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arXiv:2607.15853

Maximal quantum leakage: operational interpretation and quantum channel analysis

Shuixin Xiao, Zijia Zhao, Jingge Zhu, Farhad Farokhi

quant-pheess.SYSubmitted Jul 17, 2026• Announced Jul 20, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Maximal quantum leakage quantifies privacy against adversaries with arbitrary intentions. In this work, we prove that computing this leakage is equivalent to minimum-error quantum state discrimination with equal priors. This establishes a computable operational interpretation, addressing the previous difficulty in computing maximal quantum leakage. We further analyze the impact of collective measurements on multiple copies of a state, demonstrating that leakage increases monotonically with the number of copies, which leads to explicitly characterizing the maximal leakage in the asymptotic limit. Extending this framework to quantum channels, we develop an iterative algorithm for the jointly designing of input states and measurements. Numerical examples involving collective measurements and the maximal channel leakage demonstrate our theoretical findings.

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6 Pages, 2 figures

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Maximal quantum leakage quantifies privacy against adversaries with arbitrary intentions. In this work, we prove that computing this leakage is equivalent to minimum-error quantum state discrimination with equal priors. This establishes a computable operational interpretation, addressing the previous difficulty in computing maximal quantum leakage. We further analyze the impact of collective measurements on multiple copies of a state, demonstrating that leakage increases monotonically with the number of copies, which leads to explicitly characterizing the maximal leakage in the asymptotic limit. Extending this framework to quantum channels, we develop an iterative algorithm for the jointly designing of input states and measurements. Numerical examples involving collective measurements and the maximal channel leakage demonstrate our theoretical findings.
An alternative measure of information leakage for quantum encoding of classical data is defined. An adversary can access a single copy of the state of a quantum system that encodes some classical data and is interested in correctly guessing a general randomized or deterministic function of the data (e.g., a specific feature or attribute of the data in quantum machine learning) that is unknown to the security analyst. The resulting measure of information leakage, referred to as maximal quantum leakage, is the multiplicative increase of the probability of correctly guessing any function of the classical data upon observing measurements of the quantum state. Maximal quantum leakage is shown to satisfy the postprocessing inequality (i.e., applying a quantum channel reduces information leakage) and independence property (i.e., leakage is zero if the quantum state is independent of the classical data), which are fundamental properties required for privacy and security analysis. It also bounds accessible information. Effects of global and local depolarizing noise models on the maximal quantum leakage are established.
Maximal quantum leakage (MQL) is a worst-case information leakage measure that quantifies an adversary's inference advantage gained from accessing quantum encoding of classical data with arbitrary measurements. While MQL admits an exact characterization for a given ensemble of quantum states, its robustness to implementation imperfections has not been systematically studied. In this paper, we analyze the sensitivity of maximal quantum leakage under perturbations of the quantum encoding. We establish a continuity bound in terms of the trace distance between ideal and perturbed quantum states, and show, via an example, that this bound is attainable. We further derive fidelity-based and relative-entropy-based sufficient conditions for bounding the variation of maximal quantum leakage, and illustrate numerically that these conditions can be loose.
Maximal α\alphaα - Leakage for Quantum Privacy Mechanisms and Operational Meaning of Measured Renyi Capacity
In this work, maximal a-leakage is introduced to quantify how much a quantum adversary can learn about any sensitive information of data upon observing its disturbed versionvia a quantum privacy mechanism. We first show that an adversary's maximal expected a-gain using optimal measurement is characterized by measured conditional Renyi entropy. This can be viewed as a parametric generalization of Konig et al.'s famous guessing probability formula [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 55(9), 2009]. Then, we prove that the a-leakage and maximalα\alphaα-leakage for a quantum privacy mechanism are determined by measured Arimoto information and measured Renyi capacity, respectively. Various properties of maximal a-leakage, such as data processing inequality and composition property are established as well. Moreover, we show that regularized a-leakage and regularized maximal a-leakage for identical and independent quantum privacy mechanisms coincide with a-tilted sandwiched Renyi information and sandwiched Renyi capacity, respectively. A full version of this paper is accessible at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.14450 [1].
In this work, maximal ααα-leakage is introduced to quantify how much a quantum adversary can learn about any sensitive information of data upon observing its disturbed version via a quantum privacy mechanism. We first show that an adversary's maximal expected ααα-gain using optimal measurement is characterized by measured conditional Rényi entropy. This can be viewed as a parametric generalization of König et al.'s famous guessing probability formula [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 55(9), 2009]. Then, we prove that the ααα-leakage and maximal ααα-leakage for a quantum privacy mechanism are determined by measured Arimoto information and measured Rényi capacity, respectively. Various properties of maximal ααα-leakage, such as data processing inequality and composition property are established as well. Moreover, we show that regularized ααα-leakage and regularized maximal ααα-leakage for identical and independent quantum privacy mechanisms coincide with ααα-tilted sandwiched Rényi information and sandwiched Rényi capacity, respectively.
This work investigates which sets of quantum states give rise to the highest achievable success probability in minimum-error state discrimination if multiple copies of the unknown state are given. Specifically, we consider uniformly distributed ensembles of the form {1N,ρi⊗k}i=1N\left\{\frac{1}{N},ρ_i^{\otimes k}\right\}_{i=1}^N{N1​,ρi⊗k​}i=1N​, where NNN states in dimension ddd are provided in kkk identical copies, and derive universal limits in this scenario. For pure state ensembles, we prove that whenever NNN is large enough to support a state kkk-design, these designs will exactly give rise to the maximally discriminable sets. We further show that when NNN exceeds the size required for a kkk-design, mixed states can outperform all pure state ensembles. We then recognise that the problem of most discriminable classical states in the multi-copy regime is in one-to-one correspondence to the concept of the multiplicative Bayes capacity of independent uses of classical channels, a concept that emerges naturally in the context of classical information leakage. This connection allows us to completely solve the classical analogue of our problem when N≥(d+k−1k)N\geq \binom{d + k - 1}{k}N≥(kd+k−1​), and to prove that quantum systems offer a quadratic advantage (in number of copies kkk) over classical ones. Then, we prove that this quantum over classical advantage is strongly reduced when one is restricted to real quantum states, more precisely, when N≥k+1N \geq k + 1N≥k+1, pure real qubits only offer a constant advantage over classical bits. Finally, we introduce computational techniques to find sets of most discriminable ensembles and to obtain rigorous universal upper bounds on the maximal success probability for multi-copy state discrimination in cases that are analytically intractable.
The operational characterization of quantum coherence is the cornerstone in the development of the resource theory of coherence. We introduce a new coherence quantifier based on maximum relative entropy. We prove that the maximum relative entropy of coherence is directly related to the maximum overlap with maximally coherent states under a particular class of operations, which provides an operational interpretation of the maximum relative entropy of coherence. Moreover, we show that, for any coherent state, there are examples of subchannel discrimination problems such that this coherent state allows for a higher probability of successfully discriminating subchannels than that of all incoherent states. This advantage of coherent states in subchannel discrimination can be exactly characterized by the maximum relative entropy of coherence. By introducing a suitable smooth maximum relative entropy of coherence, we prove that the smooth maximum relative entropy of coherence provides a lower bound of one-shot coherence cost, and the maximum relative entropy of coherence is equivalent to the relative entropy of coherence in the asymptotic limit. Similar to the maximum relative entropy of coherence, the minimum relative entropy of coherence has also been investigated. We show that the minimum relative entropy of coherence provides an upper bound of one-shot coherence distillation, and in the asymptotic limit the minimum relative entropy of coherence is equivalent to the relative entropy of coherence.