This paper establishes the exact strong converse exponent of the soft covering problem in the classical setting. This exponent characterizes the slowest achievable convergence speed of the total variation to one when a code of rate below mutual information is applied to a discrete memoryless channel for synthesizing a product output distribution. The proposed exponent is expressed through a new two-parameter information quantity, differing from the more commonly studied Rényi divergence or Rényi mutual information. In addition, we demonstrate the non-tightness of random coding for rates both below and above mutual information. Discussions on the latter start with noiseless channels, where we develop a deterministic code construction that outperforms random codes in error exponents. We further observe that the conventional formulation, which assumes a uniform distribution over messages, inherently introduces a discrepancy in error exponents depending on whether the components of the target distribution are rational or irrational numbers. To eliminate this discrepancy, we propose a new formulation in which messages are allowed to be distributed non-uniformly, and the rate is given by the logarithm of the smallest nonzero message probability (corresponding to Rényi entropyH−∞of order −∞). The exact error exponent is characterized in this formulation for noiseless channels. Furthermore, for noisy channels, we provide a high-rate improvement in achievability and derive a converse bound on the error exponent.

We consider a rate-distortion version of the quantum state redistribution task, where the error of the decoded state is judged via an additive distortion measure; it thus constitutes a quantum generalisation of the classical Wyner-Ziv problem. The quantum source is described by a tripartite pure state shared between Alice (A, encoder), Bob (B, decoder) and a reference (R). Both Alice and Bob are required to output a system (ÃandB̃, respectively), and the distortion measure is encoded in an observable onÃB̃R. It includes as special cases most quantum rate-distortion problems considered in the past, and in particular quantum data compression with the fidelity measured per copy; furthermore, it generalises the well-known state merging and quantum state redistribution tasks for a pure state source, with per-copy fidelity, and a variant recently considered by us, where the source is an ensemble of pure states [ZBK & AW, Proc. ISIT 2020, pp. 1858-1863 and ZBK, PhD thesis, UAB 2020, arXiv:2012.14143]. We derive a single-letter formula for the rate-distortion function of compression schemes assisted by free entanglement. A peculiarity of the formula is that in general it requires optimisation over an unbounded auxiliary register, so the rate-distortion function is not readily computable from our result, and there is a continuity issue at zero distortion. However, we show how to overcome these difficulties in certain situations.

We correct an error in the proof of Theorem 11 in our paper “Approximate Degradable Quantum Channels”, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, vol. 63, no. 12, pp. 7832-7844, 2017, concerning an upper bound on the private capacity of an approximate anti-degradable channel. Furthermore, we show how to obtain a tighter bound for the quantum capacity.

We investigate deterministic identification over arbitrary memoryless channels under the constraint that the error probabilities of first and second kind are exponentially small in the block length$n$, controlled by reliability exponents$E_{1}, E_{2}>0$. We find that, in contrast to the case of slowly vanishing errors where the identifiable message length scales as$\Theta(n \log n)$, here linear scaling is restored, now as a function of the reliability exponents. We give upper and lower bounds on the ensuing ratereliability function in terms of (the logarithm of) the packing and covering numbers of the channel output set, which for small error exponents$E_{1}, E_{2}>0$are bounded below and above in terms of the product of the Minkowski dimension and$\log \min \left\{E_{1}, E_{2}\right\}$. These allow us to recover the previously observed slightly superlinear identification rates, and offer a different perspective for understanding them in more traditional information theory terms.

In this paper, by employing a type-based approach, we provide a lower and an upper bound for the strong converse exponent of the soft covering problem in the classical setting. This exponent characterizes the slowest achievable convergence speed of the total variation to one when a code with a rate below mutual information is applied to a discrete memoryless channel for synthesizing a product output distribution. For fully noiseless and fully noisy channels, the proposed bounds can squeeze out an exact exponent.

We investigate deterministic identification over arbitrary memoryless channels under the constraint that the error probabilities of first and second kind are exponentially small in the block length n, controlled by reliability exponents E1,E2≥ 0. In contrast to the regime of slowly vanishing errors, where the identifiable message length scales linearithmically as Θ(n log n), here we find that for positive exponents linear scaling is restored, now with a rate that is a function of the reliability exponents. We give upper and lower bounds on the ensuing rate-reliability function in terms of (the logarithm of) the packing and covering numbers of the channel output set, which for small error exponents E1,E2> 0 can be expanded in leading order as the product of the Minkowski dimension of a certain parametrisation the channel output set and log min{E1,E2}. These allow us to recover the previously observed slightly superlinear identification rates, and offer a different perspective for understanding them in more traditional information theory terms. We also show that even if only one of the two errors is required to be exponentially small, the linearithmic scaling is lost. We further illustrate our results with a discussion of the case of dimension zero, and extend them to classical-quantum channels and quantum channels with tensor product input restriction.

Following initial work by JaJa, Ahlswede and Cai, and inspired by a recent renewed surge in interest in deterministic identification (DI) via noisy channels, we consider the problem in its generality for memoryless channels with finite output, but arbitrary input alphabets. Such a channel is essentially given by its output distributions as a subset in the probability simplex. Our main findings are that the maximum length of messages thus identifiable scales superlinearly as$R\,n\log n$with the block length n, and that the optimal rate R is bounded in terms of the covering (aka Minkowski, or Kolmogorov, or entropy) dimension d of a certain algebraic transformation of the output set:$\frac {1}{4} d \leq R \leq \frac {1}{2} d$. Remarkably, both the lower and upper Minkowski dimensions play a role in this result. Along the way, we present a Hypothesis Testing Lemma showing that it is sufficient to ensure pairwise reliable distinguishability of the output distributions to construct a DI code. Although we do not know the exact capacity formula, we can conclude that the DI capacity exhibits superactivation: there exist channels whose capacities individually are zero, but whose product has positive capacity. We also generalise these results to classical-quantum channels with finite-dimensional output quantum system, in particular to quantum channels on finite-dimensional quantum systems under the constraint that the identification code can only use tensor product inputs.

We approach two interconnected problems of quantum information processing in networks: Conference key agreement and entanglement distillation, both in the so-called source model where the given resource is a multipartite quantum state and the players interact over public classical channels to generate the desired correlation. The first problem is the distillation of a conference key when the source state is shared between a number of legal players and an eavesdropper; the eavesdropper, apart from starting off with this quantum side information, also observes the public communication between the players. The second is the distillation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states by means of local operations and classical communication (LOCC) from the given mixed state. These problem settings extend our previous paper [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 68(2):976-988, 2022], and we generalise its results: using a quantum version of the task of communication for omniscience, we derive novel lower bounds on the distillable conference key from any multipartite quantum state by means of non-interacting communication protocols. Secondly, we establish novel lower bounds on the yield of GHZ states from multipartite mixed states. Namely, we present two methods to produce bipartite entanglement between sufficiently many nodes so as to produce GHZ states. Next, we show that the conference key agreement protocol can be made coherent under certain conditions, enabling the direct generation of multipartite GHZ states.

Motivated by deterministic identification via channels, where the encoder cannot use randomisation, we revisit the problem of identification via quantum channels with the additional restriction that the message encoding must use pure quantum states, rather than general mixed states. Together with the previously considered distinction between simultaneous and general decoders, this suggests a two-dimensional spectrum of different identification capacities, whose behaviour could a priori be very different. We demonstrate two new main results: first, we show that all of the four combinations (pure/mixed encoder, simultaneous/general decoder) have a double-exponentially growing code size, and that indeed the corresponding identification capacities are lower bounded by the classical transmission capacity for a general quantum channel, which is given by the Holevo-Schumacher- Westmoreland theorem. Secondly, we show that the simultaneous identification capacity of a quantum channel equals the simultaneous identification capacity with pure state encodings, thus leaving three linearly ordered identification capacities. By considering some simple examples we finally show that these three are all different: general identification capacity can be larger than pure-state-encoded identification capacity which in turn can be larger than pure-state-encoded simultaneous identification capacity,

We consider the private classical capacity of a quantum wiretap channel, where the users (sender Alice, receiver Bob, and eavesdropper Eve) have access to the resource of a shared quantum state, additionally to their channel inputs and outputs. An extreme case is maximal entanglement or a secret key between Alice and Bob, both of which would allow for one-time padding the message. But here both the wiretap channel and the shared state are general. In the other extreme case that the state is trivial, we recover the wiretap channel and its private capacity [N. Cai, A. Winter and R. W. Yeung, Probl. Inform. Transm. 40(4):318-336, 2004]. We show how to use the given resource state to build a code for secret classical communication. Our main result is a lower bound on the assisted private capacity, which asymptotically meets the multi-letter converse and which encompasses all sorts of previous results as special cases.

