Given a quantum channel $Φ$ in a Hilbert space $H$ put $\hat H_Φ(ρ)=\min \limits_{ρ_{av}=ρ}Σ_{j=1}^{k}π_{j}S(Φ(ρ_{j}))$, where $ρ_{av}=Σ_{j=1}^{k}π_{j}ρ_{j}$, the minimum is taken over all probability distributions $π=\{π_{j}\}$ and states $ρ_{j}$ in $H$, $S(ρ)=-Trρ\logρ$ is the von Neumann entropy of a state $ρ$. The strong superadditivity conjecture states that $\hat H_{Φ\otimes Ψ}(ρ)\ge \hat H_Φ(Tr_{K}(ρ))+\hat H_Ψ(Tr_{H}(ρ))$ for two channels $Φ$ and $Ψ$ in Hilbert spaces $H$ and $K$, respectively. We have proved the strong superadditivity conjecture for the quantum depolarizing channel in prime dimensions. The estimation of the quantity $\hat H_{Φ\otimes Ψ}(ρ)$ for the special class of Weyl channels $Φ$ of the form $Φ=Ξ\circ Φ_{dep}$, where $Φ_{dep}$ is the quantum depolarizing channel and $Ξ$ is the phase damping is given.
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.
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 present an experimental approach to construct a dephrasure channel, which contains both dephasing and erasure noises, and can be used as an efficient tool to study the superadditivity of coherent information. By using a three-fold dephrasure channel, the superadditivity of coherent information is observed, and a substantial gap is found between the zero single-letter coherent information and zero quantum capacity. Particularly, we find that when the coherent information of n channel uses is zero, in the case of larger number of channel uses, it will become positive. These phenomena exhibit …
We study classical capacity regions of quantum Gaussian multiple access channels (MAC). In classical variants of such channels, whilst some capacity superadditivity-type effects such as the so called {\it water filling effect} may be achieved, a fundamental classical additivity law can still be identified, {\it viz.} adding resources to one sender is never advantageous to other senders in sending their respective information to the receiver. Here, we show that quantum resources allows violation of this law, by providing two illustrative schemes of experimentally feasible Gaussian MACs.
Given a quantum channel $Φ$ in a Hilbert space $H$ put $\hat H_Φ(ρ)=\min \limits_{ρ_{av}=ρ}Σ_{j=1}^{k}π_{j}S(Φ(ρ_{j}))$, where $ρ_{av}=Σ_{j=1}^{k}π_{j}ρ_{j}$, the minimum is taken over all probability distributions $π=\{π_{j}\}$ and states $ρ_{j}$ in $H$, $S(ρ)=-Trρ\logρ$ is the von Neumann entropy of a state $ρ$. The strong superadditivity conjecture states that $\hat H_{Φ\otimes Ψ}(ρ)\ge \hat H_Φ(Tr_{K}(ρ))+\hat H_Ψ(Tr_{H}(ρ))$ for two channels $Φ$ and $Ψ$ in Hilbert spaces $H$ and $K$, respectively. We have proved the strong superadditivity conjecture for the quantum depolarizing channel in…
Coherent information quantifies the achievable rate of the reliable quantum information transmission through a communication channel. Use of the correlated quantum states instead of the factorized ones may result in an increase in the coherent information, a phenomenon known as superadditivity. However, even for simple physical models of channels it is rather difficult to detect the superadditivity and find the advantageous multipartite states. Here we consider the case of polarization dependent losses and propose some physically motivated multipartite entangled states which outperform all fac…
The additivity of both the entanglement of formation and the classical channel capacity is known to be a consequence of the strong superadditivity conjecture. We show that, conversely, the strong superadditivity conjecture follows from the additivity of the entanglement of formation; this means that the two conjectures are equivalent and that the additivity of the classical channel capacity is a consequence of them.
