The additivity of minimum output entropies is a central problem in quantum information theory. Nonadditivity is known for every Rényi order
p>1, at the von Neumann point
p=1, and for sufficiently small positive
p, while much of the interval
0<p<1 has remained open. In this work, we prove that for every
p>0 there exist finite-dimensional quantum channels whose minimum output
p-Rényi entropies violate additivity. Our proof combines two constructions: random projection-induced channels yield nonadditivity for
p>3/4, and antisymmetric postprocessing extends the violation to all positive Rényi orders. Our estimates also improve the output-dimension bound obtained by Belinschi, Collins, and Nechita for additivity violation of minimum output von Neumann entropy.
We give an explicit non-random example of nonadditivity of minimum output von Neumann entropy. The proof uses a finite-dimensional construction which imitates free Haar unitary behavior. The same channel gives a violation of additivity for the minimum output Rényi-
p entropy for any
p∈[1,∞]. Additionally, given any
p0>0 and
g>0, we extend the construction to obtain an explicit non-random channel which has entropy gap
≥g uniformly over
p∈[p0,∞].
We present explicit quantum channels with strictly sub-additive minimum output Rényi entropy for all
p>1, improving upon prior constructions which handled
p>2. Our example is provided by explicit constructions of linear subspaces with high geometric measure of entanglement. This construction applies in both the bipartite and multipartite settings. As further applications, we use our construction to find entanglement witnesses with many highly negative eigenvalues, and to construct entangled mixed states that remain entangled after perturbation.
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.
We prove that minimum-output Rényi-entropy additivity can fail by almost one bit simultaneously at every nonnegative order. For every
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
log2−ε for all
p∈[0,∞]. The output dimension can be chosen to be
O(ε−3) as
ε↓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.
We reformulate the Rényi entanglement of purification as a constrained minimum output Rényi entropy problem. Equivalently, for
p>1, this formulation can be expressed in terms of a constrained maximal output Schatten
p-norm. More precisely, for a completely positive map
Ω:L(B′)→L(A), we consider the quantity
υp(Ω) defined by optimizing
∥(Ω⊗idE)(σB′E)∥p over all bipartite states
σB′E whose
B′-marginal is maximally mixed. We focus on the case
p=2. First, we compute
υ2 for the transpose-depolarizing channel and prove that it is multiplicative under tensor powers. We then establish a general multiplicativity criterion: whenever a completely positive map
N:L(B′)→L(A) satisfies
N†∘N=aidA+bTr[⋅]Id for some constants
a,b≥0, where
N† denotes the Hilbert-Schmidt adjoint of
N, the quantity
υ2(N) is multiplicative under tensor powers. Examples of channels satisfying this criterion include the transpose-depolarizing channel, the depolarizing channel, and their respective complementary channels. Furthermore, we show that, for every completely positive map
Ω, multiplicativity of
υp(Ω) implies multiplicativity for its complementary map. This yields the corresponding additivity statements for the associated Rényi-2 entanglement of purification.