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arXiv:1806.11042 · New Journal of Physics

All phase-space linear bosonic channels are approximately Gaussian dilatable

Ludovico Lami, Krishna Kumar Sabapathy, Andreas Winter

Published Oct 10, 2018• 19 citations

Abstract

We compare two sets of multimode quantum channels acting on a finite collection of harmonic oscillators: (a) the set of linear bosonic channels, whose action is described as a linear transformation at the phase space level; and (b) Gaussian dilatable channels, that admit a Stinespring dilation involving a Gaussian unitary. Our main result is that the set (a) coincides with the closure of (b) with respect to the strong operator topology. We also present an example of a channel in (a) which is not in (b), implying that taking the closure is in general necessary. This provides a complete resolution to the conjecture posed in Sabapathy and Winter (2017 Phys. Rev. A 95 062309). Our proof technique is constructive, and yields an explicit procedure to approximate a given linear bosonic channel by means of Gaussian dilations. It turns out that all linear bosonic channels can be approximated by a Gaussian dilation using an ancilla with the same number of modes as the system. We also provide an alternative dilation where the unitary is fixed in the approximating procedure. Our results apply to a wide range of physically relevant channels, including all Gaussian channels such as amplifiers, attenuators, phase conjugators, and also non-Gaussian channels such as additive noise channels and photon-added Gaussian channels. The method also provides a clear demarcation of the role of Gaussian and non-Gaussian resources in the context of linear bosonic channels. Finally, we also obtain independent proofs of classical results such as the quantum Bochner theorem, and develop some tools to deal with convergence of sequences of quantum channels on continuous variable systems that may be of independent interest.

DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/aae738

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We compare two sets of multimode quantum channels acting on a finite collection of harmonic oscillators: (a) the set of linear bosonic channels, whose action is described as a linear transformation at the phase space level; and (b) Gaussian dilatable channels, that admit a Stinespring dilation involving a Gaussian unitary. Our main result is that the set (a) coincides with the closure of (b) with respect to the strong operator topology. We also present an example of a channel in (a) which is not in (b), implying that taking the closure is in general necessary. This provides a complete resolution to the conjecture posed in Sabapathy and Winter (2017 Phys. Rev. A 95 062309). Our proof technique is constructive, and yields an explicit procedure to approximate a given linear bosonic channel by means of Gaussian dilations. It turns out that all linear bosonic channels can be approximated by a Gaussian dilation using an ancilla with the same number of modes as the system. We also provide an alternative dilation where the unitary is fixed in the approximating procedure. Our results apply to a wide range of physically relevant channels, including all Gaussian channels such as amplifiers, attenuators, phase conjugators, and also non-Gaussian channels such as additive noise channels and photon-added Gaussian channels. The method also provides a clear demarcation of the role of Gaussian and non-Gaussian resources in the context of linear bosonic channels. Finally, we also obtain independent proofs of classical results such as the quantum Bochner theorem, and develop some tools to deal with convergence of sequences of quantum channels on continuous variable systems that may be of independent interest.

A general quantum channel can be represented in terms of a unitary interaction between the information-carrying system and a noisy environment. In this paper the minimal number of quantum Gaussian environmental modes required to provide a unitary dilation of a multimode bosonic Gaussian channel is analyzed for both pure and mixed environments. We compute this quantity in the case of pure environment corresponding to the Stinespring representation and give an improved estimate in the case of mixed environment. The computations rely, on one hand, on the properties of the generalized Choi-Jamiolkowski state and, on the other hand, on an explicit construction of the minimal dilation for arbitrary bosonic Gaussian channel. These results introduce a new quantity reflecting ``noisiness'' of bosonic Gaussian channels and can be applied to address some issues concerning transmission of information in continuous variables systems.

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n \geq 1

. We derive its operator-sum representation which is indispensable in the present context. We observe that these channels are Fock-preserving (or coherence non-generating in the Fock basis). Further, noisy Gaussian channels can be expressed as a convex mixture of these non-Gaussian channels. We then report examples of activation of nonclassicality, using this method of photon-addition, at outputs of channels that would otherwise output only classical states. We also derive many structure theorems and information theoretic properties of these channels.

A complete analysis of multi-mode bosonic Gaussian channels is proposed. We clarify the structure of unitary dilations of general Gaussian channels involving any number of bosonic modes and present a normal form. The maximum number of auxiliary modes that is needed is identified, including all rank deficient cases, and the specific role of additive classical noise is highlighted. By using this analysis, we derive a canonical matrix form of the noisy evolution of n-mode bosonic Gaussian channels and of their weak complementary counterparts, based on a recent generalization of the normal mode decomposition for non-symmetric or locality constrained situations. It allows us to simplify the weak-degradability classification. Moreover, we investigate the structure of some singular multi-mode channels, like the additive classical noise channel that can be used to decompose a noisy channel in terms of a less noisy one in order to find new sets of maps with zero quantum capacity. Finally, the two-mode case is analyzed in detail. By exploiting the composition rules of

It is shown that a sequence {Φn} of quantum channels strongly converges to a quantum channel Φ0 if and only if there exist a common environment for all the channels and a corresponding sequence {Vn} of Stinespring isometries strongly converging to a Stinespring isometry V0 of the channel Φ0. A quantitative description of the above characterization of the strong convergence in terms of appropriate metrics on the sets of quantum channels and Stinespring isometries is given. As a result, the uniform selective continuity of the complementary operation with respect to the strong convergence is established. The discontinuity of the unitary dilation is shown by constructing a strongly converging sequence of quantum channels that cannot be represented as a reduction of a strongly converging sequence of unitary channels. The Stinespring representation of strongly converging sequences of quantum channels allows us to prove the lower semicontinuity of the entropic disturbance as a function of a pair (channel, input ensemble). Some corollaries of this property are considered.