Entanglement indcued non--additivity of classical communication capacity in networks consisting of quantum channels is considered. Communication lattices consisiting of butterfly-type entanglement breaking channels augmented, with some probability, by identity channels are analyzed. The capacity superadditivity in the network is manifested in directed correlated bond percolation which we consider in two flavours: simply directed and randomly oriented. The obtained percolation properties show that high capacity information transfer sets in much faster in the regime of superadditive communicatio…
Losses in quantum communication lines severely affect the rates of reliable information transmission and are usually considered to be state-independent. However, the loss probability does depend on the system state in general, with the polarization dependent losses being a prominent example. Here we analyze biased trace decreasing quantum operations that assign different loss probabilities to states and introduce the concept of a generalized erasure channel. We find lower and upper bounds for the classical and quantum capacities of the generalized erasure channel as well as characterize its de…
The quantum capacity of a quantum channel captures its capability for noiseless quantum communication. It lies at the heart of quantum information theory. Unfortunately, our poor understanding of nonadditivity of coherent information makes it hard to understand the quantum capacity of all but very special channels. In this paper, we consider the dephrasure channel, which is the concatenation of a dephasing channel and an erasure channel. This very simple channel displays remarkably rich and exotic properties: we find nonadditivity of coherent information at the two-letter level, a big gap betw…
We employ a basic formalism from convex analysis to show a simple relation between the entanglement of formation $E_F$ and the conjugate function $E^*$ of the entanglement function $E(ρ)=S(\trace_Aρ)$. We then consider the conjectured strong superadditivity of the entanglement of formation $E_F(ρ) \ge E_F(ρ_I)+E_F(ρ_{II})$, where $ρ_I$ and $ρ_{II}$ are the reductions of $ρ$ to the different Hilbert space copies, and prove that it is equivalent with subadditivity of $E^*$. As an application, we show that strong superadditivity would follow from multiplicativity of the maximal channel output pur…
Superadditivity effects in the classical capacity of discrete multi-access channels (MACs) and continuous variable (CV) Gaussian MACs are analysed. New examples of the manifestation of superadditivity in the discrete case are provided including, in particular, a channel which is fully symmetric with respect to all senders. Furthermore, we consider a class of channels for which {\it input entanglement across more than two copies of the channels is necessary} to saturate the asymptotic rate of transmission from one of the senders to the receiver. The 5-input entanglement of Shor error correction…
We show that for a particular class of quantum channels, which we call heralded channels, monogamy of squashed entanglement limits the superadditivity of Holevo capacity. Heralded channels provide a means to understand the quantum erasure channel composed with an arbitrary other quantum channel, as well as common situations in experimental quantum information that involve frequent loss of qubits or failure of trials. We also show how entanglement monogamy applies to non-classicality in quantum games, and we consider how faithful, monogamous entanglement measures may bound other entanglement-de…
The design of error-correcting codes used in modern communications relies on information theory to quantify the capacity of a noisy channel to send information [1]. This capacity can be expressed using the mutual information between input and output for a single use of the channel: although correlations between subsequent input bits are used to correct errors, they cannot increase the capacity. For quantum channels, it has been an open question whether entangled input states can increase the capacity to send classical information [2]. The additivity conjecture [3,4] states that entanglement do…
The maximum rate at which classical information can be reliably transmitted per use of a quantum channel strictly increases in general with $N$, the number of channel outputs that are detected jointly by the quantum joint-detection receiver (JDR). This phenomenon is known as superadditivity of the maximum achievable information rate over a quantum channel. We study this phenomenon for a pure-state classical-quantum (cq) channel and provide a lower bound on $C_N/N$, the maximum information rate when the JDR is restricted to making joint measurements over no more than $N$ quantum channel outputs…
Finding the optimal encoding strategies can be challenging for communication using quantum channels, as classical and quantum capacities may be superadditive. Entanglement assistance can often simplify this task, as the entanglement-assisted classical capacity for any channel is additive, making entanglement across channel uses unnecessary. If the entanglement assistance is limited, the picture is much more unclear. Suppose the classical capacity is superadditive, then the classical capacity with limited entanglement assistance could retain superadditivity by continuity arguments. If the class…
From Shor's [Comm. Math. Phys. 246(3), 453 (2004)] and Hastings's [Nature Phys. 5, 255 (2009)] studies, the strong superadditivity of entanglement of formation is, in general, not true. In this paper, we provide conditions for strong superadditivity of entanglement of formation, and consequently identify classes of states that are strongly superadditive.
