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arXiv:1710.04228 · New Journal of Physics

Coherifying quantum channels

Kamil Korzekwa, Stanisław Czachórski, Zbigniew Puchała, Karol Życzkowski

Published Feb 16, 2018• 51 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Is it always possible to explain random stochastic transitions between states of a finite-dimensional system as arising from the deterministic quantum evolution of the system? If not, then what is the minimal amount of randomness required by quantum theory to explain a given stochastic process? Here, we address this problem by studying possible coherifications of a quantum channel Φ, i.e., we look for channels Φ C that induce the same classical transitions T , but are ‘more coherent’. To quantify the coherence of a channel Φ we measure the coherence of the corresponding Jamiołkowski state J Φ . We show that the classical transition matrix T can be coherified to reversible unitary dynamics if and only if T is unistochastic. Otherwise the Jamiołkowski state J Φ C of the optimally coherified channel is mixed, and the dynamics must necessarily be irreversible. To assess the extent to which an optimal process Φ C is indeterministic we find explicit bounds on the entropy and purity of J Φ C , and relate the latter to the unitarity of Φ C . We also find optimal coherifications for several classes of channels, including all one-qubit channels. Finally, we provide a non-optimal coherification procedure that works for an arbitrary channel Φ and reduces its rank (the minimal number of required Kraus operators) from d 2 to d .