Following initial work by JaJa, and Ahlswede and Cai, and inspired by a recent renewed surge in interest in deterministic identification (DI) via noisy channels, we consider the problem in its generality for memoryless channels with finite output, but arbitrary input alphabets. Such a channel is essentially given by (the closure of) the subset of its output distributions in the probability simplex. Our main findings are that the maximum number of messages thus identifiable scales super-exponentially as$2^{Rn\log n}$with the block length$n$, and that the optimal rate$R$is upper and lower bounded in terms of the covering (aka Minkowski, or Kolmogorov, or entropy) dimension$d$of a certain algebraic transformation of the output set:$\frac{1}{4}d\leq R\leq\frac{1}{2}d$, Along the way, we present a Hypothesis Testing Lemma that shows it is sufficient to ensure pairwise reliable distinguishability of the output distributions to construct a DI code. Although we do not know the exact capacity formula, we can conclude that the DI capacity exhibits super-activation: there exist channels whose capacity is zero, but whose product has positive capacity. These results are then generalised to classical-quantum channels with finite-dimensional output quantum system (but arbitrary input alphabet), and in particular to quantum channels on finite-dimensional quantum systems under the constraint that the identification code can only use tensor product inputs.

With the increasing demand for secure communication in optical space networks, it is essential to develop physical-layer scalable security solutions. In this context, we present the asymptotic security analysis of a keyless quantum private communication protocol that transmits classical information over quantum states. Different from the previous literature, our protocol sends dummy (decoy) states optimally obtained from the true information to deceive the eavesdropper. We analyze optical on-off keying (OOK) and binary phase shift keying (BPSK) for several detection scenarios. Our protocol significantly improves the protocol without decoy states whenever Bob is at a technological disadvantage with respect to Eve. Our protocol guarantees positive secrecy capacity when the eavesdropper gathers up to 90-99.9% (depending on the detection scenario) of the photon energy that Bob detects, even when Eve is only limited by the laws of quantum mechanics. We apply our results to the design of an optical inter-satellite link (ISL) study case with pointing losses, and introduce a new design methodology whereby the link margin is guaranteed to be secure by our protocol. Hence, our design does not require knowing the eavesdropper’s location and/or channel state: the protocol aborts whenever the channel drops below the secured margin. Our protocol can be implemented with state-of-the-art space-proof technology. Finally, we also show the potential secrecy advantage when using (not yet available) squeezed quantum states technology.

We show that entirely quantum Shannon theoretic methods, based on von Neumann entropies and their properties, can be used to derive Singleton bounds on the performance of entanglement-assisted hybrid classical-quantum (EACQ) error correcting codes. Concretely, we show that the triple-rate region of qubits, cbits and ebits of possible EACQ codes over arbitrary alphabet sizes is contained in the quantum Shannon theoretic rate region of an associated memoryless erasure channel, which turns out to be a polytope. We show that a large part of this region is attainable by certain EACQ codes, whenever the local alphabet size (i.e., Hilbert space dimension) is large enough, in keeping with known facts about classical and quantum maximum distance separable (MDS) codes: in particular, all of its extreme points and all but one of its extremal lines. The attainability of the remaining one extremal line segment is left as an open question.

We show that entirely information theoretic methods, based on von Neumann entropies and their properties, can be used to derive Singleton bounds on the performance of entanglement-assisted hybrid classical-quantum (EACQ) error correcting codes. Concretely we show that the triple-rate region of qubits, cbits and ebits of possible EACQ codes over arbitrary alphabet sizes is contained in the quantum Shannon theoretic rate region of an associated memoryless erasure channel, which turns out to be a polytope. We show that a large part of this region is attainable by certain EACQ codes, whenever the local alphabet size (i.e. Hilbert space dimension) is large enough, in keeping with known facts about classical and quantum minimum distance separable (MDS) codes: in particular all of its extreme points and several important extremal lines. Full details in [1].

We consider two related problems of extracting correlation from a given multipartite mixed quantum state: the first is the distillation of a conference key when the state is shared between a number of legal players and an eavesdropper; the eavesdropper, apart from starting off with this quantum side information, also observes the public communication between the players. The second is the distillation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states by means of LOCC from the given mixed state. These problem settings extend our previous paper [FS & AW, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 68(2):976-988, 2022], and we generalise its results: using a quantum version of the task of communication for omniscience, we derive a novel lower bound on the distillable secret key from any multipartite quantum state by means of a so-called non-interacting communication protocol. Secondly, by making the secret key distillation protocol coherent, we derive novel lower bounds on the distillation rate of GHZ states. Full details in the long version [1].

We show that a relatively simple reasoning using von Neumann entropy inequalities yields a robust proof of the quantum Singleton bound for quantum error-correcting codes (QECC). For entanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting codes (EAQECC) and catalytic codes (CQECC), a type of generalized quantum Singleton bound [Brunet al., IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 60(6):3073–3089 (2014)] was believed to hold for many years until recently one of us found a counterexample [MG, Phys. Rev. A 103, 020601 (2021)]. Here, we rectify this state of affairs by proving the correct generalized quantum Singleton bound, extending the above-mentioned proof method for QECC; we also prove information-theoretically tight bounds on the entanglement-communication tradeoff for EAQECC. All of the bounds relate block length$n$and code length$k$for given minimum distance$d$and we show that they are robust, in the sense that they hold with small perturbations for codes which only correct most of the erasure errors of less than$d$letters. In contrast to the classical case, the bounds take on qualitatively different forms depending on whether the minimum distance is smaller or larger than half the block length. We also provide a propagation rule: any pure QECC yields an EAQECC with the same distance and dimension, but of shorter block length.

We consider the most general finite-dimensional quantum mechanical information source, which is given by a quantum system$A$that is correlated with a reference system$R$. The task is to compress$A$in such a way as to reproduce the joint source state$\rho ^{AR}$at the decoder with asymptotically high fidelity. This includes Schumacher’s original quantum source coding problem of a pure state ensemble and that of a single pure entangled state, as well as general mixed state ensembles. Here, we determine the optimal compression rate (in qubits per source system) in terms of the Koashi-Imoto decomposition of the source into a classical, a quantum, and a redundant part. The same decomposition yields the optimal rate in the presence of unlimited entanglement between compressor and decoder, and indeed the full region of feasible qubit-ebit rate pairs.

Passive environment-assisted communication takes place via a quantum channel modeled as a unitary interaction between the information carrying system and an environment, where the latter is controlled by a passive helper, who can set its initial state such as to assist sender and receiver, but not help actively by adjusting her behaviour depending on the message. Here we investigate the information transmission capabilities in this framework by considering Gaussian unitaries acting on Bosonic systems. We consider both quantum communication and classical communication with helper, as well as classical communication with free classical coordination between sender and helper (conferencing encoders). Concerning quantum communication, we prove general coding theorems with and without energy constraints, yielding multi-letter (regularized) expressions. In the search for cases where the capacity formula is computable, we look for Gaussian unitaries that are universally degradable or anti-degradable. However, we show that no Gaussian unitary yields either a degradable or anti-degradable channel for all environment states. On the other hand, restricting to Gaussian environment states, results in universally degradable unitaries, for which we thus can give single-letter quantum capacity formulas. Concerning classical communication, we prove a general coding theorem for the classical capacity under an energy constraint, given by a multi-letter expression. Furthermore, we derive an uncertainty-type relation between the classical capacities of the sender and the helper, helped respectively by the other party, showing a lower bound on the sum of the two capacities. Then, this is used to lower bound the classical information transmission rate in the scenario of classical communication between sender and helper.

We study the discrimination of a pair of orthogonal quantum states in the many-copy setting. This is not a problem when arbitrary quantum measurements are allowed, as then the states can be distinguished perfectly even with one copy. However, it becomes highly nontrivial when we consider states of a multipartite system and locality constraints are imposed. We hence focus on the restricted families of measurements such as local operation and classical communication (LOCC), separable operations (SEP), and the positive-partial-transpose operations (PPT) in this paper. We first study asymptotic discrimination of an arbitrary multipartite entangled pure state against its orthogonal complement using LOCC/SEP/PPT measurements. We prove that the incurred optimal average error probability always decays exponentially in the number of copies, by proving upper and lower bounds on the exponent. In the special case of discriminating a maximally entangled state against its orthogonal complement, we determine the explicit expression for the optimal average error probability, thus establishing the associated Chernoff exponent. Our technique is based on the idea of using PPT operations to approximate LOCC. Then, we show an infinite asymptotic separation between SEP and PPT operations by providing a pair of states constructed from an unextendible product basis (UPB): they can be distinguished perfectly by PPT measurements, while the optimal error probability using SEP measurements admits an exponential lower bound. On the technical side, we prove this result by providing a quantitative version of the well-known statement that the tensor product of UPBs is UPB.