We show that the phenomenon of superadditivity of distillable entanglement observed in multipartite quantum systems results from the consideration of states created during the execution of the standard end-to-end quantum teleportation protocol (and a few additional local operations and classical communication (LOCC) steps) on a linear chain of singlets. Some of these intermediate states are tensor products of bound-entangled (BE) states, and hence, by construction possess distillable entanglement, which can be unlocked by simply completing the rest of the LOCC operations required by the underl…
We consider two-way continuous-variable quantum key distribution, studying its security against general eavesdropping strategies. Assuming the asymptotic limit of many signals exchanged, we prove that two-way Gaussian protocols are immune to coherent attacks. More precisely we show the general superadditivity of the two-way security thresholds, which are proven to be higher than the corresponding one-way counterparts in all cases. We perform the security analysis first reducing the general eavesdropping to a two-mode coherent Gaussian attack, and then showing that the superadditivity is achiev…
The quantum capacity of a quantum channel is always smaller than the capacity of the channel for private communication. However, both quantities are given by the infinite regularization of respectively the coherent and the private information. Here, we construct a family of channels for which the private and coherent information can remain strictly superadditive for unbounded number of uses. We prove this by showing that the coherent information is strictly larger than the private information of a smaller number of uses of the channel. This implies that even though the quantum capacity is uppe…
In this article, we investigate the additivity phenomenon in the dynamic capacity of a quantum channel for trading classical communication, quantum communication and entanglement. Understanding such additivity property is important if we want to optimally use a quantum channel for general communication purpose. However, in a lot of cases, the channel one will be using only has an additive single or double resource capacity, and it is largely unknown if this could lead to an superadditive double or triple resource capacity. For example, if a channel has an additive classical and quantum capacit…
Superadditivity for Entanglement-Assisted Communication
National Taiwan University（台湾大学）；National Center for Theoretical Sciences（国家理论科学中心）；Hon Hai (Foxconn) Quantum Computing Center（鸿海（富士康）量子计算中心）；RWTH Aachen University（亚琛工业大学）
Given that any communication is communication through quantum fields, we here study the scenario where a sender, Alice, causes information-carrying disturbances in a quantum field. We track the exact spread of these disturbances in space and time by using the technique of quantum information capsules (QIC). We find that the channel capacity between Alice and a receiver, Bob, is enhanced by Bob placing detectors not only inside but in addition also outside the causal future of Alice's encoding operation. Intuitively, this type of superadditivity arises because the field outside the causal futur…
In quantum superdense coding, two parties previously sharing entanglement can communicate a two bit message by sending a single qubit. We study this feature in the broader framework of general probabilistic theories. We consider a particular class of theories in which the local state space of the communicating parties corresponds to Euclidean hyperballs of dimension n (the case n = 3 corresponds to the Bloch ball of quantum theory). We show that a single n-ball can encode at most one bit of information, independently of n. We introduce a bipartite extension of such theories for which there exi…
In the theory of quantum communications, a deeper structure has been recently unveiled, showing that the capacity does not completely characterize the channel ability to transmit information due to phenomena -- namely, superadditivity, superactivation and causal activation -- with no counterpart in the classical world. Although how deep goes this structure is yet to be fully uncovered, it is crucial for the communication engineering community to own the implications of these phenomena for understanding and deriving the fundamental limits of communications. Hence, the aim of this treatise is to…
In this Letter, two counterexamples show that the superadditivity inequality of relative entropy is not true even for the full-ranked quantum states. Thus, an inequality of quantum channels and complementary channels is not also true. Finally, a conjecture of weak superadditivity inequality is presented.
