We investigate practical finite-blocklength classical–quantum channel coding over the quantum amplitude damping channel (ADC), aiming to transmit classical information reliably through quantum outputs. Our findings indicate that for any finite blocklength, a naive (uncoded) approach fails to offer any advantage over the ADC. Instead, sophisticated encoding strategies that leverage both classical error-correcting codes and quantum input states are crucial for realizing quantum performance gains at finite blocklengths.
We investigate practical finite-blocklength classical–quantum channel coding over the quantum amplitude damping channel (ADC), aiming to transmit classical information reliably through quantum outputs. Our findings indicate that for any finite blocklength, a naive (uncoded) approach fails to offer any advantage over the ADC. Instead, sophisticated encoding strategies that leverage both classical error-correcting codes and quantum input states are crucial for realizing quantum performance gains at finite blocklengths.
Quantum dense coding enables the transmission of two classical bits of information through the exchange of a single qubit, provided that an entangled state is shared between the communicating parties. While this protocol achieves a fundamental increase in channel capacity, its practical realization is strongly influenced by the presence of noise in realistic quantum channels. This work presents a simulation-based study of dense coding performance under two representative noise models: the depolarizing channel and the amplitude damping channel. Using Qiskit Aer, the bit error rate (BER), frame error rate (FER), and effective channel capacity are evaluated across a range of noise parameters. In addition, a classical threefold repetition strategy is examined as a lightweight error-mitigation technique. Results indicate that depolarizing noise produces more rapid degradation in both BER and channel capacity compared to amplitude damping, while repetition coding provides partial improvement in reliability at the expense of resource overhead. These findings highlight the trade-offs between efficiency and robustness in noisy implementations of dense coding and motivate further exploration of more advanced quantum error correction methods.
We investigate converse bounds on the average decoding error probability in finite-blocklength classical-quantum channel coding. We first present a lower bound for multiple quantum hypothesis testing in terms of pairwise trace distances and derive a corresponding fidelity bound. We then obtain a spectrum-based converse that depends only on the a priori probabilities and spectra of the states. We show that the converse bound remains tight for the quantum depolarizing channel under suitable conditions. For codes with product-state outputs, this converse takes an explicit form involving products of output-state eigenvalues. We apply it to binary codes over the quantum amplitude damping channel using the input states ∣+⟩ and ∣−⟩. For this setting, we also discuss a normal approximation to the spectrum-based converse in the large blocklength regime. In all numerical examples considered, the spectrum-based converse is tighter than the other converse bounds at low noise levels.
Abstract We introduce an escort-qubit–assisted protocol that restores and stabilizes superdense coding capacity in the presence of amplitude damping channel (ADC) noise. The protocol is analyzed under three fundamental noisy configurations: amplitude damping acting on Alice’s subsystem, on Bob’s subsystem, and on both subsystems covering all practically relevant scenarios. In the absence of protection, we show that ADC effects cause a monotonic degradation of the superdense coding capacity, driving it below the classical limit in the strong decoherence regime and completely erasing the quantum advantage. Our escort-qubit protocol overcomes this limitation by coherently tracking the channel-induced Kraus trajectories during entanglement distribution. Post-selection of the no-flip trajectory, projects the shared state onto a maximally entangled resource state, thereby recovering the optimal superdense coding capacity of two classical bits, independent of the noise strength and noisy configuration. Importantly, when all ADC trajectories are taken into account, the resulting average capacity although inherently suboptimal remains strictly above both the classical limit and the unprotected capacity across the entire decoherence range. These results establish the escort-qubit protocol as a powerful, scalable, and experimentally viable approach for preserving quantum advantage and enhancing information throughput in noisy quantum communication networks.
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.
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 p, 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) 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<1, and construct a binary Kraus representation attaining the uniform formation bound.
Quantum error correction codes (QECCs) play a central role in both quantum communications and quantum computation. Practical quantum error correction codes, such as stabilizer codes, are generally structured to suit a specific use, and present rigid code lengths and code rates. This paper shows that it is possible to both construct and decode QECCs that can attain the maximum performance of the finite blocklength regime, for any chosen code length when the code rate is sufficiently high. A recently proposed strategy for decoding classical codes called GRAND (guessing random additive noise decoding) opened doors to efficiently decode classical random linear codes (RLCs) performing near the maximum rate of the finite blocklength regime. By using noise statistics, GRAND is a noise-centric efficient universal decoder for classical codes, provided that a simple code membership test exists. These conditions are particularly suitable for quantum systems, and therefore the paper extends these concepts to quantum random linear codes (QRLCs), which were known to be possible to construct but whose decoding was not yet feasible. By combining QRLCs and a newly proposed quantum-GRAND, this work shows it is possible to decode QECCs that are easy to adapt to changing conditions. The paper starts by assessing the minimum number of gates in the coding circuit needed to reach the QRLCs’ asymptotic performance, and subsequently proposes a quantum-GRAND algorithm that makes use of quantum noise statistics, not only to build an adaptive code membership test, but also to efficiently implement syndrome decoding.