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arXiv:2301.10132 · Physical Review A

Superadditivity effects of quantum capacity decrease with the dimension for qudit depolarizing channels

Josu Etxezarreta Martínez, Antonio deMarti iOlius, Pedro M. Crespo

Published Sep 12, 2023• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum channel capacity is a fundamental quantity in order to understand how well quantum information can be transmitted or corrected when subjected to noise. However, it is generally not known how to compute such quantities since the quantum channel coherent information is not additive for all channels, implying that it must be maximized over an unbounded number of channel uses. This leads to the phenomenon known as superadditivity, which refers to the fact that the regularized coherent information of $n$ channel uses exceeds one-shot coherent information. In this article, we study how the gain in quantum capacity of qudit depolarizing channels relates to the dimension of the considered systems. We make use of an argument based on the no-cloning bound in order to prove that the possible superadditive effects decrease as a function of the dimension for such family of channels. In addition, we prove that the capacity of the qudit depolarizing channel coincides with the coherent information when $d\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$. We also discuss the private classical capacity and obtain similar results. We conclude that when high-dimensional qudits experiencing depolarizing noise are considered, the coherent information of the channel is not only an achievable rate, but essentially the maximum possible rate for any quantum block code.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.108.032602

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Quantum channel capacity is a fundamental quantity in order to understand how well quantum information can be transmitted or corrected when subjected to noise. However, it is generally not known how to compute such quantities since the quantum channel coherent information is not additive for all channels, implying that it must be maximized over an unbounded number of channel uses. This leads to the phenomenon known as superadditivity, which refers to the fact that the regularized coherent information of nnn channel uses exceeds one-shot coherent information. In this article, we study how the gain in quantum capacity of qudit depolarizing channels relates to the dimension of the considered systems. We make use of an argument based on the no-cloning bound in order to prove that the possible superadditive effects decrease as a function of the dimension for such family of channels. In addition, we prove that the capacity of the qudit depolarizing channel coincides with the coherent information when d\ensuremath→\ensuremath∞d\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}d\ensuremath→\ensuremath∞. We also discuss the private classical capacity and obtain similar results. We conclude that when high-dimensional qudits experiencing depolarizing noise are considered, the coherent information of the channel is not only an achievable rate, but essentially the maximum possible rate for any quantum block code.
The quantum capacity of a quantum channel is always smaller than the capacity of the channel for private communication. Both quantities are given by the infinite regularization of the coherent and the private information, respectively, which makes their evaluation very difficult. Here, we construct a family of channels for which the private and coherent information can remain strictly superadditive for unbounded number of uses, thus demonstrating that the regularization is necessary. We prove this by showing that the coherent information is strictly larger than the private information of a smaller number of uses of the channel. This implies that even though the quantum capacity is upper bounded by the private capacity, the nonregularized quantities can be interleaved.
Quantum capacity quantifies the amount of quantum information that can be transmitted by a quantum channel with an arbitrary small probability of error. Mathematically, the quantum capacity is given by an asymptotic formula involving the one-shot quantum capacity of the associated channel, which, due to purely quantum effects such as superadditivity of one-shot quantum capacity, is rarely computable. The one-shot quantum capacity is mathematically characterized in terms of optimizing an entropic quantity referred to as coherent information over all possible input states of a channel, the computation of which also tends to be intractable due to the difficulty of optimizing the coherent information. In this work, we develop perturbative methods for analyzing the behavior of coherent information of a quantum channel with respect to small perturbations of the input state. By doing so, we are able to derive three general criteria for determining whether an input state yields suboptimal coherent information. We then show how our criteria yield sufficient conditions for superadditivity of one-shot quantum capacity, and also for detecting a positive gap between one-shot private capacity and one-shot quantum capacity. The utility of our criteria is illustrated through examples, which yield new results regarding the one-shot quantum capacity of qubit depolarizing channels, Pauli channels and dephrasure channels.
The maximum rate at which classical information can be reliably transmitted per use of a quantum channel strictly increases in general with N , the number of channel outputs that are detected jointly by the quantum joint-detection receiver (JDR). This phenomenon is known as superadditivity of the maximum achievable information rate over a quantum channel. We study this phenomenon for a pure-state classical-quantum channel and provide a lower bound on C[subscript N]/N, the maximum information rate when the JDR is restricted to making joint measurements over no more than N quantum channel outputs, while allowing arbitrary classical error correction. We also show the appearance of a superadditivity phenomenon-of mathematical resemblance to the aforesaid problem-in the channel capacity of a classical discrete memoryless channel when a concatenated coding scheme is employed, and the inner decoder is forced to make hard decisions on N-length inner codewords. Using this correspondence, we develop a unifying framework for the above two notions of superadditivity, and show that for our lower bound to C[subscript N]/N to be equal to a given fraction of the asymptotic capacity C of the respective channel, N must be proportional to V/C², where V is the respective channel dispersion quantity.
The quantum capacity of a quantum channel is always smaller than the capacity of the channel for private communication. However, both quantities are given by the infinite regularization of respectively the coherent and the private information. Here, we construct a family of channels for which the private and coherent information can remain strictly superadditive for unbounded number of uses. We prove this by showing that the coherent information is strictly larger than the private information of a smaller number of uses of the channel. It turns out that even though the quantum capacity is upper bounded by the private capacity, the non-regularized quantities can be interleaved. From an operational point of view, the private capacity can be used for gauging the practical value of quantum channels for secure communication and, consequently, for key distribution. We thus show that in order to evaluate the interest a channel for this task it is necessary to optimize the private information over an unlimited number of uses of the channel.
The maximum rate at which classical information can be reliably transmitted per use of a quantum channel strictly increases in general with N , the number of channel outputs that are detected jointly by the quantum joint-detection receiver (JDR). This phenomenon is known as superadditivity of the maximum achievable information rate over a quantum channel. We study this phenomenon for a pure-state classical-quantum channel and provide a lower bound on CN/N, the maximum information rate when the JDR is restricted to making joint measurements over no more than N quantum channel outputs, while allowing arbitrary classical error correction. We also show the appearance of a superadditivity phenomenon-of mathematical resemblance to the aforesaid problem-in the channel capacity of a classical discrete memoryless channel when a concatenated coding scheme is employed, and the inner decoder is forced to make hard decisions on N -length inner codewords. Using this correspondence, we develop a unifying framework for the above two notions of superadditivity, and show that for our lower bound to CN/N to be equal to a given fraction of the asymptotic capacity C of the respective channel, N must be proportional to V/C2, where V is the respective channel dispersion quantity.
We determine both the quantum and the private capacities of low-noise quantum channels to leading orders in the channel's distance to the perfect channel. It has been an open problem for more than 20 yr to determine the capacities of some of these low-noise channels such as the depolarizing channel. We also show that both capacities are equal to the single-letter coherent information of the channel, again to leading orders. We thus find that, in the low-noise regime, superadditivity and degenerate codes have a negligible benefit for the quantum capacity, and shielding does not improve the private capacity beyond the quantum capacity, in stark contrast to the situation when noisier channels are considered.