We present a broad investigation of asymptotic binary hypothesis testing, when each hypothesis represents asymptotically many independent instances of a quantum channel, and the tests are based on using the unknown channel multiple times and observing its output at the end. Unlike the familiar setting of quantum states as hypotheses, there is a fundamental distinction between adaptive and non-adaptive strategies with respect to the channel uses, and we introduce a number of further variants of the discrimination tasks by imposing different restrictions on the test strategies. Our main result is the first separation between adaptive and non-adaptive symmetric hypothesis testing exponents for quantum channels, which we derive from a general lower bound on the error probability for non-adaptive strategies; the concrete example we analyze is a pair of entanglement-breaking channels. Full details in [1].

The information bottleneck function gives a measure of optimal preservation of correlation between some random variable X and some side information Y while compressing X into a new random variable W with bounded remaining correlation to X. As such, the information bottleneck has found many natural applications in machine learning, coding and video compression. The main objective in order to calculate the information bottleneck is to find the optimal representation on W. This could in principle be arbitrarily complicated, but fortunately it is known that the cardinality of W can be restricted as |W| ≤ |X |+1 which makes the calculation possible for finite |X|. Now, for many practical applications, e.g. in machine learning, X represents a potentially very large data space, while Y is from a comparably small set of labels. This raises the question whether the known cardinality bound can be improved in such situations. We show that the information bottleneck function can always be approximated up to an error δ(ε, |Y|) with a cardinality |W| ≤ f(ε, |Y|), for explicitly given functions δ and f of an approximation parameter c> 0 and the cardinality of Y. Finally, we generalize the known cardinality bounds to the case were some of the random variables represent quantum information.

We consider the most general (finite-dimensional) quantum mechanical information source, which is given by a quantum system A that is correlated with a reference system R. The task is to compress A in such a way as to reproduce the joint source state ρARat the decoder with asymptotically high fidelity. This includes Schumacher's original quantum source coding problem of a pure state ensemble and that of a single pure entangled state, as well as general mixed state ensembles. Here, we determine the optimal compression rate (in qubits per source system) in terms of the Koashi-Imoto decomposition of the source into a classical, a quantum, and a redundant part. The same decomposition yields the optimal rate in the presence of unlimited entanglement between compressor and decoder, and indeed the full region of feasible qubitebit rate pairs. Full version at arXiv:1912.08506 [1].

We consider a generalization of the quantum state redistribution task, where pure multipartite states from an ensemble source are distributed among an encoder, a decoder and a reference system. The encoder, Alice, has access to two quantum systems: system A which she compresses and sends to the decoder, Bob, and the side information system C which she wants to keep at her site. Bob has access to quantum side information in a system B, wants to decode the compressed information in such a way to preserve the correlations with the reference system on average. As figures of merit, we consider both block error (which is the usual one in source coding) and per-copy error (which is more akin to rate-distortion theory), and find the optimal compression rate for the second criterion, and achievable and converse bounds for the first. The latter almost match in general, up to an asymptotic error and an unbounded auxiliary system; for so-called irreducible sources they are provably the same. Full paper forthcoming [1].

The tasks of converting noisy multipartite quantum correlations into noiseless classical and quantum ones using local operations and classical communications (LOCC) are studied. For the former, known as common randomness (CR) distillation, two novel lower bounds on the "distillable common randomness", an operational measure of the total genuine (classical) correlations in a quantum state, are obtained. Our proof relies on a generalization of communication for omniscience (CO) [Csiszár and Narayan, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 50: 3047-3061, 2004]. For the latter, we derive two lower bounds on the rate at which Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states can be asymptotically distilled from any given pure state under LOCC. Our approach consists in "making coherent" the proposed CR distillation protocols and recycling of resources [Devetak, Harrow and Winter, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 54:4587-4618, 2008]. The first lower bound is identical to a recent result by Vrana and Christandl [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 65:5945-5958, 2019], which is based on a combinatorial approach to achieve the same rate. Our second lower bound generalises and improves upon this result, and unifies a number of other known lower bounds on GHZ distillation. Full details in the long version [1].

We resume the investigation of the problem of independent local compression of correlated quantum sources, the classical case of which is covered by the celebrated Slepian-Wolf theorem. We focus specifically on classical-quantum (cq) sources, for which one edge of the rate region, corresponding to the compression of the classical part, using the quantum part as side information at the decoder, was previously determined by Devetak and Winter [Phys. Rev. A 68, 042301 (2003)]. Whereas the Devetak-Winter protocol attains a rate-sum equal to the von Neumann entropy of the joint source, here we show that the full rate region is much more complex, due to the partially quantum nature of the source. In particular, in the opposite case of compressing the quantum part of the source, using the classical part as side information at the decoder, typically the rate sum is strictly larger than the von Neumann entropy of the total source. We determine the full rate region in the generic case, showing that, apart from the Devetak-Winter point, all other points in the achievable region have a rate sum strictly larger than the joint entropy. We can interpret the difference as the price paid for the quantum encoder being ignorant of the classical side information. In the general case, we give an achievable rate region, via protocols that are built on the decoupling principle, and the protocols of quantum state merging and quantum state redistribution. Our achievable region is matched almost by a single-letter converse, which however still involves asymptotic errors and an unbounded auxiliary system.

In classical information theory, the information bottleneck method (IBM) can be regarded as a method of lossy data compression which focuses on preserving meaningful (or relevant) information. As such it has of late gained a lot of attention, primarily for its applications in machine learning and neural networks. A quantum analogue of the IBM has recently been defined, and an attempt at providing an operational interpretation of the so-called quantum IB function as an optimal rate of an information-theoretic task, has recently been made by Salek et al. The interpretation given by these authors, however, rests on their conjecture that the quantum IB function is convex. Our first contribution is the proof of this conjecture.Secondly, the expression for the rate function involves certain entropic quantities which occur explicitly in the very definition of the underlying information-theoretic task, thus making the latter somewhat contrived. We overcome this drawback by pointing out an alternative operational interpretation of it as the optimal rate of a bona fide information-theoretic task, namely that of quantum source coding with quantum side information at the decoder, which has recently been solved by Hsieh and Watanabe. We show that the quantum IB function characterizes the rate region of this task.We similarly show that the related privacy funnel function is concave (both in the classical and quantum case). However, we comment that it is unlikely that the quantum privacy funnel function can characterize the optimal asymptotic rate of an information theoretic task, since even its classical version lacks a certain essential additivity property.

Ask how the quantum compression of ensembles of pure states is affected by the availability of entanglement, and in settings where the encoder has access to side information. We find the optimal asymptotic quantum rate and the optimal tradeoff (rate region) of quantum and entanglement rates. It turns out that the amount by which the quantum rate beats the Schumacher limit, the entropy of the source, is precisely half the entropy of classical information that can be extracted from the source and side information states without disturbing them at all ("reversible extraction of classical information").In the special case that the encoder has no side information, or that she has access to the identity of the states, this problem reduces to the known settings of blind and visible Schumacher compression, respectively, albeit here additionally with entanglement assistance. We comment on connections to previously studied and further rate tradeoffs when also classical information is considered.

We resume the investigation of the problem of independent local compression of correlated quantum sources, the classical case of which is covered by the celebrated Slepian-Wolf theorem. We focus specifically on classical-quantum (cq) sources, for which one edge of the rate region, corresponding to the compression of the classical part, using the quantum part as side information at the decoder, was previously determined by Devetak and Winter [Phys. Rev. A 68, 042301 (2003)]. Whereas the Devetak-Winter protocol attains a rate-sum equal to the von Neumann entropy of the joint source, here we show that the full rate region is much more complex, due to the partially quantum nature of the source. In particular, in the opposite case of compressing the quantum part of the source, using the classical part as side information at the decoder, typically the rate sum is strictly larger than the von Neumann entropy of the total source.We determine the full rate region in the generic case, showing that, apart from the Devetak-Winter point, all other points in the achievable region have a rate sum strictly larger than the joint entropy. We can interpret the difference as the price paid for the quantum encoder being ignorant of the classical side information. In the general case, we give an achievable rate region, via protocols that are built on the decoupling principle, and the principles of quantum state merging and quantum state redistribution. Our achievable region is matched almost by a single-letter converse, which however still involves asymptotic errors and an unbounded auxiliary system.

