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arXiv:1208.1478 · IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

A Hierarchy of Information Quantities for Finite Block Length Analysis of Quantum Tasks

Marco Tomamichel, Masahito Hayashi

Published Aug 2, 2013• 280 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We consider two fundamental tasks in quantum information theory, data compression with quantum side information, as well as randomness extraction against quantum side information. We characterize these tasks for general sources using so-called one-shot entropies. These characterizations-in contrast to earlier results-enable us to derive tight second-order asymptotics for these tasks in the i.i.d. limit. More generally, our derivation establishes a hierarchy of information quantities that can be used to investigate information theoretic tasks in the quantum domain: The one-shot entropies most accurately describe an operational quantity, yet they tend to be difficult to calculate for large systems. We show that they asymptotically agree (up to logarithmic terms) with entropies related to the quantum and classical information spectrum, which are easier to calculate in the i.i.d. limit. Our technique also naturally yields bounds on operational quantities for finite block lengths.

DOI
10.1109/tit.2013.2276628

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We introduce two variants of the information spectrum relative entropy defined by Tomamichel and Hayashi, which have the particular advantage of satisfying the data-processing inequality, i.e., monotonicity under quantum operations. This property allows us to obtain one-shot bounds for various information-processing tasks in terms of these quantities. Moreover, these relative entropies have a second-order asymptotic expansion, which in turn yields tight second-order asymptotics for optimal rates of these tasks in the independent and identically distributed setting. The tasks studied in this paper are fixed-length quantum source coding, noisy dense coding, entanglement concentration, pure-state entanglement dilution, and transmission of information through a classical-quantum channel. In the latter case, we retrieve the second-order asymptotics obtained by Tomamichel and Tan. Our results also yield the known second-order asymptotics of fixed-length classical source coding derived by Hayashi. The second-order asymptotics of entanglement concentration and dilution provide a refinement of the inefficiency of these protocols-a quantity which, in the case of entanglement dilution, was studied by Harrow and Lo. We prove how the discrepancy between the optimal rates of these two processes in the second-order implies the irreversibility of entanglement concentration established by Kumagai and Hayashi. In addition, the spectral divergence rates of the information spectrum approach (ISA) can be retrieved from our relative entropies in the asymptotic limit. This enables us to directly obtain the more general results of the ISA from our one-shot bounds.

