We prove that the classical capacity of an arbitrary quantum channel assisted by a free classical feedback channel is bounded from above by the maximum average output entropy of the quantum channel. As a consequence of this bound, we conclude that a classical feedback channel does not improve the classical capacity of a quantum erasure channel, and by taking into account energy constraints, we conclude the same for a pure-loss bosonic channel. The method for establishing the aforementioned entropy bound involves identifying an information measure having two key properties: 1) it does not increase under a one-way local operations and classical communication channel from the receiver to the sender and 2) a quantum channel from sender to receiver cannot increase the information measure by more than the maximum output entropy of the channel. This information measure can be understood as the sum of two terms, with one corresponding to classical correlation and the other to entanglement.
We prove that the classical capacity of an arbitrary quantum channel assisted by a free classical feedback channel is bounded from above by the maximum average output entropy of the quantum channel. As a consequence of this bound, we conclude that a classical feedback channel does not improve the classical capacity of a quantum erasure channel, and by taking into account energy constraints, we conclude the same for a pure-loss bosonic channel. The method for establishing the aforementioned entropy bound involves identifying an information measure having two key properties: 1) it does not increase under a one-way local operations and classical communication channel from the receiver to the sender and 2) a quantum channel from sender to receiver cannot increase the information measure by more than the maximum output entropy of the channel. This information measure can be understood as the sum of two terms, with one corresponding to classical correlation and the other to entanglement.
Quantum entanglement can be used in a communication scheme to establish a correlation between successive channel inputs that is impossible by classical means. It is known that the classical capacity of quantum channels can be enhanced by such entangled encoding schemes, but this is not always the case. In this paper, we prove that a strong converse theorem holds for the classical capacity of an entanglement-breaking channel even when it is assisted by a classical feedback link from the receiver to the transmitter. In doing so, we identify a bound on the strong converse exponent, which determines the exponentially decaying rate at which the success probability tends to zero, for a sequence of codes with communication rate exceeding capacity. Proving a strong converse, along with an achievability theorem, shows that the classical capacity is a sharp boundary between reliable and unreliable communication regimes. One of the main tools in our proof is the sandwiched Rényi relative entropy. The same method of proof is used to derive an exponential bound on the success probability when communicating over an arbitrary quantum channel assisted by classical feedback, provided that the transmitter does not use entangled encoding schemes.
We determine the optimal success probability for transmitting a fixed number of classical messages through a finite number of uses of the quantum erasure channel, assisted by noiseless classical feedback and without initial shared entanglement. For an input dimension d, an erasure probability p, a blocklength n, and M equiprobable messages, the optimal success probability is equal to E[min{1,dK/M}], where K is binomial with parameters n and 1−p. The converse allows arbitrary adaptive quantum encoders, quantum memories, and receiver instruments. Its main ingredient is an elementary dimension bound for noiseless quantum communication with classical feedback, proved by fixing the classical controls without conditioning the sender's state on the observed transcript. A classical protocol that transmits the base-d digits of an integer representing the message, repeating each digit until the receiver acknowledges its reception or the prescribed blocklength is reached, attains the bound for every integer M. We also establish a relative-majorization property of erasure-channel outputs and exactly evaluate a hypothesis-testing converse, recovering the same numerical bound without feedback. That converse need not be achievable without feedback: four uses of the qubit erasure channel and four messages give a strict gap. A product-state code employing tetrahedral qubit states nevertheless outperforms every classical binary erasure code with these parameters. We give an explicit message-size formula and show that the bounded-remainder normal approximation and the average-success strong-converse exponent are unchanged without feedback. We also determine the feedback-assisted error exponent below capacity, prove that it agrees with the no-feedback exponent above a critical rate, and give no-feedback bounds at lower rates.
Current advancements in communication equipment demand the investigation of classical information transfer over quantum channels, by encompassing realistic scenarios in finite dimensions. To address this issue, we develop a framework for analyzing classical capacities of quantum channels where the set of states used for encoding information is restricted based on various physical properties. Specifically, we provide expressions for the classical capacities of noiseless and noisy quantum channels when the average energy of the encoded ensemble or the energy of each of the constituent states in the ensemble is bounded. In the case of qubit energy-preserving dephasing channels, we demonstrate that a nonuniform probability distribution based on the energy constraint maximizes capacity, while we derive the compact form of the capacity for equiprobable messages. We suggest an energy-constrained dense coding (DC) protocol that we prove to be optimal in the two-qubit situation and obtain a closed-form expression for the DC capacity. Additionally, we demonstrate a no-go result, which states that when the dimension of the sender and the receiver is two, no energy-preserving operation can offer any quantum advantage for energy-constrained entanglement-assisted capacity. We exhibit that, in the energy-constrained situation, classical-quantum noisy channels can show improved capabilities under entanglement assistance, a phenomenon that is unattainable in the unrestricted scenario.