We study the identification capacity of classical-quantum channels (“cq-channels”) under channel uncertainty and privacy constraints. To be precise, we first consider compound memoryless cq-channels and determine their identification capacity; then we add an eavesdropper by considering compound memoryless wiretap cqq-channels, and determine their secret identification capacity. In the first case (without privacy), we find the identification capacity always equal to the transmission capacity. In the second case, we find a dichotomy: either the secrecy capacity (also known as private capacity) of the channel is zero, and then the secrecy identification capacity is also zero, or the secrecy capacity is positive and then the secrecy identification capacity equals the transmission capacity of the main channel without the wiretapper. We perform the same analysis for the case of arbitrarily varying wiretap cqq-channels (cqq-AVWC) with analogous findings, and make several observations regarding the continuity and super-additivity of the identification capacity in the latter case.

The resource framework of quantum coherence was introduced by Baumgratz, Cramer, and Plenio [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 140401 (2014)] and further developed by Winter and Yang [Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 120404 (2016)]. We consider the one-shot problem of distilling pure coherence from a single instance of a given resource state. Specifically, we determine the distillable coherence with a given fidelity under incoherent operations (IO) through a generalization of the Winter-Yang protocol. This is compared to the distillable coherence under maximal incoherent operations (MIO) and dephasing-covariant incoherent operations (DIO), which can be cast as a semidefinite programme, that has been presented previously by Regula et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 010401 (2018)]. Our results are given in terms of a smoothed min-relative entropy distance from the incoherent set of states, and a variant of the hypothesis-testing relative entropy distance, respectively. The one-shot distillable coherence is also related to one-shot randomness extraction. Moreover, from the one-shot formulas under IO, MIO, and DIO, we can recover the optimal distillable rate in the many-copy asymptotics, yielding the relative entropy of coherence. These results can be compared with previous work by some of the present authors [Zhao et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 070403 (2018)] on one-shot coherence formation under IO, MIO, DIO and also SIO. This shows that the amount of distillable coherence is essentially the same for IO, DIO, and MIO, despite the fact that the three classes of operations are very different. We also relate the distillable coherence under strictly incoherent operations (SIO) to a constrained hypothesis testing problem and explicitly show the existence of bound coherence under SIO in the asymptotic regime.

We consider a model of communication via a fully quantum jammer channel with quantum jammer, quantum sender and quantum receiver, which we dub quantum arbitrarily varying channel (QAVC). Restricting to finite dimensional user and jammer systems, we show, using permutation symmetry and a de Finetti reduction, how the random coding capacity (classical and quantum) of the QAVC is reduced to the capacity of a naturally associated compound channel, which is obtained by restricting the jammer to i.i.d. input states. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the shared randomness required is at most logarithmic in the block length, via a quantum version of the “elimination of of correlation” using a random matrix tail bound. This implies a dichotomy theorem: either the classical capacity of the QAVC is zero, and then also the quantum capacity is zero, or each capacity equals its random coding variant.

We study the identification capacity of classical-quantum channels (“cq-channels”), under channel uncertainty and privacy constraints. To be precise, we consider first compound memoryless cq-channels and determine their identification capacity; then we add an eavesdropper, considering compound memoryless wiretap cqq-channels, and determine their secret identification capacity. In the first case (without privacy), we find the identification capacity always equal to the transmission capacity. In the second case, we find a dichotomy: either the secrecy capacity (also known as private capacity) of the channel is zero, and then also the secrecy identification capacity is zero, or the secrecy capacity is positive and then the secrecy identification capacity equals the transmission capacity of the main channel without the wiretapper. We perform the same analysis for the case of arbitrarily varying wiretap cqq-channels (cqq-AVWC), with analogous findings, and make several observations regarding the continuity and super-additivity of the identification capacity in the latter case.

The capability of a given channel to communicate information is, a priori, distinct from its capability to distribute shared randomness. In this paper, we define randomness distribution capacities of quantum channels assisted by forward, back, or two-way classical communication and compare these to the corresponding communication capacities. With forward assistance or no assistance, we find that they are equal. We establish the mutual information of the channel as an upper bound on the two-way assisted randomness distribution capacity. This implies that all of the capacities are equal for classical-quantum channels. On the other hand, we show that the back-assisted randomness distribution capacity of a quantum-classical channel is equal to its mutual information. This is often strictly greater than the back-assisted communication capacity. We give an explicit example of such a separation where the randomness distribution protocol is noiseless.

The sphere packing bound, in the form given by Shannon, Gallager, and Berlekamp, was recently extended to classical-quantum channels, and it was shown that this creates a natural setting for combining probabilistic approaches with some combinatorial ones such as the Lovász theta function. In this paper, we extend the study to the case of constant-composition codes. We first extend the sphere packing bound for classical-quantum channels to this case, and we then show that the obtained result is related to a variation of the Lovász theta function studied by Marton. We then propose a further extension to the case of varying channels and codewords with a constant conditional composition given a particular sequence. This extension is finally applied to auxiliary channels to deduce a bound, which is useful in the low rate region and which can be interpreted as an extension of the Elias bound.

Many determinantal inequalities for positive definite block matrices are consequences of general entropy inequalities, specialized to Gaussian distributed vectors with prescribed covariances. In particular, strong subadditivity (SSA) yields ln det VAC+ln det VBC-ln det VABC-ln det VC≥ 0 for all 3 × 3 block matrices VABC, where subscripts identify principal submatrices. We shall refer to the above-mentioned inequality as SSA of log-det entropy. In this paper, we develop further insights on the properties of the above-mentioned inequality and its applications to classical and quantum information theory. In the first part of this paper, we show how to find known and new necessary and sufficient conditions under which saturation with equality occurs. Subsequently, we discuss the role of the classical transpose channel (also known as Petz recovery map) in this problem and find its action explicitly. We then prove some extensions of the saturation theorem, by finding faithful lower bounds on a log-det conditional mutual information. In the second part, we focus on quantum Gaussian states, whose covariance matrices are not only positive but obey additional constraints due to the uncertainty relation. For Gaussian states, the log-det entropy is equivalent to the Rényi entropy of order 2. We provide a strengthening of log-det SSA for quantum covariance matrices that involves the so-called Gaussian Rényi-2 entanglement of formation, a well-behaved entanglement measure defined via a Gaussian convex roof construction. We then employ this result to define a log-det entropy equivalent of the squashed entanglement measure, which is remarkably shown to coincide with the Gaussian Rényi-2 entanglement of formation. This allows us to establish useful properties of such measure(s), such as monogamy, faithfulness, and additivity on Gaussian states.

Degradable quantum channels are an important class of completely positive trace-preserving maps. Among other properties, they offer a single-letter formula for the quantum and the private classical capacity and are characterized by the fact that a complementary channel can be obtained from the channel by applying a degrading channel. In this paper, we introduce the concept of approximate degradable channels, which satisfy this condition up to some finite ε ≥ 0. That is, there exists a degrading channel which upon composition with the channel is ε-close in the diamond norm to the complementary channel. We show that for any fixed channel the smallest such ε can be efficiently determined via a semidefinite program. Moreover, these approximate degradable channels also approximately inherit all other properties of degradable channels. As an application, we derive improved upper bounds to the quantum and private classical capacity for certain channels of interest in quantum communication.

We revisit a fundamental open problem in quantum information theory, namely, whether it is possible to transmit quantum information at a rate exceeding the channel capacity if we allow for a non-vanishing probability of decoding error. Here, we establish that the Rains information of any quantum channel is a strong converse rate for quantum communication. For any sequence of codes with rate exceeding the Rains information of the channel, we show that the fidelity vanishes exponentially fast as the number of channel uses increases. This remains true even if we consider codes that perform classical postprocessing on the transmitted quantum data. As an application of this result, for generalized dephasing channels, we show that the Rains information is also achievable, and thereby establish the strong converse property for quantum communication over such channels. Thus, we conclusively settle the strong converse question for a class of quantum channels that have a non-trivial quantum capacity.

The quantum relative entropy is well known to obey a monotonicity property (i.e., it does not increase under the action of a quantum channel). Here we present several refinements of this entropy inequality, some of which have a physical interpretation in terms of recovery from the action of the channel. The recovery channel given here is explicit and universal, depending only on the channel and one of the arguments to the relative entropy.