arXiv:1403.2543•IEEE Transactions on Information Theory•Nov 4, 2014•53 citations
We consider two fundamental tasks in quantum information theory, data compression with quantum side information, as well as randomness extraction against quantum side information. We characterize these tasks for general sources using so-called one-shot entropies. These characterizations-in contrast to earlier results-enable us to derive tight second-order asymptotics for these tasks in the i.i.d. limit. More generally, our derivation establishes a hierarchy of information quantities that can be used to investigate information theoretic tasks in the quantum domain: The one-shot entropies most accurately describe an operational quantity, yet they tend to be difficult to calculate for large systems. We show that they asymptotically agree (up to logarithmic terms) with entropies related to the quantum and classical information spectrum, which are easier to calculate in the i.i.d. limit. Our technique also naturally yields bounds on operational quantities for finite block lengths.
This dissertation investigates relative entropies, also called generalized divergences, and how they can be used to characterize information-theoretic tasks in quantum information theory. The main goal is to further refine characterizations of the optimal rates for quantum source coding, state redistribution, and measurement compression with quantum side information via second order asymptotic expansions and strong converse theorems. The dissertation consists of a mathematical and an information-theoretic part. In the mathematical part, we focus on the ααα-sandwiched Rényi divergence (ααα-SRD). We first investigate the limit α→0α\to 0α→0 to determine whether this recovers the well-known 000-Rényi relative divergence. We then prove various new results for entropic quantities derived from the ααα-SRD, including dimension bounds and useful bounds in terms of the fidelity between two quantum states. Furthermore, we derive a necessary and sufficient algebraic condition for equality in the data processing inequality (viz. monotonicity under quantum operations) for the ααα-SRD, and give applications to entropic bounds. In the information-theoretic part, we first derive the second order asymptotics of visible quantum source coding using a mixed source. For the achievability part, we develop universal quantum source codes achieving a given second order rate for a memoryless source. As a corollary of the main result, we obtain the second order asymptotics of quantum source coding using a single memoryless source. We then prove strong converse theorems for state redistribution (with or without feedback) and measurement compression with quantum side information. The key ingredients in proving these theorems are the aforementioned fidelity bounds on Rényi entropic quantities derived from the ααα-SRD.
We give the first systematic study on the second order asymptotics of the operational task of coherence distillation with and without assistance. In the unassisted setting, we introduce a variant of randomness extraction framework where free incoherent operations are allowed before the incoherent measurement and the randomness extractors. We then show that the maximum number of random bits extractable from a given quantum state is precisely equal to the maximum number of coherent bits distillable from the same state. This relation enables us to derive tight second order expansions of both tasks in the independent and identically distributed setting. Remarkably, the incoherent operation classes that can empower coherence distillation for generic states all admit the same second order expansions, indicating their operational equivalence for coherence distillation in both asymptotic and large block length regimes. We then generalize the above line of research to the assisted setting, arising naturally in bipartite quantum systems where Bob distills coherence from the state at hand, aided by the benevolent Alice possessing the other system. More precisely, we introduce a new assisted incoherent randomness extraction task and establish an exact relation between this task and the assisted coherence distillation. It strengthens the one-shot relation in the unassisted setting and confirms that this cryptographic framework offers a new perspective to the study of quantum coherence distillation. Likewise, this relation yields second order characterizations to the assisted tasks. As by-products, we show the strong converse property of the tasks above from their second order expansions.
We introduce an improved one-shot characterisation of randomness extraction against quantum side information (privacy amplification), strengthening known one-shot bounds and providing a unified derivation of the tightest known asymptotic constraints. Our main tool is a new class of smooth conditional entropies defined by lifting classical smooth divergences through measurements. A key role is played by the measured smooth Rényi relative entropy of order 2, which we show to admit an equivalent variational form: it can be understood as allowing for smoothing over not only states, but also non-positive Hermitian operators. Building on this, we establish a tightened leftover hash lemma, significantly improving over all known smooth min-entropy bounds on extractable randomness and recovering the sharpest classical achievability results. We extend these methods to decoupling, the coherent analogue of privacy amplification, obtaining a corresponding improved one-shot bound. Relaxing our smooth entropy bounds leads to one-shot achievability results in terms of measured Rényi divergences, tightening the bounds of [Dupuis, arXiv:2105.05342] and recovering state-of-the-art asymptotic i.i.d. error exponents. We show an approximate optimality of our results by giving a matching one-shot converse bound up to additive logarithmic terms. This yields an optimal second-order asymptotic expansion of privacy amplification under trace distance, establishing a significantly tighter one-shot achievability result than previously shown in [Shen et al., arXiv:2202.11590] and proving its optimality for all hash functions.
In this paper, we analyze classical data compression with quantum side information (also known as the classical-quantum Slepian–Wolf protocol) in the so-called large and moderate deviation regimes. In the non-asymptotic setting, the protocol involves compressing classical sequences of finite lengthnnnand decoding them with the assistance of quantum side information. In the large deviation regime, the compression rate is fixed, and we obtain bounds on the error exponent function, which characterizes the minimal probability of error as a function of the rate. Devetak and Winter showed that the asymptotic data compression limit for this protocol is given by a conditional entropy. For any protocol with a rate below this quantity, the probability of error converges to one asymptotically and its speed of convergence is given by the strong converse exponent function. We obtain finite blocklength bounds on this function, and determine exactly its asymptotic value. In the moderate deviation regime for the compression rate, the latter is no longer considered to be fixed. It is allowed to depend on the blocklengthnnn, but assumed to decay slowly to the asymptotic data compression limit. Starting from a rate above this limit, we determine the speed of convergence of the error probability to zero and show that it is given in terms of the conditional information variance.
One of the principal themes of information theory is to establish a link between two different kinds of quantities: one is an operational quantity which is defined through the asymptotic optimality on some concrete concept such as code length, compression rate, error probability, etc., while the other is an abstract information quantity such as the entropy, divergence, mutual information, etc. The same theme is now being pursued extensively in quantum information theory, and lots of mathematical results have been reported so far. In the so-called information-spectrum methods in the classical information theory [1], the process of establishing a link between an operatinal quantity and an entropy-like information quantity is intentionally divided into two parts, making the third kind of quantities — information spectrum — intervene. In the methods, the asymptotic optimality of an operational quantity is characterized by a limiting expression on information spectra (asymptotic behavior of logarithmic likelihoods) in the most general setting, while the information-spectrum quantity is rewritten to an entropylike quantity in a specific situation mostly as a direct consequence of a limiting theorem in the probability theory such as the law of large numbers, the Shannon-McMillan-Breiman theorem, etc. Such a framework brings not only generality but also transparency of mathematical arguments. Extending the information-spectrum methods to the quantum case is an attractive subject, which is expected to provide both the asymptotic optimality of operational quantities and the limiting law governing quantum stochastic situations with transparent and comprehensive understanding. In this talk I would like to review recent attempts to develop the quantum informationspectrum methods made by Hayashi, Ogawa and myself, mainly based on [2, 3, 4], and discuss their significance in the quantum information theory.
We introduce two variants of the information spectrum relative entropy defined by Tomamichel and Hayashi, which have the particular advantage of satisfying the data-processing inequality, i.e., monotonicity under quantum operations. This property allows us to obtain one-shot bounds for various information-processing tasks in terms of these quantities. Moreover, these relative entropies have a second-order asymptotic expansion, which in turn yields tight second-order asymptotics for optimal rates of these tasks in the independent and identically distributed setting. The tasks studied in this paper are fixed-length quantum source coding, noisy dense coding, entanglement concentration, pure-state entanglement dilution, and transmission of information through a classical-quantum channel. In the latter case, we retrieve the second-order asymptotics obtained by Tomamichel and Tan. Our results also yield the known second-order asymptotics of fixed-length classical source coding derived by Hayashi. The second-order asymptotics of entanglement concentration and dilution provide a refinement of the inefficiency of these protocols-a quantity which, in the case of entanglement dilution, was studied by Harrow and Lo. We prove how the discrepancy between the optimal rates of these two processes in the second-order implies the irreversibility of entanglement concentration established by Kumagai and Hayashi. In addition, the spectral divergence rates of the information spectrum approach (ISA) can be retrieved from our relative entropies in the asymptotic limit. This enables us to directly obtain the more general results of the ISA from our one-shot bounds.