We study the effects of quantum entanglement on the performance of two classical zero-error communication tasks among multiple parties. Both tasks are generalizations of the two-party zero-error channel-coding problem, where a sender and a receiver want to perfectly communicate messages through a one-way classical noisy channel. If the two parties are allowed to share entanglement, there are several positive results that show the existence of channels for which they can communicate strictly more than what they could do with classical resources. In the first task, one sender wants to communicate a common message to multiple receivers. We show that if the number of receivers is greater than a certain threshold then entanglement does not allow for an improvement in the communication for any finite number of uses of the channel. On the other hand, when the number of receivers is fixed, we exhibit a class of channels for which entanglement gives an advantage. The second problem we consider features multiple collaborating senders and one receiver. Classically, cooperation among the senders might allow them to communicate on average more messages than the sum of their individual possibilities. We show that whenever a channel allows single-sender entanglement-assisted advantage, then the gain extends also to the multisender case. Furthermore, we show that entanglement allows for a peculiar amplification of information which cannot happen classically, for a fixed number of uses of the channels.
The zero-error classical capacity of a quantum channel is the asymptotic rate at which it can be used to send classical bits perfectly, so that they can be decoded with zero probability of error. The study of zero-error capacities dates right back to Shannon and the early days of information theory. We show that there exist pairs of quantum channels, neither of which individually have any zero-error capacity whatsoever (even if arbitrarily many uses of the channels are available), but such that access to even a single copy of both channels allows classical information to be sent perfectly reliably. In other words, we prove that the zero-error classical capacity can be superactivated. This result is the first example of superactivation of a classical capacity of a quantum channel. We further strengthen this result to show that there exist pairs of channels, neither of which have any zero-error classical capacity (as before), yet for which access to one copy of the joint channel even allows far more delicate quantum information to be transmitted perfectly. This subsumes the first result, and also implies that the quantum zero-error capacity can be superactivated. But it is strictly stronger than either of these. Indeed, this is the strongest conceivable form of superactivation, and nothing similar is possible for standard Shannon capacities of quantum channels or for zero-error capacities of classical channels.
We study various super-activation effects in the following zero-error communication scenario: One sender wants to send classical or quantum information through a noisy quantum channel to one receiver with zero probability of error. First we show that there are quantum channels of which a single use is not able to transmit classical information perfectly yet two uses can. This is achieved by employing entangled input states between different uses of the given channel and thus cannot happen for classical channels. Second we exhibit a class of quantum channel with vanishing zero-error classical capacity such that when a noiseless qubit channel or one ebit shared entanglement are available, it can be used to transmit
log2d noiseless qubits, where 2d is the dimension of input state space. Third we further construct quantum channels with vanishing zero-error classical capacity when assisted with classical feedback can be used to transmit both classical and quantum information perfectly. These striking findings not only indicate both the zero-error quantum and classical capacities of quantum channels satisfy a strong super-additivity beyond any classical channels, but also highlight the activation power of auxiliary physical resources in zero-error communication.
We describe two quantum channels that individually cannot send any classical information without some chance of decoding error. But together a single use of each channel can send quantum information perfectly reliably. This proves that the zero-error classical capacity exhibits superactivation, the extreme form of the superadditivity phenomenon in which entangled inputs allow communication over zero-capacity channels. But our result is stronger still, as it even allows zero-error quantum communication when the two channels are combined. Thus our result shows a new remarkable way in which entanglement across two systems can be used to resist noise, in this case perfectly. We also show a new form of superactivation by entanglement shared between sender and receiver.
Given one or more uses of a classical channel, only a certain number of messages can be transmitted with zero probability of error. The study of this number and its asymptotic behavior constitutes the field of classical zero-error information theory. We show that, given a single use of certain classical channels, entangled states of a system shared by the sender and receiver can be used to increase the number of (classical) messages which can be sent without error. In particular, we show how to construct such a channel based on any proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem. We investigate the connection to pseudotelepathy games. The use of generalized nonsignaling correlations to assist in this task is also considered. In this case, an elegant theory results and, remarkably, it is sometimes possible to transmit information with zero error using a channel with no unassisted zero-error capacity.
We introduce conclusive identification task for classical channels: a receiver identifies transmitted inputs without error when possible, and responds inconclusively when outputs are ambiguous. For a symmetric not-fully-corrupted channel
N:X→X, the single-shot conclusive identification index
ci∘(N) counts the maximum number of conclusively identifiable inputs. We show
ci∘(N) exhibits a striking superactivation phenomenon: a channel with
ci∘(N)=0 achieves
ci∘(N⊗idβc)=∣X∣ when assisted by a perfect classical channel of dimension
β<∣X∣. The minimum classical assistance required equals the chromatic number
χ(SN) of the channel's support graph
SN. We provide channel families where the superactivation gap
ci∘(N⊗idβc)−ci∘(idβc) can be made arbitrarily large. A noiseless quantum channel of dimension equal to the orthogonal rank
ξ(SN) suffices, yielding a strict quantum advantage whenever
ξ(SN)<χ(SN). This advantage is demonstrated through three explicit constructions motivated by combinatorial and algebraic state-independent, and state-dependent proofs of Kochen-Specker contextuality. Via the co-normal product of graphs, we analyze the scaling of the quantum advantage ratio
χf(SN)/ξ(SN), and present a channel for which quantum assistance is exponentially more efficient than classical. Our results establish
SN, rather than the confusability graph
GN, as the natural combinatorial object for conclusive identification, revealing that channels deemed useless under Shannon's zero-error framework can exhibit rich superactivation and quantum advantage, with deep connections to quantum contextuality.