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arXiv:1502.06411 · IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

Additive Bounds of Minimum Output Entropies for Unital Channels and an Exact Qubit Formula

Motohisa Fukuda, Gilad Gour

Published Dec 19, 2016• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We find an upper bound for the minimum output entropy of a unital quantum channel, and obtain an exact formula for general qubit channels. Our techniques incorporate the Rényi entropies, particularly, with Rényi parameter α = 2. Moreover, since our upper bound is additive under tensor product, we get as a corollary an upper bound for the classical capacity of unital quantum channels. Interestingly, our upper bound for the classical capacity depends only on the operator norm of matrix representations of channels on the space of traceless Hermitian operators, and is tight in the sense that it gives the precise quantity of classical capacity of the Werner-Holevo channel. As an example, we study quantum channels with operator sum representation that is made of the discrete Weyl operators (generalized Pauli operators), and explain how our formula works in this case. Finally, we find new examples for which the minimum output Rényi 2-entropy is additive.

DOI
10.1109/tit.2016.2641455

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We find an upper bound for the minimum output entropy of a unital quantum channel, and obtain an exact formula for general qubit channels. Our techniques incorporate the Rényi entropies, particularly, with Rényi parameter α = 2. Moreover, since our upper bound is additive under tensor product, we get as a corollary an upper bound for the classical capacity of unital quantum channels. Interestingly, our upper bound for the classical capacity depends only on the operator norm of matrix representations of channels on the space of traceless Hermitian operators, and is tight in the sense that it gives the precise quantity of classical capacity of the Werner-Holevo channel. As an example, we study quantum channels with operator sum representation that is made of the discrete Weyl operators (generalized Pauli operators), and explain how our formula works in this case. Finally, we find new examples for which the minimum output Rényi 2-entropy is additive.
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The primary entropic measures for quantum states are additive under the tensor product. In the analysis of quantum information processing tasks, the minimum entropy of a set of states, e.g., the minimum output entropy of a channel, often plays a crucial role. A fundamental question in quantum information and cryptography is whether the minimum output entropy remains additive under the tensor product of channels. Here, we establish a general additivity statement for the optimized sandwiched Rényi entropy of quantum channels. For that, we generalize the results of Devetak et al. (Commun Math Phys 266(1):37-63, 2006) to multi-index Schatten norms. As an application, we strengthen the additivity statement of Van Himbeeck and Brown (A tight and general finite-size security proof for quantum key distribution, 2025) thus allowing the analysis of time-adaptive quantum cryptographic protocols. In addition, we establish chain rules for Rényi conditional entropies that are similar to the ones used for the generalized entropy accumulation theorem of Metger et al. (Commun Math Phys 405(11):261, 2024).
Counterexamples to additivity of minimum output ppp-Rényi entropy of quantum channels for all p≥0p\ge 0p≥0
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We prove that minimum-output Rényi-entropy additivity can fail by almost one bit simultaneously at every nonnegative order. For every ε∈(0,log⁡2)\varepsilon\in(0,\log2)ε∈(0,log2), there exists a finite-dimensional quantum channel with a real Stinespring isometry such that the same maximally entangled input witnesses a tensor-square entropy gap of at least log⁡2−ε\log2-\varepsilonlog2−ε for all p∈[0,∞]p\in[0,\infty]p∈[0,∞]. The output dimension can be chosen to be O(ε−3)O(\varepsilon^{-3})O(ε−3) as ε↓0\varepsilon\downarrow0ε↓0. The construction uses direct products of free groups: tensorized Haagerup estimates control the one-copy outputs, while commutation between distinct factors forces exact Bell-branch collisions at two copies. Strong convergence gives both an existential realization through finite-dimensional representations of right-angled Artin groups followed by realification, and a Haar-orthogonal model whose success probability tends to one as the matrix dimension grows. We also determine the exact Bell quotient, prove asymptotically sharp regular-radius bounds, and show that the cubic output-dimension scale is optimal within the present purity--rank certificate.