whole algorithm experimentall…
Quantum coherence is a fundamental aspect of quantum physics and plays a central role in quantum information science. This essential property of the quantum states could be fragile under the influence of the quantum operations. The extent to which quantum coherence is diminished depends both on the channel and the incoherent basis. Motivated by this, we propose a measure of nonclassicality of a quantum channel as the average quantum coherence of the state space after the channel acts on, minimized over all orthonormal basis sets of the state space. Utilizing the squared $l_1$-norm of coherence…
We study one-mode Gaussian quantum channels in continuous-variable systems by performing a black-box characterization using complete positivity and trace preserving conditions, and report the existence of two subsets that do not have a functional Gaussian form. Our study covers as particular limit the case of singular channels, thus connecting our results with their known classification scheme based on canonical forms. Our full characterization of Gaussian channels without Gaussian functional form is completed by showing how Gaussian states are transformed under these operations, and by derivi…
We study the general framework of quantum channel simulation, that is, the ability of a quantum channel to simulate another one using different classes of codes. First, we show that the minimum error of simulation and the one-shot quantum simulation cost under no-signalling assisted codes are given by semidefinite programs. Second, we introduce the channel's smooth max-information, which can be seen as a one-shot generalization of the mutual information of a quantum channel. We provide an exact operational interpretation of the channel's smooth max-information as the one-shot quantum simulatio…
Probabilistic quantum filtering is proposed to properly adapt sequential independent quantum channels in order to stop sudden death of entanglement. In the adaptation, the quantum filtering does not distill or purify more entanglement, it rather properly prepares entangled state to the subsequent quantum channel. For example, the quantum adaptation probabilistically eliminates the sudden death of entanglement of two-qubit entangled state with isotropic noise injected into separate amplitude damping channels. The result has a direct application in quantum key distribution through noisy channels…
There exist memoryless zero-capacity quantum channels that when used jointly result in the channel with positive capacity. This phenomenon is called superactivation. Making use of Parrondo's paradox, we exhibit examples of superactivation-like effect for the capacity of classical communication channels as well as quantum and private capacity of quantum channels with memory. There are several ingredients necessary for superactivation of quantum capacity to occur in memoryless case. The first one is the requirement for the quantum channels which are amenable for superactivation to come from two …
The maximum rates for information transmission through noisy quantum channels has primarily been developed for memoryless channels, where the noise on each transmitted state is treated as independent. Many real world communication channels experience noise which is modelled better by errors that are correlated between separate channel uses. In this paper, upper bounds on the classical information capacities of a class of quantum memory channels are derived. The class of channels consists of indecomposable quantum memory channels, a generalization of classical indecomposable finite-state channe…
Quantum channels can be activated by a kind of channels whose quantum capacity is zero. This activation effect might be useful to overcome noise of channels by attaching other channels which can enhance the capacity of a given channel. In this work, we show that such an activation is possible by specific positive-partial-transpose channels for Gaussian lossy channels whose quantum capacities are known. We also test more general case involving Gaussian thermal attenuator whose the exact value of quantum capacity has been unknown so far. For a recently suggested narrow upper bound on quantum cap…
We prove additivity of the minimum output entropy and the Holevo capacity for rotationally invariant quantum channels acting on spin-1/2 and spin-1 systems. The physical significance of these channels and their relations to other known channels is also discussed.
The essence of quantum error-correction is to use redundant Hilbert space to identify and correct errors, and the channel fidelity of the quantum channel does not affect which errors can be identified and corrected. Based on this, it is found that quantum error-correction can be used to classify the independent quantum channel into 5 types, and 4 of the 5 types can be purified. It is found in quantum error-correction, the decoherence of quantum state may be related to the degree of identification for the state under quantum noise, and the results of this work confirmed that the degree of purit…
Memory effects play a fundamental role in the dynamics of open quantum systems. There exist two different views on memory for quantum noises. In the first view, the quantum channel has memory when there exist correlations between successive uses of the channels on a sequence of quantum systems. These types of channels are also known as correlated quantum channels. In the second view, memory effects result from correlations which are created during the quantum evolution. In this work we will consider the first view and study the quantum speed limit time for a correlated quantum channel. Quantum…
We study the effect of quantum memory in magic squares game when played in quantum domain. We consider different noisy quantum channels and analyze their influence on the magic squares quantum pseudo-telepathy game. We show that the probability of success can be used to distinguish the quantum channels. It is seen that the mean success probability decreases with increase of quantum noise. Where as the mean success probability increases with increase of quantum memory. It is also seen that the behaviour of amplitude damping and phase damping channels is similar. On the other hand, the behaviour…
Most of the quantum secure direct communication protocol needs a pre-established secure quantum channel. Only after insuring the security of quantum channel, could the sender encode the secret message and send them to the receiver through the secure channel. In this paper, we present a quantum secure direct communication protocol using Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs. It is not necessary for the present protocol to insure the security of quantum channel before transmitting the secret message. In the present protocol, all Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs are used to transmit the secret message excep…
Entropic quantifiers of states lie at the cornerstone of the quantum information theory. While a quantum state can be abstracted as a device that only has outputs, the most general quantum device is a quantum channel that also has inputs. In this work, we extend the entropic quantifiers of states to the ones of channels. In the one-shot and asymptotic scenarios, we propose relative entropies of channels under the task of hypothesis testing. Then, we define the entropy of channels based on relative entropies from the target channel to the completely depolarising channel. We also study propertie…
We calculate the quantum capacity of an amplitude-damping channel with time correlated Markov noise, for two channel uses. Our results show that memory of the channel increases it's ability to transmit quantum information significantly. We analyze and compare our findings with earlier numerical results on amplitude-damping channel with memory. An upper bound on the amount of quantum information transmitted over the channel in presence of memory, for an arbitrary number of channel uses is also presented.