In the vein of the recent “pretty strong” converse for the quantum and private capacity of degradable quantum channels [Morgan/Winter, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 60(1):317- 333, 2014], we use the same techniques, in particular the calculus of min-entropies, to show a pretty strong converse for the private capacity of degraded classical-quantum-quantum (cqq-)wiretap channels, which generalize Wyner's model of the degraded classical wiretap channel. While the result is not completely tight, leaving some gap between the region of error and privacy parameters for which the converse bound holds, and a larger no-go region, it represents a further step towards an understanding of strong converses of wiretap channels [cf. Hayashi/Tyagi/Watanabe, arXiv:1410.0443 for the classical case].

We introduce potential capacities of quantum channels in an operational way and provide upper bounds for these quantities, which quantify the ultimate limit of usefulness of a channel for a given task in the best possible context. Unfortunately, except for a few isolated cases, potential capacities seem to be as hard to compute as their plain analogues. We thus study upper bounds on some potential capacities. For the classical capacity, we give an upper bound in terms of the entanglement of formation. To establish a bound for the quantum and private capacity, we first lift the channel to a Hadamard channel and then prove that the quantum and private capacity of a Hadamard channel is strongly additive, implying that for these channels, potential and plain capacity are equal. Employing these upper bounds, we show that if a channel is noisy, however close it is to the noiseless channel, then it cannot be activated into the noiseless channel by any other contextual channel; this conclusion holds for all the three capacities. We also discuss the so-called environment-assisted quantum capacity, because we are able to characterize its potential version.

In this paper, we consider the problem of generating arbitrary three-party correlations from a combination of public and secret correlations. Two parties-called Alice and Bob-share perfectly correlated bits that are secret from a collaborating third party, Charlie. At the same time, all three parties have access to a separate source of correlated bits, and their goal is to convert these two resources into multiple copies of some given tripartite distribution P(XYZ). We obtain a single-letter characterization of the tradeoff between public and private bits that are needed to achieve this task. The rate of private bits is shown to generalize Wyner's classic notion of common information held between a pair of random variables. The problem we consider can be contrasted fruitfully with the task of secrecy formation, in which P(XYZ) is generated using public communication and local randomness but with Charlie functioning as an adversary instead of a collaborator. We describe in detail the differences between the collaborative and adversarial scenarios.

We study the one-shot zero-error classical capacity of a quantum channel assisted by quantum no-signalling correlations, and the reverse problem of exact simulation of a prescribed channel by a noiseless classical one. Quantum no-signalling correlations are viewed as two-input and two-output completely positive and trace preserving maps with linear constraints enforcing that the device cannot signal. Both problems lead to simple semidefinite programmes (SDPs) that depend only on the Choi-Kraus (operator) space of the channel. In particular, we show that the zero-error classical simulation cost is precisely the conditional min-entropy of the Choi-Jamiołkowski matrix of the given channel. The zero-error classical capacity is given by a similar-looking but different SDP; the asymptotic zero-error classical capacity is the regularization of this SDP, and in general, we do not know of any simple form. Interestingly, however, for the class of classical-quantum channels, we show that the asymptotic capacity is given by a much simpler SDP, which coincides with a semidefinite generalization of the fractional packing number suggested earlier by Aram Harrow. This finally results in an operational interpretation of the celebrated Lovász ϑ function of a graph as the zero-error classical capacity of the graph assisted by quantum no-signalling correlations, the first information theoretic interpretation of the Lovász number.

We initiate the study of zero-error communication via quantum channels when the receiver and the sender have at their disposal a noiseless feedback channel of unlimited quantum capacity, generalizing Shannon's zero-error communication theory with instantaneous feedback. We first show that this capacity is only a function of the linear span of Choi-Kraus operators of the channel, which generalizes the bipartite equivocation graph of a classical channel, and which we dub non-commutative bipartite graph. Then, we go on to show that the feedback-assisted capacity is non-zero (allowing for a constant amount of activating noiseless communication) if and only if the non-commutative bipartite graph is non-trivial, and give a number of equivalent characterizations. This result involves a far-reaching extension of the conclusive exclusion of quantum states. We then present an upper bound on the feedback-assisted zero-error capacity, motivated by a conjecture originally made by Shannon and proved later by Ahlswede. We demonstrate that this bound to have many good properties, including being additive and given by a minimax formula. We also prove a coding theorem showing that this quantity is the entanglement-assisted capacity against an adversarially chosen channel from the set of all channels with the same Choi-Kraus span, which can also be interpreted as the feedback-assisted unambiguous capacity. The proof relies on a generalization of the Postselection Lemma (de Finetti reduction) that allows to reflect additional constraints, and which we believe to be of independent interest. This capacity is a relaxation of the feedback-assisted zero-error capacity; however, we have to leave open the question of whether they coincide in general. We illustrate our ideas with a number of examples, including classical-quantum channels and Weyl diagonal channels, and close with an extensive discussion of open questions.

We initiate the study of passive environment-assisted communication via a quantum channel, modeled as a unitary interaction between the information carrying system and an environment. In this model, the environment is controlled by a benevolent helper, who can set its initial state such as to assist sender and receiver of the communication link (the case of a malicious environment, also known as jammer, or arbitrarily varying channel, is essentially well-understood and comprehensively reviewed). Here, after setting out precise definitions, focusing on the problem of quantum communication, we show that entanglement plays a crucial role in this problem: indeed, the environment-assisted capacity where the helper is restricted to product states between the channel uses is different from the one with unrestricted helper. Furthermore, prior shared entanglement between the helper and the receiver makes a difference, too.

We revisit a fundamental open problem in quantum information theory, namely whether it is possible to transmit quantum information at a rate exceeding the channel capacity if we allow for a non-vanishing probability of decoding error. Here we establish that the Rains information of any quantum channel is a strong converse rate for quantum communication: For any code with a rate exceeding the Rains information of the channel, we show that the fidelity vanishes exponentially fast as the number of channel uses increases. This remains true even if we consider codes that perform classical post-processing on the transmitted quantum data. Our result has several applications. Most importantly, for generalized dephasing channels we show that the Rains information is also achievable, and thereby establish the strong converse property for quantum communication over such channels. This for the first time conclusively settles the strong converse question for a class of quantum channels that have a non-trivial quantum capacity.

We establish the classical capacity of optical quantum channels as a sharp transition between two regimes-one which is an error-free regime for communication rates below the capacity, and the other in which the probability of correctly decoding a classical message converges exponentially fast to zero if the communication rate exceeds the classical capacity. This result is obtained by proving a strong converse theorem for the classical capacity of all phase-insensitive bosonic Gaussian channels, a well-established model of optical quantum communication channels, such as lossy optical fibers, amplifier, and free-space communication. The theorem holds under a particular photon-number occupation constraint, which we describe in detail in this paper. Our result bolsters the understanding of the classical capacity of these channels and opens the path to applications, such as proving the security of noisy quantum storage models of cryptography with optical links.

We prove that a strong converse theorem holds for the classical capacity of all phase-insensitive bosonic Gaussian channels, when imposing a maximum photon number constraint on the inputs of the channel. This class is a natural extension of classical continuous Gaussian channels, and the well studied pure-loss, thermal, additive noise, and amplifier channels are all in this class of channels. The statement of the strong converse theorem is that the probability of correctly decoding a classical message rapidly converges to zero in the limit of many channel uses if the communication rate exceeds the classical capacity. We prove this theorem by relating the success probability of any code with its rate of data transmission, the effective dimension of the channel output space, and the purity of the channel as quantified by the minimum output entropy. Our result bolsters the understanding of the classical capacity of these channels by establishing it as a sharp dividing line between possible and impossible communication rates over them.

The sphere packing bound, in the form given by Shannon, Gallager and Berlekamp, was recently extended to classical-quantum channels, and it was shown that this creates a natural setting for combining probabilistic approaches with some combinatorial ones such as the Lovász theta function. In this paper, we extend the study to the case of constant composition codes. We first extend the sphere packing bound for classical-quantum channels to this case, and we then show that the obtained result is related to a variation of the Lovász theta function studied by Marton. We then propose a further extension to the case of varying channels and codewords with a constant conditional composition given a particular sequence. This extension is then applied to auxiliary channels to deduce a bound which can be interpreted as an extension of the Elias bound.