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/aaaff3

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Is it always possible to explain random stochastic transitions between states of a finite-dimensional system as arising from the deterministic quantum evolution of the system? If not, then what is the minimal amount of randomness required by quantum theory to explain a given stochastic process? Here, we address this problem by studying possible coherifications of a quantum channel Φ, i.e., we look for channels Φ C that induce the same classical transitions T , but are ‘more coherent’. To quantify the coherence of a channel Φ we measure the coherence of the corresponding Jamiołkowski state J Φ . We show that the classical transition matrix T can be coherified to reversible unitary dynamics if and only if T is unistochastic. Otherwise the Jamiołkowski state J Φ C of the optimally coherified channel is mixed, and the dynamics must necessarily be irreversible. To assess the extent to which an optimal process Φ C is indeterministic we find explicit bounds on the entropy and purity of J Φ C , and relate the latter to the unitarity of Φ C . We also find optimal coherifications for several classes of channels, including all one-qubit channels. Finally, we provide a non-optimal coherification procedure that works for an arbitrary channel Φ and reduces its rank (the minimal number of required Kraus operators) from d 2 to d .
In contrast to unitary evolutions, which are reversible, generic quantum processes (operations and quantum channels) are often irreversible. However, the degree of irreversibility is different for different channels, and it is desirable to have a quantitative characterization of irreversibility. In this paper, by exploiting the channel–state duality implemented by the Jamiołkowski–Choi isomorphism, we quantify the irreversibility of channels via entropy of the Jamiołkowski–Choi states of the corresponding channels and compare it with the notions of entanglement fidelity and entropy exchange. General properties of a reasonable measure of irreversibility are discussed from an intuitive perspective, and entropic measures of irreversibility are introduced. Several relations between irreversibility, entanglement fidelity, the degree of nonunitality, and decorrelating power are established. Some measures of irreversibility for a variety of prototypical channels are evaluated explicitly, revealing some information-theoretic aspects of the structure of channels from the perspective of irreversibility.
The classical embeddability problem asks whether a given stochastic matrix T , describing transition probabilities of a d -level system, can arise from the underlying homogeneous continuous-time Markov process. Here, we investigate the quantum version of this problem, asking of the existence of a Markovian quantum channel generating state transitions described by a given T . More precisely, we aim at characterising the set of quantum-embeddable stochastic matrices that arise from memoryless continuous-time quantum evolution. To this end, we derive both upper and lower bounds on that set, providing new families of stochastic matrices that are quantum-embeddable but not classically-embeddable, as well as families of stochastic matrices that are not quantum-embeddable. As a result, we demonstrate that a larger set of transition matrices can be explained by memoryless models if the dynamics is allowed to be quantum, but we also identify a non-zero measure set of random processes that cannot be explained by either classical or quantum memoryless dynamics. Finally, we fully characterise extreme stochastic matrices (with entries given only by zeros and ones) that are quantum-embeddable.
In this work, we study two different approaches to defining the entropy of a quantum channel. One of these is based on the von Neumann entropy of the corresponding Choi-Jamiołkowski state. The second one is based on the relative entropy of the output of the extended channel relative to the output of the extended completely depolarizing channel. This entropy then needs to be optimized over all possible input states. Our results first show that the former entropy provides an upper bound on the latter. Next, we show that for unital qubit channels, this bound is saturated. Finally, we conjecture and provide numerical intuitions that the bound can also be saturated for random channels as their dimension tends to infinity.
Degradable quantum channels are among the only channels whose quantum and private classical capacities are known. As such, determining the structure of these channels is a pressing open question in quantum information theory. We give a comprehensive review of what is currently known about the structure of degradable quantum channels, including a number of new results as well as alternate proofs of some known results. In the case of qubits, we provide a complete characterization of all degradable channels with two dimensional output, give a new proof that a qubit channel with two Kraus operators is either degradable or anti-degradable, and present a complete description of anti-degradable unital qubit channels with a new proof. For higher output dimensions we explore the relationship between the output and environment dimensions (dB and dE, respectively) of degradable channels. For several broad classes of channels we show that they can be modeled with an environment that is “small” in the sense of ΦC. Such channels include all those with qubit or qutrit output, those that map some pure state to an output with full rank, and all those which can be represented using simultaneously diagonal Kraus operators, even in a non-orthogonal basis. Perhaps surprisingly, we also present examples of degradable channels with “large” environments, in the sense that the minimal dimension dE>dB. Indeed, one can have dE>14dB2. These examples can also be used to give a negative answer to the question of whether additivity of the coherent information is helpful for establishing additivity for the Holevo capacity of a pair of channels. In the case of channels with diagonal Kraus operators, we describe the subclasses that are complements of entanglement breaking channels. We also obtain a number of results for channels in the convex hull of conjugations with generalized Pauli matrices. However, a number of open questions remain about these channels and the more general case of random unitary channels.
We addressed the question of optimality of private quantum channels. We have shown that the Shannon entropy of the classical key necessary to securely transfer the quantum information is lower bounded by the entropy exchange of the private quantum channel E\cal EE and von Neumann entropy of the ciphertext state ϱ(0)\varrho^{(0)}ϱ(0). Based on these bounds we have shown that decomposition of private quantum channels into orthogonal unitaries (if exists) is optimizing the entropy. For non-ancillary single qubit PQC we have derived the optimal entropy for arbitrary set of plaintexts. In particular, we have shown that except when the (closure of the) set of plaintexts contains all states, one bit key is sufficient. We characterized and analyzed all the possible single qubit private quantum channels for arbitrary set of plaintexts. For the set of plaintexts consisting of all qubit states we have characterized all possible approximate private quantum channels and we have derived the relation between the security parameter and the corresponding minimal entropy.
We investigate decoherence induced by a quantum channel in terms of minimal output entropy and map entropy. The latter is the von Neumann entropy of the Jamiołkowski state of the channel. Both quantities admit q-Renyi versions. We prove additivity of the map entropy for all q. For the case q = 2, we show that the depolarizing channel has the smallest map entropy among all channels with a given minimal output Renyi entropy of order two. This allows us to characterize pairs of channels such that the output entropy of their tensor product acting on a maximally entangled input state is larger than the sum of the minimal output entropies of the individual channels. We conjecture that for any channel Φ1acting on a finite dimensional system, there exists a class of channels Φ2sufficiently close to a unitary map such that additivity of minimal output entropy for Ψ1⊗ Ψ2holds.