Quantum resource theories have been widely studied to systematically characterize the non-classicality of quantum systems. Most resource theories focus on quantum states and study their interconversions. Although quantum channels are generally used as the tool for state manipulation, such a manipulation capability can be naturally regarded as a generalized quantum resource, leading to an open research direction in the resource theories of quantum channels. Various resource-theoretic properties of channels have been investigated, however, without treating channels themselves as operational reso…
We define the quantum-incoherent relative entropy of coherence ($\mathcal{QI}$ REC) of quantum channels in the framework of the resource theory by using the Choi-Jamiolkowsky isomorphism. Coherence-breaking channels are introduced as free operations and their corresponding Choi states as free states. We also show the relationship between the coherence of channel and the quantum discord and find that basis-dependent quantum asymmetric discord can never be more than the $\mathcal{QI}$ REC for any quantum channels. {Also}, we prove the $\mathcal{QI}$ REC is decreasing for any divisible quantum in…
We consider quantum-memory assisted protocols for discriminating quantum channels. We show that for optimal discrimination of memory channels, memory assisted protocols are needed. This leads to a new notion of distance for channels with memory. For optimal discrimination and estimation of sets of unitary channels memory-assisted protocols are not required.
In this thesis we analyse the type of states and ensembles which achieve the capacity for certain quantum channels carrying classical information. We first concentrate on the product-state capacity of a particular quantum channel, that is, the capacity which is achieved by encoding the output states from a source into codewords comprised of states taken from ensembles of non-entangled states and sending them over copies of the quantum channel. Using the "single-letter" formula proved independently by Holevo and by Schumacher and Westmoreland we obtain the product-state capacity of the qubit qu…
Communication over a noisy quantum channel introduces errors in the transmission that must be corrected. A fundamental bound on quantum error correction is the quantum capacity, which quantifies the amount of quantum data that can be protected. We show theoretically that two quantum channels, each with a transmission capacity of zero, can have a nonzero capacity when used together. This unveils a rich structure in the theory of quantum communications, implying that the quantum capacity does not uniquely specify a channel's ability for transmitting quantum information.
We develop an approximation approach to infinite dimensional quantum channels based on detailed investigation of the continuity properties of entropic characteristics of quantum channels and operations (trace-nonincreasing completely positive maps) as functions of a pair ``channel, input state''. The obtained results are then applied to the following problems: continuity of the $χ$-capacity as function of a channel; strong additivity of the $χ$-capacity for infinite dimensional channels; the analytical expression for the convex closure of the output entropy of arbitrary quantum channel.
Recently, a large number of protocols for bidirectional controlled state teleportation (BCST) have been proposed using $n$-qubit entangled states ($n\in\{5,6,7\}$) as quantum channel. Here, we propose a general method of selecting multi-qubit $(n>4)$ quantum channels suitable for BCST and show that all the channels used in the existing protocols of BCST can be obtained using the proposed method. Further, it is shown that the quantum channels used in the existing protocols of BCST forms only a negligibly small subset of the set of all the quantum channels that can be constructed using the propo…
Entanglement is a key issue in the quantum physics which gives rise to resources for achieving tasks that are not possible within the realm of classical physics. Quantum entanglement varies with the evolution of the quantum systems. It is of significance to investigate the entanglement dynamics in terms of quantum channels. We study the entanglement-breaking channels and present the necessary and sufficient conditions for a quantum channel to an entanglement-breaking one for qubit systems. Furthermore, a concept of strong entanglement-breaking channel is introduced. The amendment of entangleme…