Dual to the usual noisy channel coding problem, where a noisy (classical or quantum) channel is used to simulate a noiseless one, reverse Shannon theorems concern the use of noiseless channels to simulate noisy ones, and more generally the use of one noisy channel to simulate another. For channels of nonzero capacity, this simulation is always possible, but for it to be efficient, auxiliary resources of the proper kind and amount are generally required. In the classical case, shared randomness between sender and receiver is a sufficient auxiliary resource, regardless of the nature of the source, but in the quantum case, the requisite auxiliary resources for efficient simulation depend on both the channel being simulated, and the source from which the channel inputs are coming. For tensor power sources (the quantum generalization of classical memoryless sources), entanglement in the form of standard ebits (maximally entangled pairs of qubits) is sufficient, but for general sources, which may be arbitrarily correlated or entangled across channel inputs, additional resources, such as entanglement-embezzling states or backward communication, are generally needed. Combining existing and new results, we establish the amounts of communication and auxiliary resources needed in both the classical and quantum cases, the tradeoffs among them, and the loss of simulation efficiency when auxiliary resources are absent or insufficient. In particular, we find a new single-letter expression for the excess forward communication cost of coherent feedback simulations of quantum channels (i.e., simulations in which the sender retains what would escape into the environment in an ordinary simulation), on nontensor-power sources in the presence of unlimited ebits but no other auxiliary resource. Our results on tensor power sources establish a strong converse to the entanglement-assisted capacity theorem.

We study zero-error entanglement-assisted source-channel coding (communication in the presence of side information). Adapting a technique of Beigi, we show that such coding requires existence of a set of vectors satisfying orthogonality conditions related to suitably defined graphs G and H. Such vectors exist if and only if ϑ(G̅) ≤ ϑ(H̅), where ϑ represents the Lovász number. We also obtain similar inequalities for the related Schrijver ϑ-and Szegedy ϑ+numbers. These inequalities reproduce several known bounds and also lead to new results. We provide a lower bound on the entanglement-assisted cost rate. We show that the entanglement-assisted independence number is bounded by the Schrijver number: α*(G) ≤ ϑ-(G). Therefore, we are able to disprove the conjecture that the one-shot entanglement-assisted zero-error capacity is equal to the integer part of the Lovász number. Beigi introduced a quantity β as an upper bound on α* and posed the question of whether β(G) = ⌊ϑ(G)⌋. We answer this in the affirmative and show that a related quantity is equal to ⌊ϑ(G)⌋. We show that a quantity χvect(G) recently introduced in the context of Tsirelson's problem is equal to ⌊ϑ+(G)⌋. In an appendix, we investigate multiplicativity properties of Schrijver's and Szegedy's numbers, as well as projective rank.

We analyze a cryptographic protocol for generating a distributed secret key from correlations that violate a Bell inequality by a sufficient amount, and prove its security against eavesdroppers, constrained only by the assumption that any information accessible to them must be compatible with the non-signaling principle. The claim holds with respect to the state-of-the-art security definition used in cryptography, known as universally-composable security. The non-signaling assumption only refers to the statistics of measurement outcomes depending on the choices of measurements; hence security is independent of the internal workings of the devices - they do not even need to follow the laws of quantum theory. This is relevant for practice as a correct and complete modeling of realistic devices is generally impossible. The techniques developed are general and can be applied to other Bell inequality-based protocols. In particular, we provide a scheme for estimating Bell-inequality violations when the samples are not independent and identically distributed.

We exhibit a possible road toward a strong converse for the quantum capacity of degradable channels. In particular, we show that all degradable channels obey what we call a “pretty strong” converse: when the code rate increases above the quantum capacity, the fidelity makes a discontinuous jump from 1 to at most 1/√2, asymptotically. A similar result can be shown for the private (classical) capacity. Furthermore, we can show that if the strong converse holds for symmetric channels (which have quantum capacity zero), then degradable channels obey the strong converse. The above-mentioned asymptotic jump of the fidelity at the quantum capacity then decreases from 1 to 0.

We exhibit a possible road towards a strong converse for the quantum capacity of degradable channels. In particular, we show that all degradable channels obey what we call a “pretty strong” converse: When the code rate increases above the quantum capacity, the fidelity makes a discontinuous jump from 1 to at most 1/√2, asymptotically. A similar result can be shown for the private (classical) capacity. Furthermore, we can show that if the strong converse holds for symmetric channels (which have quantum capacity zero), then degradable channels obey the strong converse: The above-mentioned asymptotic jump of the fidelity at the quantum capacity is then from 1 down to 0.

We study the quantum channel version of Shannon's zero-error capacity problem. Motivated by recent progress on this question, we propose to consider a certain subspace of operators (so-called operator systems) as the quantum generalization of the adjacency matrix, in terms of which the zero-error capacity of a quantum channel, as well as the quantum and entanglement-assisted zero-error capacities can be formulated, and for which we show some new basic properties. Most importantly, we define a quantum version of Lovász' famous ϑ function on general operator systems, as the norm-completion (or stabilization) of a “naive” generalization of ϑ. We go on to show that this function upper bounds the number of entanglement-assisted zero-error messages, that it is given by a semidefinite program, whose dual we write down explicitly, and that it is multiplicative with respect to the tensor product of operator systems (corresponding to the tensor product of channels). We explore various other properties of the new quantity, which reduces to Lovász' original ϑ in the classical case, give several applications, and propose to study the operator systems associated with channels as “noncommutative graphs,” using the language of Hilbert modules.

We extend quantum rate-distortion theory by considering auxiliary resources that might be available to a sender and receiver performing lossy quantum data compression. The first setting we consider is that of quantum rate-distortion coding with the help of a classical side channel. Our result here is that the regularized entanglement of formation characterizes the quantum rate-distortion function, extending earlier work of Devetak and Berger. We also combine this bound with the entanglement-assisted bound from our prior work to obtain the best known bounds on the quantum rate-distortion function for an isotropic qubit source. The second setting we consider is that of quantum rate-distortion coding with quantum side information (QSI) available to the receiver. In order to prove results in this setting, we first state and prove a quantum reverse Shannon theorem with QSI (for tensor-power states), which extends the known tensor-power quantum reverse Shannon theorem. The achievability part of this theorem relies on the quantum state redistribution protocol, while the converse relies on the fact that the protocol can cause only a negligible disturbance to the joint state of the reference and the receiver's QSI. This quantum reverse Shannon theorem with QSI naturally leads to quantum rate-distortion theorems with QSI, with or without entanglement assistance.

We exhibit infinitely many new, constrained inequalities for the von Neumann entropy, and show that they are independent of each other and the known inequalities obeyed by the von Neumann entropy (basically strong subadditivity). The new inequalities were proved originally by Makarychevfor the Shannon entropy, using properties of probability distributions. Our approach extends the proof of the inequalities to the quantum domain, and includes their independence for the quantum and also the classical cases.

The paper presents a problem motivated by the hidden subgroup problem, for which the "standard approach" is to use the oracle to produce the coset state. Abstractly, one is given a set of quantum states on a d-dimensional Hilbert space, with the property that the pairwise fidelities are bounded. The question is: How many copies of the unknown state does one need to be able to distinguish them all with high reliability? The minimal state will depend on the precise geometric position of the states relative to each other, but useful bounds can be obtained simply in terms of the number N and the fidelity F.

If a quantum system is subject to noise, it is possible to perform quantum error correction reversing the action of the noise if and only if no information about the system's quantum state leaks to the environment. In this paper, we develop an analogous duality in the case that the environment approximately forgets the identity of the quantum state, a weaker condition satisfied by -randomizing maps and approximate unitary designs. Specifically, we show that the environment approximately forgets quantum states if and only if the original channel approximately preserves pairwise fidelities of pure inputs, an observation we call weak decoupling duality. Using this tool, we then go on to study the task of using the output of a channel to simulate restricted classes of measurements on a space of input states. The case of simulating measurements that test whether the input state is an arbitrary pure state is known as equality testing or quantum identification. An immediate consequence of weak decoupling duality is that the ability to perform quantum identification cannot be cloned. We, furthermore, establish that the optimal amortized rate at which quantum states can be identified through a noisy quantum channel is equal to the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of the channel, despite the fact that the task is quantum, not classical, and entanglement-assistance is not allowed. In particular, this rate is strictly positive for every nonconstant quantum channel, including classical channels.

We study the quantum channel version of Shannon's zero-error capacity problem. Motivated by recent progress on this question, we propose to consider a certain linear space operators as the quantum generalisation of the adjacency matrix, in terms of which the plain, quantum and entanglement-assisted capacity can be formulated, and for which we show some new basic properties. Most importantly, we define a quantum version of Lovász' famous υ function, as the norm-completion (or stabilisation) of a “naive” generalisation of υ. We go on to show that this function upper bounds the number of entanglement-assisted zero-error messages, that it is given by a semidefinite programme, whose dual we write down explicitly, and that it is multiplicative with respect to the natural (strong) graph product. We explore various other properties of the new quantity, which reduces to Lovász' original υ in the classical case, give several applications, and propose to study the linear spaces of operators associated to channels as “non-commutative graphs”, using the language of operator systems and Hilbert modules.

