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arXiv:1107.0740

An intuitive proof of the data processing inequality

Normand J. Beaudry, Renato Renner

Published Jul 4, 2011• 1 citation
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Abstract

The data processing inequality (DPI) is a fundamental feature of information theory. Informally it states that you cannot increase the information content of a quantum system by acting on it with a local physical operation. When the smooth min-entropy is used as the relevant information measure, then the DPI follows immediately from the definition of the entropy. The DPI for the von Neumann entropy is then obtained by specializing the DPI for the smooth min-entropy by using the quantum asymptotic equipartition property (QAEP). We provide a new, simplified proof of the QAEP and therefore obtain a self-contained proof of the DPI for the von Neumann entropy.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1107.0740

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The data processing inequality (DPI) is a fundamental feature of information theory. Informally it states that you cannot increase the information content of a quantum system by acting on it with a local physical operation. When the smooth min-entropy is used as the relevant information measure, then the DPI follows immediately from the definition of the entropy. The DPI for the von Neumann entropy is then obtained by specializing the DPI for the smooth min-entropy by using the quantum asymptotic equipartition property (QAEP). We provide a new, simplified proof of the QAEP and therefore obtain a self-contained proof of the DPI for the von Neumann entropy.
The data processing inequality (DPI) is a fundamental feature of information theory. Informally it states that you cannot increase the information content of a quantum system by acting on it with a local physical operation. When the smooth min-entropy is used as the relevant information measure, then the DPI follows immediately from the definition of the entropy. The DPI for the von Neumann entropy is then obtained by specializing the DPI for the smooth min-entropy by using the quantum asymptotic equipartition property (QAEP). We provide a short proof of the QAEP and therefore obtain a self-contained proof of the DPI for the von Neumann entropy.
The data processing inequality (DPI) is a fundamental feature of information theory. Informally it states that you cannot increase the information content of a quantum system by acting on it with a local physical operation. When the smooth min-entropy is used as the relevant information measure, then the DPI follows immediately from the definition of the entropy. The DPI for the von Neumann entropy is then obtained by specializing the DPI for the smooth min-entropy by using the quantum asymptotic equipartition property (QAEP). We provide a short proof of the QAEP and therefore obtain a self-contained proof of the DPI for the von Neumann entropy.
The strength of quantum correlations is bounded from above by Tsirelson's bound. We establish a connection between this bound and the fact that correlations between two systems cannot increase under local operations, a property known as the data processing inequality (DPI). More specifically, we consider arbitrary convex probabilistic theories. These can be equipped with an entropy measure that naturally generalizes the von Neumann entropy, as shown recently in Short and Wehner (2010 New J. Phys. 12 033023) and Barnum et al (2010 New J. Phys. 12 033024). We prove that if the DPI holds with respect to this generalized entropy measure then the underlying theory necessarily respects Tsirelson's bound. We, moreover, generalize this statement to any entropy measure satisfying certain minimal requirements. A consequence of our result is that not all the entropic relations used for deriving Tsirelson's bound via information causality in Pawlowski et al (2009 Nature 461 1101–4) are necessary.
Integral representations of quantum relative entropy, and of the directional second and higher order derivatives of von Neumann entropy, are established, and used to give simple proofs of fundamental, known data processing inequalities: the Holevo bound on the quantity of information transmitted by a quantum communication channel, and, much more generally, the monotonicity of quantum relative entropy under trace-preserving positive linear maps – complete positivity of the map need not be assumed. The latter result was first proved by Müller-Hermes and Reeb, based on work of Beigi. For a simple application of such monotonicities, we consider any `divergence' that is non-increasing under quantum measurements, such as the concavity of von Neumann entropy, or various known quantum divergences. An elegant argument due to Hiai, Ohya, and Tsukada is used to show that the infimum of such a `divergence' on pairs of quantum states with prescribed trace distance is the same as the corresponding infimum on pairs of binary classical states. Applications of the new integral formulae to the general probabilistic model of information theory, and a related integral formula for the classical Rényi divergence, are also discussed.
Uncertainty relations provide constraints on how well the outcomes of incompatible measurements can be predicted, and as well as being fundamental to our understanding of quantum theory, they have practical applications such as for cryptography and witnessing entanglement. Here we shed new light on the entropic form of these relations, showing that they follow from a few simple properties, including the data-processing inequality. We prove these relations without relying on the exact expression for the entropy, and hence show that a single technique applies to several entropic quantities, including the von Neumann entropy, min- and max-entropies, and the Rényi entropies.
In information theory, the data processing inequality is a fundamental property that describes the loss of information through noisy channels. A more refined description is given by the strong data processing inequality (SDPI) for a fixed channel and a full-rank reference state. In classical information theory, the strong data processing inequality tensorizes for a large family of fff-divergences. However, its quantum counterpart remains largely unexplored. Tensorization of SDPI has previously been shown only for some special cases, and whether it holds more generally for quantum divergences still remains open. In this work, we report two negative results: the tensorization property fails for certain quantum chi-square divergences, and it also does not hold for the quantum relative entropy.