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arXiv:0906.2758

The bosonic minimum output entropy conjecture and Lagrangian minimization

Seth Lloyd, Vittorio Giovannetti, Lorenzo Maccone, Nicolas J. Cerf, Saikat Guha, Raúl García−Patrón, Sanjoy K. Mitter, Stefano Pirandola, Mary Beth Ruskai, Jeffrey H. Shapiro, Haidong Yuan

Published Jun 15, 2009• 6 citations
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Abstract

We introduce a new form for the bosonic channel minimal output entropy conjecture, namely that among states with equal input entropy, the thermal states are the ones that have slightest increase in entropy when sent through a infinitesimal thermalizing channel. We then detail a strategy to prove the conjecture through variational techniques. This would lead to the calculation of the classical capacity of a communication channel subject to thermal noise. Our strategy detects input thermal ensembles as possible solutions for the optimal encoding of the channel, lending support to the conjecture. However, it does not seem to be able to exclude the possibility that other input ensembles can attain the channel capacity.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.0906.2758

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We introduce a new form for the bosonic channel minimal output entropy conjecture, namely that among states with equal input entropy, the thermal states are the ones that have slightest increase in entropy when sent through a infinitesimal thermalizing channel. We then detail a strategy to prove the conjecture through variational techniques. This would lead to the calculation of the classical capacity of a communication channel subject to thermal noise. Our strategy detects input thermal ensembles as possible solutions for the optimal encoding of the channel, lending support to the conjecture. However, it does not seem to be able to exclude the possibility that other input ensembles can attain the channel capacity.
Previous work on the classical information capacities of bosonic channels has established the capacity of the single-user pure-loss channel, bounded the capacity of the single-user thermal-noise channel, and bounded the capacity region of the multiple-access channel. The latter is a multiple-user scenario in which several transmitters seek to simultaneously and independently communicate to a single receiver. We study the capacity region of the bosonic broadcast channel, in which a single transmitter seeks to simultaneously and independently communicate to two different receivers. It is known that the tightest available lower bound on the capacity of the single-user thermal-noise channel is that channel's capacity if, as conjectured, the minimum von Neumann entropy at the output of a bosonic channel with additive thermal noise occurs for coherent-state inputs. Evidence in support of this minimum output entropy conjecture has been accumulated, but a rigorous proof has not been obtained. We propose a minimum output entropy conjecture that, if proved to be correct, will establish that the capacity region of the bosonic broadcast channel equals the inner bound achieved using a coherent-state encoding and optimum detection. We provide some evidence that supports this conjecture, but again a full proof is not available.
Recently de Palma et al. [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 63, 728 (2017)] proved---using Lagrange multiplier techniques---that under a non-zero input entropy constraint, a thermal state input minimizes the output entropy of a pure-loss bosonic channel. In this note, we present our attempt to generalize this result to all single-mode gauge-covariant Gaussian channels by using similar techniques. Unlike the case of the pure-loss channel, we cannot prove that the thermal input state is the only local extremum of the optimization problem. %It is unclear to us why the same techniques do not lead to a proof for amplifier channels. However, we do prove that, if the conjecture holds for gauge-covariant Gaussian channels, it would also hold for gauge-contravariant Gaussian channels. The truth of the latter leads to a solution of the triple trade-off and broadcast capacities of quantum-limited amplifier channels. We note that de Palma et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 160503 (2017)] have now proven the conjecture for all single-mode gauge-covariant Gaussian channels by employing a different approach from what we outline here. Proving a multi-mode generalization of de Palma et al.'s above mentioned result---i.e., given a lower bound on the von Neumann entropy of the input to an nnn-mode lossy thermal-noise bosonic channel, an nnn-mode product thermal state input minimizes the output entropy---will establish an important special case of the conjectured Entropy Photon-number Inequality (EPnI). The EPnI, if proven true, would take on a role analogous to Shannon's EPI in proving coding theorem converses involving quantum limits of classical communication over bosonic channels.
Characterizing information-carrying capacities of bosonic communication channels is of significant practical interest. For thermal noise channels, using coherent (product) states yields an achievable rate for classical communication which is conjectured to be optimal. However, it is not known whether coding strategies using entanglement may perform better. Here we discuss upper bounds on classical capacities of thermal noise channels. These imply that coherent-state coding is close to optimal. Our main tool is a quantum analog of the entropy power inequality introduced Shannon. It gives a lower bound on the output von Neumann entropy when two independent signals combine at a beamsplitter.
We prove the long-standing conjecture stating that Gaussian thermal input states minimize the output von Neumann entropy of one-mode phase-covariant quantum Gaussian channels among all the input states with a given entropy. Phase-covariant quantum Gaussian channels model the attenuation and the noise that affect any electromagnetic signal in the quantum regime. Our result is crucial to prove the converse theorems for both the triple trade-off region and the capacity region for broadcast communication of the Gaussian quantum-limited amplifier. Our result extends to the quantum regime the entropy power inequality that plays a key role in classical information theory. Our proof exploits a completely new technique based on the recent determination of the p→q norms of the quantum-limited amplifier [De Palma et al., arXiv:1610.09967]. This technique can be applied to any quantum channel.