The theory of zero-error communication is re-examined in the broader setting of using one classical channel to simulate another exactly in the presence of various classes of nonsignalling correlations between sender and receiver i.e., shared randomness, shared entanglement and arbitrary nonsignalling correlations. When the channel being simulated is noiseless, this is zero-error coding assisted by correlations. When the resource channel is noiseless, it is the reverse problem of simulating a noisy channel exactly by a noiseless one, assisted by correlations. In both cases, separations between the power of the different classes of assisting correlations are exhibited for finite block lengths. The most striking result here is that entanglement can assist in zero-error communication. In the large block length limit, shared randomness is shown to be just as powerful as arbitrary nonsignalling correlations for exact simulation, but not for asymptotic zero-error coding. For assistance by arbitrary nonsignalling correlations, linear programming formulas for the asymptotic capacity and simulation rates are derived, the former being equal (for channels with nonzero unassisted capacity) to the feedback-assisted zero-error capacity derived by Shannon. Finally, a kind of reversibility between nonsignalling-assisted zero-error capacity and exact simulation is observed, mirroring the usual reverse Shannon theorem.

We study the problem ofk-pair communication (or multiple unicast problem) of quantum information in networks of quantum channels. We consider the asymptotic rates of high fidelity quantum communication between specific sender-receiver pairs. Four scenarios of classical communication assistance (none, forward, backward, and two-way) are considered. (I) We obtain outer and inner bounds of the achievable rate regions in the most general directed networks. (II) For two particular networks (including the butterfly network), routing is proved optimal, and the free assisting classical communication can at best be used to modify the directions of quantum channels in the network. Consequently, the achievable rate regions are given by counting edge avoiding paths, and precise achievable rate regions in all four assisting scenarios can be obtained. (III) Optimality of routing can also be proved in classes of networks. The first class consists of directed unassisted networks in which (1) the receivers are information sinks, (2) the maximum distance from senders to receivers is small, and (3) a certain type of 4-cycles are absent, but without further constraints (such as on the number of communicating and intermediate parties). The second class consists of arbitrary backward-assisted networks with two sender-receiver pairs. (IV) Beyond thek-pair communication problem, observations are made on quantum multicasting and a static version of network communication related to the entanglement of assistance.

Motivated by the recent discovery of a quantum Chernoff theorem for asymptotic state discrimination, we investigate the distinguishability of two bipartite mixed states under the constraint of local operations and classical communication (LOCC), in the limit of many copies. While for two pure states a result of Walgate et al. shows that LOCC is just as powerful as global measurements, data hiding states (DiVincenzo et al.) show that locality can impose severe restrictions on the distinguishability of even orthogonal states. Here we determine the optimal error probability and measurement to discriminate many copies of particular data hiding states (extremal d times d Werner states) by a linear programming approach. Surprisingly, the single-copy optimal measurement remains optimal for n copies, in the sense that the best strategy is measuring each copy separately, followed by a simple classical decision rule. We also put a lower bound on the bias with which states can be distinguished by separable operations. This is a shortened version of a paper [1] recently submitted to Communications in Mathematical Physics; here the proofs have been omitted.

We introduce a new state discrimination problem in which we are given additional information about the state after the measurement, or more generally, after a quantum memory bound applies. The following special case plays an important role in quantum cryptographic protocols in the bounded storage model: Given a string x encoded in an unknown basis chosen from a set of mutually unbiased bases (MUBs), you may perform any measurement, but then store at mostqqubits of quantum information, and an unlimited amount of classical information. Later on, you learn which basis was used. How well can you compute a function f(x) of x, given the initial measurement outcome, the q qubits, and the additional basis information? We first show a lower bound on the success probability for any balanced function, and any number of mutually unbiased bases, beating the naive strategy of simply guessing the basis. We then show that for two bases, any Boolean function f(x) can be computed perfectly if you are allowed to store just a single qubit, independent of the number of possible input strings x. However, we show how to construct three bases, such that you need to store all qubits in order to compute f(x) perfectly. We then investigate how much advantage the additional basis information can give for a Boolean function. To this end, we prove optimal bounds for the success probability for the AND and the XOR function for up to three mutually unbiased bases. Our result shows that the gap in success probability can be maximal: without the basis information, you can never do better than guessing the basis, but with this information, you can compute f(x) perfectly. We also give an example where the extra information does not give any advantage at all.

Quantum Shannon theory is loosely defined as a collection of coding theorems, such as classical and quantum source compression, noisy channel coding theorems, entanglement distillation, etc., which characterize asymptotic properties of quantum and classical channels and states. In this paper, we advocate a unified approach to an important class of problems in quantum Shannon theory, consisting of those that are bipartite, unidirectional, and memoryless.

We find a regularized formula for the entanglement-assisted (EA) capacity region for quantum multiple-access channels (QMAC). We illustrate the capacity region calculation with the example of the collective phase-flip channel which admits a single-letter characterization. On the way, we provide a first-principles proof of the EA coding theorem based on a packing argument. We observe that the Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland theorem may be obtained from a modification of our EA protocol. We remark on the existence of a family hierarchy of protocols for multiparty scenarios with a single receiver, in analogy to the two-party case. In this way, we relate several previous results regarding QMACs.

In this paper, we deal with the task of obtaining oblivious transfer (OT) from noisy resources. We characterize which noisy channels/distributions are useful for obtaining OT. We also introduce the problem of computing the oblivious-transfer capacity of a noisy resource, which measures the optimal way of implementing OT from a noisy channel/distribution. We show that for honest-but-curious sender, the oblivious-transfer capacity of noisy resources is strictly positive. Several open questions are raised.

In this paper, we present an upper bound for the quantum channel capacity that is both additive and convex. Our bound can be interpreted as the capacity of a channel for high-fidelity quantum communication when assisted by a family of channels that have no capacity on their own. This family of assistance channels, which we call symmetric side channels, consists of all channels mapping symmetrically to their output and environment. The bound seems to be quite tight, and for degradable quantum channels, it coincides with the unassisted channel capacity. Using this symmetric side channel capacity, we find new upper bounds on the capacity of the depolarizing channel. We also briefly indicate an analogous notion for distilling entanglement using the same class of (one-way) channels, yielding one of the few entanglement measures that is monotonic under local operations with one-way classical communication (1-LOCC), but not under the more general class of local operations with classical communication (LOCC).

The relative entropy of two distributions of n random variables, and more generally of two n-party quantum states, is an important quantity exhibiting, for example, the extent to which the two distributions/states are different. The relative entropy of the states formed by restricting to a smaller number m of parties is always less than or equal to the relative entropy of the two original n-party states. This is the monotonicity of relative entropy. Using techniques from convex geometry, we prove that monotonicity under restrictions is the only general inequality satisfied by relative entropies. In doing so we make a connection to secret sharing schemes with general access structures: indeed, it turns out that the extremal rays of the cone defined by monotonicity are populated by classical secret sharing schemes. A surprising outcome is that the structure of allowed relative entropy values of subsets of multiparty states is much simpler than the structure of allowed entropy values. And the structure of allowed relative entropy values (unlike that of entropies) is the same for classical probability distributions and quantum states

Bit commitment is an important tool for constructing zero-knowledge proofs and multi-party computation. Unconditionally secure bit commitment can be based, in particular, on noisy channel or correlation where noise considered a valuable resource. Recently, Winter, Nascimento and Imai introduced the concept of commitment capacity, the maximal ratio between the length of a string which the sender commits to and the number of times the noisy channel/correlation is used. They also proved that for any discrete memoryless channel there exists a secure protocol achieving its commitment capacity however, no particular construction was given. Solving their open question, we provide an efficient protocol for achieving the commitment capacity of discrete memoryless systems (noisy channels and correlations).

We deal with the task of obtaining oblivious transfer from noisy resources. We characterize which noisy channels/distributions are useful for obtaining oblivious transfer. We also introduce the problem of computing the oblivious transfer capacity of a noisy resource, which measures the optimal way of implementing oblivious transfer from a noisy channel/distribution. We show that for honest but curious sender, the oblivious transfer capacity of noisy resources is strictly positive. Several open questions are raised.