We simplify some conjectures in quantum information theory; the additivity of minimal output entropy, the multiplicativity of maximal output p-norm and the superadditivity of convex closure of output entropy. We construct a unital channel for a given channel so that they share the above additivity properties; we can reduce the conjectures for all channels to those for unital channels.
We show that for the tensor product of an entanglement-breaking quantum channel with an arbitrary quantum channel, both the minimum entropy of an output of the channel and the Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland capacity are additive. In addition, for the tensor product of two arbitrary quantum channels, we give a bound involving entanglement of formation for the amount of subadditivity (for minimum entropy output) or superadditivity (for channel capacity) that can occur.
We study subadditivity of the minimum output entropy ($H_{min}$) of quantum multiple access channels (MACs). We provide an example of violation of the additivity theorem for $H_{min}$ known in classical information theory. Our result is based on a fundamental property of $MACs$ i.e. independence of each sender. The channels used in the example can be constructed explicitly. On the basis of subadditivity of $H_{min}$ we also provide an example of extremal superadditivity (super activation) of the classical capacity region of MACs.
We analyze quantum network primitives which are entanglement-breaking. We show superadditivity of quantum and classical capacity regions for quantum multiple-access channel and quantum butterfly network. Since the effects are especially visible at high noise they suggest that quantum information effects may be particularly helpful in the case of the networks with occasional high noise rates. To our knowledge the present effects provide the first qualitative borderline between superadditivities of bipartite and multipartite systems.
We obtained the estimation from below for the output entropy of a tensor product of the quantum phase-damping channel with an arbitrary channel. It is shown that from this estimation immediately follows that the strong superadditivity of the output entropy holds for this channel as well as for the quantum depolarizing channel.
We define the coherence non-generating channel as the completely positive trace-preserving map which does not generate quantum coherence from an incoherent state. The incoherent operations are the strict subset of the coherence non-generating channels. We prove that the relative entropy of coherence is monotonically decreasing under the coherence non-generating channels, while the coherence of formation may increase under such channels. Interestingly, by combining mathematically the coherence of formation to the entanglement of formation, we show that the coherence of formation of a single-qub…
We describe two quantum channels that individually cannot send any information, even classical, without some chance of decoding error. But together a single use of each channel can send quantum information perfectly reliably. This proves that the zero-error classical capacity exhibits superactivation, the extreme form of the superadditivity phenomenon in which entangled inputs allow communication over zero capacity channels. But our result is stronger still, as it even allows zero-error quantum communication when the two channels are combined. Thus our result shows a new remarkable way in whic…
Quantum capacities are fundamental quantities that are notoriously hard to compute and can exhibit surprising properties such as superadditivity. Thus, a vast amount of literature is devoted to finding tight and computable bounds on these capacities. We add a new viewpoint by giving operationally motivated bounds on several capacities, including the quantum capacity and private capacity of a quantum channel and the one-way distillable entanglement and private key of a quantum state. These bounds are generally phrased in terms of capacity quantities involving the complementary channel or state.…
Optimization methods aimed at estimating the capacities of a general Gaussian channel are developed. Specifically evaluation of classical capacity as maximum of the Holevo information is pursued over all possible Gaussian encodings for the lossy bosonic channel, but extension to other capacities and other Gaussian channels seems feasible. Solutions for both memoryless and memory channels are presented. It is first dealt with single use (single-mode) channel where the capacity dependence from channel's parameters is analyzed providing a full classification of the possible cases. Then it is deal…
Following initial work by Gregoratti and Werner [J. Mod. Optics 50, 913-933, 2003 and quant-ph/0403092] and Hayden and King [quant-ph/0409026], we study the problem of the capacity of a quantum channel assisted by a "friendly (channel) environment" that can locally measure and communicate classical messages to the receiver. Previous work [quant-ph/0505038] has yielded a capacity formula for the quantum capacity under this kind of help from the environment. Here we study the problem of the environment-assisted classical capacity, which exhibits a somewhat richer structure (at least, it seems to…