In order to efficiently put quantum technologies into action, we must know the characteristics of the underlying quantum systems and effects. An interesting example is the use of the secret-key-agreement capacity of a quantum channel as a guide and measure for the implementation of quantum key distribution (QKD) and distributed quantum computation. We define the communication task of establishing a secret key over a quantum channel subject to an energy constraint on the input state and while allowing for unlimited local operations and classical communication (LOCC) between a sender and receiver. We then use the energy-constrained squashed entanglement to bound the capacity of the channel for secret-key agreement, and we show that a thermal state input maximizes a relaxation of this bound for phase-insensitive, single-mode Gaussian channels. We also establish improved upper bounds on the energy-constrained secret-key-agreement capacity for a bosonic thermal channel that is not entanglement breaking. We then generalize our results to the multipartite setting and show that the energy-constrained multipartite squashed entanglement bounds the LOCC-assisted private capacity region for a quantum broadcast channel. Next, we define the broadcast amplitude damping channel. In the setting of QKD, we discuss a communication task using the broadcast amplitude damping channel and give bounds on its achievable rate region.
The classical capacity of a noisy optical channel is the maximum rate at which information can be transmitted reliably, given a constraint on the mean input energy. For the ubiquitous bosonic Gaussian channels, which include standard models of loss and noise in fibre and free-space optical links, determining this rate requires addressing whether entanglement between channel uses or non-Gaussian signals can outperform Gaussian encodings. More precisely, the question is whether the energy-constrained Holevo information is additive across arbitrarily many channel uses and coincides with its Gaussian counterpart. We answer these fundamental questions in the affirmative for every single-mode bosonic Gaussian channel at every input energy. Namely, we prove that independently prepared Gaussian states with Gaussian-distributed random displacements achieve the capacity, including in the low-energy regime where squeezing the signals competes with encoding information in their displacement. Our proof connects an entanglement inequality to a sharp, additive lower bound on output entropy. We then characterise communication above capacity: under a strict total photon-number cutoff, the probability of correct decoding decreases exponentially with the number of channel uses, and we derive explicit bounds on the decay exponent. When only the mean photon number is constrained, a simple energy-rescaling formula determines exactly the entire asymptotic rate--error trade-off: the capacity at mean photon number N and allowed average decoding error ε equals the vanishing-error capacity at mean photon number N/(1−ε). Together, these results identify the ultimate limits of classical communication for some of the most fundamental models of optical communication.
With the rapid growth of quantum technologies, knowing the fundamental characteristics of quantum systems and protocols is essential for their effective implementation. A particular communication setting that has received increased focus is related to quantum key distribution and distributed quantum computation. In this setting, a quantum channel connects a sender to a receiver, and their goal is to distill either a secret key or entanglement, along with the help of arbitrary local operations and classical communication (LOCC). In this work, we establish a general theory of energy-constrained, LOCC-assisted private and quantum capacities of quantum channels, which are the maximum rates at which an LOCC-assisted quantum channel can reliably establish a secret key or entanglement, respectively, subject to an energy constraint on the channel input states. We prove that the energy-constrained squashed entanglement of a channel is an upper bound on these capacities. We also explicitly prove that a thermal state maximizes a relaxation of the squashed entanglement of all phase-insensitive, single-mode input bosonic Gaussian channels, generalizing results from prior work. After doing so, we prove that a variation of the method introduced by Goodenough et al. [New J. Phys. 18, 063005 (2016)] leads to improved upper bounds on the energy-constrained secret-key-agreement capacity of a bosonic thermal channel. We then consider a multipartite setting and prove that two known multipartite generalizations of the squashed entanglement are in fact equal. We finally show that the energy-constrained, multipartite squashed entanglement plays a role in bounding the energy-constrained LOCC-assisted private and quantum capacity regions of quantum broadcast channels.