In this paper, we present a one-shot method for preparing pure entangled states between a sender and a receiver at a minimal cost of entanglement and quantum communication. In the case of preparing unentangled states, an earlier paper showed that a$2l$-qubit quantum state could be communicated to a receiver by physically transmitting only$l+o(l)$qubits in addition to consuming$l$ebits of entanglement and some shared randomness. When the states to be prepared are entangled, we find that there is a reduction in the number of qubits that need to be transmitted, interpolating between no communication at all for maximally entangled states and the earlier two-for-one result of the unentangled case, all without the use of any shared randomness. We also present two applications of our result: a direct proof of the achievability of the optimal superdense coding protocol for entangled states produced by a memoryless source, and a demonstration that the quantum identification capacity of an ebit is two qubits.

The problem of distributed compression for correlated quantum sources is considered. The classical version of this problem was solved by Slepian and Wolf, who showed that distributed compression could take full advantage of redundancy in the local sources created by the presence of correlations. Here it is shown that, in general, this is not the case for quantum sources, by proving a lower bound on the rate sum for irreducible sources of product states which is stronger than the one given by a naive application of Slepian–Wolf. Nonetheless, strategies taking advantage of correlation do exist for some special classes of quantum sources. For example, Devetak and Winter demonstrated the existence of such a strategy when one of the sources is classical. Optimal nontrivial strategies for a different extreme, sources of Bell states, are presented here. In addition, it is explained how distributed compression is connected to other problems in quantum information theory, including information-disturbance questions, entanglement distillation and quantum error correction.

The inverse of Maurer's secret key distillation problem from (many independent realisations of) a triple of random variables X, Y, Z by two players (Alice and Bob) against an eavesdropper (Eve) is considered: the formation of the joint distribution (up to local degrading of Z) from secret key and public communication. We determine the asymptotically minimal amount of secret key for this task, and indeed the full trade-off of secret (between Alice and Bob) vs. public (shared between Alice, Bob and Eve) correlation for this problem. Our result generalises a theorem of Wyner on the "common information of a pair of random variables", which is recovered as the special case of Z being independent of XY. We investigate the secret key required as a function of the probability distribution and compare to an analogous notion based on prior shared entanglement

Squashed entanglement and entanglement of purification are quantum mechanical correlation measures and defined as certain minimisations of entropic quantities. In this paper, we present the first non-trivial calculations of both quantities. Our results lead to the conclusion that both measures can drop by an arbitrary amount when only a single qubit of a local system is lost. This property is known as "locking" and has previously been observed for other correlation measures such as accessible information, entanglement cost and logarithmic negativity. In the case of squashed entanglement, the results are obtained using an inequality that can be understood as a quantum channel analogue of well-known entropic uncertainty relations. This inequality may prove a useful tool in quantum information theory. The regularised entanglement of purification is known to equal the entanglement needed to prepare many copies of a quantum state by local operations and a sublinear amount of communication. Here, monogamy of quantum entanglement (i.e., the impossibility of a system being maximally entangled with two others at the same time) leads to an exact calculation for all quantum states that are supported either on the symmetric or on the antisymmetric subspace of a d times d-dimensional system

Remote state preparation is the variant of quantum state teleportation in which the sender knows the quantum state to be communicated. The original paper introducing teleportation established minimal requirements for classical communication and entanglement but the corresponding limits for remote state preparation have remained unknown until now: previous work has shown, however, that it not only requires less classical communication but also gives rise to a tradeoff between these two resources in the appropriate setting. We discuss this problem from first principles, including the various choices one may follow in the definitions of the actual resources. Our main result is a general method of remote state preparation for arbitrary states of many qubits, at a cost of 1 bit of classical communication and 1 bit of entanglement per qubit sent. In this "universal" formulation, these ebit and cbit requirements are shown to be simultaneously optimal by exhibiting a dichotomy. Our protocol then yields the exact tradeoff curve for memoryless sources of pure states (including the case of incomplete knowledge of the ensemble probabilities), based on the recently established quantum-classical tradeoff for visible quantum data compression. A variation of that method allows us to solve the even more general problem of preparing entangled states between sender and receiver (i.e., purifications of mixed state ensembles). The paper includes an extensive discussion of our results, including the impact of the choice of model on the resources, the topic of obliviousness, and an application to private quantum channels and quantum data hiding.

Squashed entanglement and entanglement of purification are quantum-mechanical correlation measures and are defined as certain minimizations of entropic quantities. In this paper, we present the first nontrivial calculations of both quantities. Our results lead to the conclusion that both measures can drop by an arbitrary amount when only a single qubit of a local system is lost. This property is known as "locking" and has previously been observed for other correlation measures such as accessible information, entanglement cost, and logarithmic negativity. In the case of squashed entanglement, the results are obtained using an inequality that can be understood as a quantum channel analogue of well-known entropic uncertainty relations. This inequality may prove a useful tool in quantum information theory. The regularized entanglement of purification is known to equal the entanglement needed to prepare many copies of a quantum state by local operations and a sublinear amount of communication. Here, monogamy of quantum entanglement (i.e., the impossibility of a system being maximally entangled with two others at the same time) leads to an exact calculation for all quantum states that are supported either on the symmetric or on the antisymmetric subspace of a d/spl times/d-dimensional system.

This paper describes the family of quantum protocols. The basic protocols are naturally organized into mutually dual hierarchies. A noiseless qubit channel, noiseless classical bit channel and pure ebit (EPR pair) reflect their classical-quantum and dynamic-static nature. In addition to teleportation (TP) and super-dense coding (SD), third noiseless resource inequality (RI), "entanglement distribution" (ED) are implemented through the qubit channel. Proving the existence of protocols implementing the parent RIs relies on making the existing children protocols coherent and using the technique of coherent communication.

This paper studies the optimisation of the channel with cryptographic primitives such as coin tossing and oblivious transfer by committing to a set of strings. The main contribution of this paper is that the commitment is possible from any nontrivial correlation at rates when the sender is Alice and Bob, those rates are optimal. Also the coin tossing capacity is infinite for every channel having a positive bit commitment rate.

The problem of converting noisy quantum correlations between two parties into noiseless classical ones using a limited amount of one-way classical communication is addressed. A single-letter formula for the optimal tradeoff between the extracted common randomness and classical communication rate is obtained for the special case of classical-quantum correlations. The resulting curve is intimately related to the quantum compression with classical side information tradeoff curve Q/sup */(R) of Hayden, Jozsa, and Winter. For a general initial state, we obtain a similar result, with a single-letter formula, when we impose a tensor product restriction on the measurements performed by the sender; without this restriction, the tradeoff is given by the regularization of this function. Of particular interest is a quantity we call "distillable common randomness" of a state: the maximum overhead of the common randomness over the one-way classical communication if the latter is unbounded. It is an operational measure of (total) correlation in a quantum state. For classical-quantum correlations it is given by the Holevo mutual information of its associated ensemble; for pure states it is the entropy of entanglement. In general, it is given by an optimization problem over measurements and regularization; for the case of separable states we show that this can be single-letterized.

The paper discusses Conjecture 21 formulated by Ahlswede and Winter (see ibid., vol.48, p.569-79, Mar. 2002) about finite families of self-adjoint operators A/sub i/ and B/sub i/ noting that for commuting operators equality holds. It adds that the other statements made in connection with this conjecture, though not logically disproved, should be regarded with caution.

We present a simple proof of the strong converse for identification via discrete memoryless quantum channels, based on a novel covering lemma. The new method is a generalization to quantum communication channels of Ahlswede's (1979, 1992) approach to classical channels. It involves a development of explicit large deviation estimates to the case of random variables taking values in self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space. This theory is presented separately in an appendix, and we illustrate it by showing its application to quantum generalizations of classical hypergraph covering problems.

We define classical quantum multiway channels for transmission of classical information, after the previous work by Allahverdyan and Saakian (see Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag, vol.1509, 1999). Bounds on the capacity region are derived in a uniform way, which are analogous to the classically known ones, simply replacing Shannon (1961) entropy with von Neumann (1955) entropy. For the single receiver case (multiple-access channel) the elect capacity region is determined. These results are applied to the case of noisy channels, with arbitrary input signal states. A second issue of this work is the presentation of a calculus of quantum information quantities, based on the algebraic formulation of quantum theory.

We present a new proof of Holevo's (1973, 1977) coding theorem for transmitting classical information through quantum channels, and its strong converse. The technique is largely inspired by Wolfwitz's (1964) combinatorial approach using types of sequences. As a byproduct of our approach which is independent of previous ones, both in the coding theorem and the converse, we can give a new proof of Holevo's information bound.