The error threshold of a one-parameter family of quantum channels is defined as the largest noise level such that the quantum capacity of the channel remains positive. This in turn guarantees the existence of a quantum error correction code for noise modeled by that channel. Discretizing the single-qubit errors leads to the important family of Pauli quantum channels; curiously, multipartite entangled states can increase the threshold of these channels beyond the so-called hashing bound, an effect termed superadditivity of coherent information. In this work, we divide the simplex of Pauli chann…
In this paper, we consider the minimal entropy of qubit states transmitted through two uses of a noisy quantum channel, which is modeled by the action of a completely positive trace-preserving (or stochastic) map. We provide strong support for the conjecture that this minimal entropy is additive, namely that the minimum entropy can be achieved when product states are transmitted. Explicitly, we prove that for a tensor product of two unital stochastic maps on qubit states, using an entanglement that involves only states which emerge with minimal entropy cannot decrease the entropy below the min…
We reduce the number of open additivity problems in quantum information theory by showing that four of them are equivalent. We show that the conjectures of additivity of the minimum output entropy of a quantum channel, additivity of the Holevo expression for the classical capacity of a quantum channel, additivity of the entanglement of formation, and strong superadditivity of the entanglement of formation, are either all true or all false.
In a breakthrough, Hastings' showed that there exist quantum channels whose classical capacity is superadditive i.e. more classical information can be transmitted by quantum encoding strategies entangled across multiple channel uses as compared to unentangled quantum encoding strategies. Hastings' proof used Haar random unitaries to exhibit superadditivity. In this paper we show that a unitary chosen uniformly at random from an approximate $n^{2/3}$-design gives rise to a quantum channel with superadditive classical Holevo capacity, where $n$ is the dimension of the unitary exhibiting the Stin…
We make a number of simplifications in Gour and Friedland's proof of local additivity of minimum output entropy of a quantum channel. We follow them in reframing the question as one about entanglement entropy of bipartite states associated with a $d_B \times d_E $ matrix. We use a different approach to reduce the general case to that of a square positive definite matrix. We use the integral representation of the log to obtain expressions for the first and second derivatives of the entropy, and then exploit the modular operator and functional calculus to streamline the proof following their und…
Entanglement distribution is key to the success of secure communication schemes based on quantum mechanics, and there is a strong need for an ultimate architecture able to overcome the limitations of recent proposals such as those based on entanglement percolation or quantum repeaters. In this work we provide broad theoretical background for the development of such technologies. In particular, we investigate the question of whether entanglement distribution is more efficient if some amount of entanglement -- or some amount of correlations in general -- is available prior to the transmission st…
We propose a simple architecture based on multimode quantum memories for collective readout of classical information keyed using a pair coherent states, exemplified by the well-known binary phase shift keying format. Such a configuration enables demonstration of the superadditivity effect in classical communication over quantum channels, where the transmission rate becomes enhanced through joint detection applied to multiple channel uses. The proposed scheme relies on the recently introduced idea to prepare Hadamard sequences of input symbols that are mapped by a linear optical transformation …
We establish several upper bounds on the energy-constrained quantum and private capacities of all single-mode phase-insensitive bosonic Gaussian channels. The first upper bound, which we call the "data-processing bound," is the simplest and is obtained by decomposing a phase-insensitive channel as a pure-loss channel followed by a quantum-limited amplifier channel. We prove that the data-processing bound can be at most 1.45 bits larger than a known lower bound on these capacities of the phase-insensitive Gaussian channel. We discuss another data-processing upper bound as well. Two other upper …
RWTH Aachen University（亚琛工业大学）；Inria, ENS Lyon, UCBL, LIP（法国国家信息与自动化研究所、里昂高等师范学院、里昂第一大学、里昂信息处理实验室）；Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与工程中心）
