The Shannon entropy of a collection of random variables is subject to a number of constraints, the best-known examples being monotonicity and strong subadditivity. It remains an open question to decide which of these “laws of information theory” are also respected by the von Neumann entropy of many-body quantum states. In this article, we consider a toy version of this difficult problem by analyzing the von Neumann entropy of stabilizer states. We find that the von Neumann entropy of stabilizer states satisfies all balanced information inequalities that hold in the classical case. Our argument is built on the fact that stabilizer states have a classical model, provided by the discrete Wigner function: The phase-space entropy of the Wigner function corresponds directly to the von Neumann entropy of the state, which allows us to reduce to the classical case. Our result has a natural counterpart for multi-mode Gaussian states, which sheds some light on the general properties of the construction. We also discuss the relation of our results to recent work by Linden, Ruskai, and Winter [“The quantum entropy cone of stabiliser states,” e-print arXiv:1302.5453].
The Shannon entropy of a collection of random variables is subject to a number of constraints, the best-known examples being monotonicity and strong subadditivity. It remains an open question to decide which of these “laws of information theory” are also respected by the von Neumann entropy of many-body quantum states. In this article, we consider a toy version of this difficult problem by analyzing the von Neumann entropy of stabilizer states. We find that the von Neumann entropy of stabilizer states satisfies all balanced information inequalities that hold in the classical case. Our argument is built on the fact that stabilizer states have a classical model, provided by the discrete Wigner function: The phase-space entropy of the Wigner function corresponds directly to the von Neumann entropy of the state, which allows us to reduce to the classical case. Our result has a natural counterpart for multi-mode Gaussian states, which sheds some light on the general properties of the construction. We also discuss the relation of our results to recent work by Linden, Ruskai, and Winter [“The quantum entropy cone of stabiliser states,” e-print arXiv:1302.5453].
We investigate the universal linear inequalities that hold for the von Neumann entropies in a multi-party system, prepared in a stabiliser state. We demonstrate here that entropy vectors for stabiliser states satisfy, in addition to the classic inequalities, a type of linear rank inequalities associated with the combinatorial structure of normal subgroups of certain matrix groups. In the 4-party case, there is only one such inequality, the so-called Ingleton inequality. For these systems we show that strong subadditivity, weak monotonicity and Ingleton inequality exactly characterize the entropy cone for stabiliser states.
The von Neumann entropy plays a vital role in quantum information theory. The von Neumann entropy determines, e.g., the capacities of quantum channels. Also, entropies of composite quantum systems are important for future quantum networks, and their characterization is related to the quantum marginal problem. Furthermore, they play a role in quantum thermodynamics. In this thesis the set of quantum entropies of multipartite quantum systems is studied. The problem of its characterization is not new -- however, progress has been sparse, indicating that the problem might be hard and that new methods might be needed. Here, a variety of different and complementary approaches are taken. First, I look at global properties. It is known that the von Neumann entropy region -- just like its classical counterpart -- forms a convex cone. I describe the symmetries of this cone and highlight geometric similarities and differences to the classical entropy cone. In a different approach, I utilize the local geometric properties of extremal rays of a cone. I show that quantum states whose entropy lies on such an extremal ray of the quantum entropy cone have a very simple structure. As the set of all quantum states is very complicated, I look at a simple subset called stabilizer states. I improve on previously known results by showing that under a technical condition on the local dimension, entropies of stabilizer states respect an additional class of information inequalities that is valid for random variables from linear codes. In a last approach I find a representation-theoretic formulation of the classical marginal problem simplifying the comparison with its quantum mechanical counterpart. This novel correspondence yields a simplified formulation of the group characterization of classical entropies (IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 48(7):1992-1995, 2002) in purely combinatorial terms.
We investigate the universal inequalities relating the α -Rényi entropies of the marginals of a multi-partite quantum state. This is in analogy to the same question for the Shannon and von Neumann entropies ( α =1), which are known to satisfy several non-trivial inequalities such as strong subadditivity. Somewhat surprisingly, we find for 0< α <1 that the only inequality is non-negativity: in other words, any collection of non-negative numbers assigned to the non-empty subsets of n parties can be arbitrarily well approximated by the α -entropies of the 2 n −1 marginals of a quantum state. For α >1, we show analogously that there are no non-trivial homogeneous (in particular, no linear) inequalities. On the other hand, it is known that there are further, nonlinear and indeed non-homogeneous, inequalities delimiting the α -entropies of a general quantum state. Finally, we also treat the case of Rényi entropies restricted to classical states (i.e. probability distributions), which, in addition to non-negativity, are also subject to monotonicity. For α ≠0,1, we show that this is the only other homogeneous relation.
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.
This article presents self-contained proofs of the strong subadditivity inequality for von Neumann’s quantum entropy, S(ρ), and some related inequalities for the quantum relative entropy, most notably its convexity and its monotonicity under stochastic maps. Moreover, the approach presented here, which is based on Klein’s inequality and Lieb’s theorem that the function A→Tr eK+log A is concave, allows one to obtain conditions for equality. In the case of strong subadditivity, which states that S(ρ123)+S(ρ2)⩽S(ρ12)+S(ρ23) where the subscripts denote subsystems of a composite system, equality holds if and only if log ρ123=log ρ12−log ρ2+log ρ23. Using the fact that the Holevo bound on the accessible information in a quantum ensemble can be obtained as a consequence of the monotonicity of relative entropy, we show that equality can be attained for that bound only when the states in the ensemble commute. The article concludes with an Appendix giving a short description of Epstein’s elegant proof of Lieb’s theorem.
Let /spl rho/ denote the density matrix of a quantum state having n parts 1, ..., n. For I/spl sube/N={1, ..., n}, let /spl rho//sub I/=Tr/sub N/spl bsol/I/(/spl rho/) denote the density matrix of the state comprising those parts i such that i/spl isin/I, and let S(/spl rho//sub I/) denote the von Neumann (1927) entropy of the state /spl rho//sub I/. The collection of /spl nu/=2/sup n/ numbers {S(/spl rho//sub I/)}/sub I/spl sube/N/ may be regarded as a point, called the allocation of entropy for /spl rho/, in the vector space R/sup /spl nu//. Let A/sub n/ denote the set of points in R/sup /spl nu// that are allocations of entropy for n-part quantum states. We show that A~/sub n/~ (the topological closure of A/sub n/) is a closed convex cone in R/sup /spl nu//. This implies that the approximate achievability of a point as an allocation of entropy is determined by the linear inequalities that it satisfies. Lieb and Ruskai (1973) have established a number of inequalities for multipartite quantum states (strong subadditivity and weak monotonicity). We give a finite set of instances of these inequalities that is complete (in the sense that any valid linear inequality for allocations of entropy can be deduced from them by taking positive linear combinations) and independent (in the sense that none of them can be deduced from the others by taking positive linear combinations). Let B/sub n/ denote the polyhedral cone in R/sup /spl nu// determined by these inequalities. We show that A~/sub n/~=B/sub n/ for n/spl les/3. The status of this equality is open for n/spl ges/4. We also consider a symmetric version of this situation, in which S(/spl rho//sub I/) depends on I only through the number i=/spl ne/I of indexes in I and can thus be denoted S(/spl rho//sub i/). In this case, we give for each n a finite complete and independent set of inequalities governing the symmetric allocations of entropy {S(/spl rho//sub i/)}/sub 0/spl les/i/spl les/n/ in R/sup n+1/.