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arXiv:2011.08749 · Physical Review A

Experimental lower bounds to the classical capacity of quantum channels

Mario Arnolfo Ciampini, Álvaro Cuevas, Paolo Mataloni, Chiara Macchiavello, Massimiliano Federico Sacchi

Published Jun 15, 2021• 3 citations
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Abstract

We show an experimental procedure to certify the classical capacity for noisy qubit channels. The method makes use of a fixed bipartite entangled state, where the system qubit is sent to the channel input and the set of local measurements, ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}, {\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}$, and ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{z}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{z}$, is performed at the channel output and the ancilla qubit, thus without resorting to full quantum process tomography. The witness to the classical capacity is then achieved by reconstructing sets of conditional probabilities, noise deconvolution, and classical optimization of the pertaining mutual information. The performance of the method to provide lower bounds to the classical capacity is tested by a two-photon polarization entangled state in Pauli channels and amplitude damping channels. The measured lower bounds to the channels are in high agreement with the simulated data, which take into account both the experimental entanglement fidelity $F=0.979\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.011$ of the input state and the systematic experimental imperfections.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.103.062414

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We show an experimental procedure to certify the classical capacity for noisy qubit channels. The method makes use of a fixed bipartite entangled state, where the system qubit is sent to the channel input and the set of local measurements, \ensuremathσx\ensuremath⨂\ensuremathσx,\ensuremathσy\ensuremath⨂\ensuremathσy{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}, {\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}\ensuremathσx​\ensuremath⨂\ensuremathσx​,\ensuremathσy​\ensuremath⨂\ensuremathσy​, and \ensuremathσz\ensuremath⨂\ensuremathσz{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{z}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{z}\ensuremathσz​\ensuremath⨂\ensuremathσz​, is performed at the channel output and the ancilla qubit, thus without resorting to full quantum process tomography. The witness to the classical capacity is then achieved by reconstructing sets of conditional probabilities, noise deconvolution, and classical optimization of the pertaining mutual information. The performance of the method to provide lower bounds to the classical capacity is tested by a two-photon polarization entangled state in Pauli channels and amplitude damping channels. The measured lower bounds to the channels are in high agreement with the simulated data, which take into account both the experimental entanglement fidelity F=0.979\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi0.011F=0.979\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.011F=0.979\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi0.011 of the input state and the systematic experimental imperfections.
We present an efficient experimental procedure that certifies nonvanishing quantum capacities for qubit noisy channels. Our method is based on the use of a fixed bipartite entangled state, where the system qubit is sent to the channel input. A particular set of local measurements is performed at the channel output and the ancilla qubit mode, obtaining lower bounds to the quantum capacities for any unknown channel with no need of quantum process tomography. The entangled qubits have a Bell state configuration and are encoded in photon polarization. The lower bounds are found by estimating the Shannon and von Neumann entropies at the output using an optimized basis, whose statistics is obtained by measuring only the three observables ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}$, ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}$, and ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{z}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{z}$.
Determining a noisy quantum channel's classical capacity and entanglement cost generally requires regularization over many channel uses. We remove both regularizations for every qubit-to-qubit channel admitting a pure output. For each such channel, Holevo information, channel entanglement of formation, and parallel entanglement cost are additive with those of any finite-dimensional partner channel. This class includes all qubit-to-qubit channels of Kraus rank at most two. For the amplitude damping channel with damping probability ppp, the unassisted classical capacity equals the known single-use Holevo information, attained by a binary pure-state ensemble with collective decoding, and the entanglement cost is h2((1+p)/2)h_2((1+\sqrt p)/2)h2​((1+p​)/2) ebits per use. The common mechanism is a support criterion for strong superadditivity of entanglement of formation: one marginal has no support on the sector in which both local systems are orthogonal to fixed distinguished vectors. We prove this criterion in arbitrary finite dimensions using a triangular block-matrix entropy inequality and decompositions preserving two expectations. For amplitude damping, we also derive an exact finite-block Holevo deficit, identify the unique optimal average input for p<1p<1p<1, and construct a binary Kraus representation attaining the uniform formation bound.
We propose a framework to variationally obtain detectable capacity bounds for quantum channels. The proposal of this framework is motivated by the difficulty of estimating the von Neumann entropy of an unknown quantum state. Instead of estimating the von Neumann entropy at the channel output, we propose to estimate the state purity---which can be measured by a single measurement setting---followed by bounding the von Neumann entropy from above and below. This procedure leads to new upper and lower bounds on various communication rates of quantum channels for some fixed input states. Then, by utilizing the variational method to find optimal input states we obtain lower bounds on (i) the quantum capacity of arbitrary channels, (ii) the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of arbitrary channels, and (iii) the classical capacity of covariant channels. Corresponding to these lower bounds, we also obtain upper bounds on (i) NNN-shot coherent information, (ii) the entanglement-assisted classical capacity, and (iii) the NNN-shot Holevo capacity of arbitrary quantum channels. All these bounds can be estimated by a single measurement setting without needing a full process tomography or any further a priori knowledge, e.g., preferred basis of the channel.