We consider a quantum bosonic channel that couples the input mode via a beam splitter or two-mode squeezer to an environmental mode that is prepared in an arbitrary state. We investigate the classical capacity of this channel, which we call a non-Gaussian attenuator or amplifier channel. If the environment state is thermal, we of course recover a Gaussian phase-covariant channel whose classical capacity is well known. Otherwise, we derive both a lower and an upper bound to the classical capacity of the channel, drawing inspiration from the classical treatment of the capacity of non-Gaussian additive-noise channels. We show that the lower bound to the capacity is always achievable and give examples where the non-Gaussianity of the channel can be exploited so that the communication rate beats the capacity of the Gaussian-equivalent channel (i.e. the channel where the environment state is replaced by a Gaussian state with the same covariance matrix). Finally, our upper bound leads us to formulate and investigate conjectures on the input state that minimizes the output entropy of non-Gaussian attenuator or amplifier channels. Solving these conjectures would be a main step toward accessing the capacity of a large class of non-Gaussian bosonic channels.
We consider a quantum bosonic channel that couples the input mode via a beam splitter or two-mode squeezer to an environmental mode that is prepared in an arbitrary state. We investigate the classical capacity of this channel, which we call a non-Gaussian attenuator or amplifier channel. If the environment state is thermal, we of course recover a Gaussian phase-covariant channel whose classical capacity is well known. Otherwise, we derive both a lower and an upper bound to the classical capacity of the channel, drawing inspiration from the classical treatment of the capacity of non-Gaussian additive-noise channels. We show that the lower bound to the capacity is always achievable and give examples where the non-Gaussianity of the channel can be exploited so that the communication rate beats the capacity of the Gaussian-equivalent channel (i.e. the channel where the environment state is replaced by a Gaussian state with the same covariance matrix). Finally, our upper bound leads us to formulate and investigate conjectures on the input state that minimizes the output entropy of non-Gaussian attenuator or amplifier channels. Solving these conjectures would be a main step toward accessing the capacity of a large class of non-Gaussian bosonic channels.
There have been several upper bounds on the quantum capacity of the single-mode Gaussian channels with thermal noise, such as thermal attenuator and amplifier. We consider a class of attenuator and amplifier with more general noises, including squeezing or even non-Gaussian cases. We introduce new upper bounds on the energy-constrained quantum capacity of those channels by using the conditional quantum entropy power inequality. Also, we obtain lower bounds for the same channels by means of Gaussian optimizer with fixed input entropy. They give narrow bounds when the transmissivity is near unity and the energy of input state is low.
There have been several upper bounds on the quantum capacity of the single-mode Gaussian channels with thermal noise, such as thermal attenuator and amplifier. We consider a class of attenuator and amplifier with more general noises, including squeezing or even non-Gaussian noises. We derive upper bounds the energy-constrained quantum capacity of those channels by using the quantum conditional entropy power inequality. Also, we obtain lower bounds for the same channels by means of Gaussian optimizer with fixed input entropy. They give narrow bounds when the transmissivity is near unity and the energy of input state is low.
The quantum capacity of the bosonic thermal attenuator, which is given by the regularization of its coherent information, is unknown. The seminal work of Holevo and Werner established in 1999 the standard one-use lower bound obtained from input thermal states. We first prove that this long-standing lower bound is the exact supremum over all single-mode Gaussian states and then show that, crucially, a non-Gaussian state can do better. As a consequence, we prove positivity of the quantum capacity in a parameter region where the channel is not antidegradable, yet its coherent information optimized over single-mode Gaussian states vanishes. For example, with one thermal photon in the environment and at transmissivity
η=0.8, the coherent information is non-positive for every single-mode Gaussian input. We give an explicit rank-two non-Gaussian state, supported on only six Fock levels, whose coherent information is certified to be at least
4.7×10−4 qubits per channel use. This short witness is far from numerically optimal: a numerical optimization over fixed non-Gaussian families reaches at least
8.4×10−3 qubits per channel use at the same point. More generally, at
ν=1, using non-Gaussian inputs we certify positivity of the coherent information, and therefore of the quantum capacity, down to
η=0.7841; by contrast, the channel is antidegradable, and hence has zero quantum capacity, for
η≤0.75. Overall, our work identifies new high-noise regimes in which bosonic quantum communication is possible.
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.
We prove that quantum thermal Gaussian input states minimize the output entropy of the multi-mode quantum Gaussian attenuators and amplifiers that are entanglement breaking and of the multi-mode quantum Gaussian phase contravariant channels among all the input states with an given entropy. This is the first time that this property is proven for a multi-mode channel without restrictions on the input states. A striking consequence of this result is a new lower bound on the output entropy of all the multi-mode quantum Gaussian attenuators and amplifiers in terms of the input entropy. We apply this bound to determine new upper bounds to the communication rates in two different scenarios. The first is classical communication to two receivers with the quantum degraded Gaussian broadcast channel. The second is the simultaneous classical communication, quantum communication and entanglement generation or the simultaneous public classical communication, private classical communication, and quantum key distribution with the Gaussian quantum-limited attenuator.