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arXiv:2609.09373

Non-Multiplicativity of the Holevo Barycenter of Quantum Channels

Sayantan Chakraborty, Stefano Mancini, Leonardo Rossetti, Andreas Winter

quant-phcs.ITSubmitted Sep 8, 2026• Announced Sep 10, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

The Holevo barycenter of a quantum channel is the unique output state obtained as the average output of any ensemble achieving the Holevo capacity. Given two quantum channels, the multiplicativity problem asks whether this barycenter tensorizes under parallel composition, namely whether the barycenter of the product channel coincides with the tensor product of the individual barycenters. This question is closely related to the additivity problem for the Holevo capacity: additivity implies tensorization of the Holevo barycenter, while tensorization alone is not sufficient for additivity. Although a construction is known that demonstrates the existence of channels with non-additive Holevo capacity, their corresponding Holevo barycenters still tensorize, leaving open whether multiplicativity might ultimately hold universally. Here, we answer this question in the negative by exhibiting channels for which the Holevo barycenter is not multiplicative under the tensor product of the channel with itself. Moreover, we show that the entropy of the Holevo barycenter is neither universally subadditive nor universally superadditive under tensor product.

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The Holevo barycenter of a quantum channel is the unique output state obtained as the average output of any ensemble achieving the Holevo capacity. Given two quantum channels, the multiplicativity problem asks whether this barycenter tensorizes under parallel composition, namely whether the barycenter of the product channel coincides with the tensor product of the individual barycenters. This question is closely related to the additivity problem for the Holevo capacity: additivity implies tensorization of the Holevo barycenter, while tensorization alone is not sufficient for additivity. Although a construction is known that demonstrates the existence of channels with non-additive Holevo capacity, their corresponding Holevo barycenters still tensorize, leaving open whether multiplicativity might ultimately hold universally. Here, we answer this question in the negative by exhibiting channels for which the Holevo barycenter is not multiplicative under the tensor product of the channel with itself. Moreover, we show that the entropy of the Holevo barycenter is neither universally subadditive nor universally superadditive under tensor product.
We show that for the tensor product of an entanglement-breaking quantum channel with an arbitrary quantum channel, both the minimum entropy of an output of the channel and the Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland capacity are additive. In addition, for the tensor product of two arbitrary quantum channels, we give a bound involving entanglement of formation for the amount of subadditivity (for minimum entropy output) or superadditivity (for classical capacity) that can occur. One of the more important open questions of quantum information theory is the determination of the capacity of a quantum channel for carrying classical information. This question has been only partially resolved. If entanglement between multiple inputs to the channel is not allowed, a formula for the classical capacity of a quantum channel has indeed been discovered [1, 2]. This capacity formula for a quantum channel Ψ is χ ∗ (Ψ) = max p i,ρ i H Ψ(piρi) − ∑
For a given quantum channel we consider two optimal sets of states, related to the Holevo capacity and to the minimal output entropy of this channel. Some properties of these sets as well as the necessary and sufficient condition for their coincidence are obtained. The relations between additivity properties for two quantum channels and the structure of the optimal sets for tensor product of these channels are considered. It turns out that these additivity properties are connected with the special hereditary property of the optimal sets for tensor product channel. We explore the structural properties of these optimal sets under two different assumptions. The first assumption means that for tensor product of two channels with arbitrary constraints there exists optimal ensemble with the product state average. It turns out that exactly this assumption guarantees hereditary property of the both optimal sets for tensor product channel and provides some observations concerning the additivity problems. The second assumption means additivity of the Holevo capacity for two channels with arbitrary constraints. It turns out that exactly this assumption guarantees strong hereditary property of the both optimal sets for tensor product channel and provides the natural "projective" relations between these sets and the optimal sets for single channels.
Recently Shor proved equivalence of several open (sub)additivity problems related to the Holevo capacity and the entanglement of formation [15]. In our previous note [6] equivalence of these to the additivity of the Holevo capacity for channels with arbitrary linear constraints was shown. This note is the development of the previous one in the direction of channels with general constraints. Introducing input constraints provides greater flexibility in the treatment of the additivity conjecture. The Holevo capacity of arbitrarily constrained channel is considered and the characteristic property of an optimal ensemble for such channel is derived, generalizing the maximal distance property of Schumacher and Westmoreland (proposition 1). It is shown that the additivity conjecture for two channels with single linear constraints is equivalent to the similar conjecture for two arbitrarily constrained channels and, hence, to an interesting subadditivity property of the χχχ-function for the tensor product of these channels (theorem 1). We also propose an alternative way of proving that the additivity conjecture for any two unconstrained channels implies strong superadditivity of the entanglement of formation. The arguments from the convex analysis provide another characterization of channels for which subadditivity of the χχχ-function holds (theorem 3). This characterization and some modification of Shor's channel extension provide a simple way of proving that global additivity of the minimum output entropy for unconstrained channels implies global subadditivity of the χχχ-function and strong superadditivity of the entanglement of formation.
The notion of the Holevo capacity for arbitrarily constrained infinite dimensional quantum channels is introduced. It is shown that despite nonexistence of an optimal ensemble in this case it is possible to define the notion of the output optimal average state for such a channel. The characterization of the output optimal average state and a minimax expression for the Holevo capacity are obtained. This makes it possible to prove equivalence of several additivity properties for infinite dimensional quantum channels. The notion of the χ\chiχ-function for an infinite dimensional channel is considered, its strong concavity and lower semicontinuity are shown. The problem of continuity of the Holevo capacity is also discussed. It is shown that the Holevo capacity is continuous function of a channel in the finite dimensional case while in general it is only lower semicontinuous. This conclusion is confirmed by the example. The main result of this note is the statement that additivity of the Holevo capacity for all finite dimensional channels implies additivity of the Holevo capacity for all infinite dimensional channels with arbitrary constraints. The subadditivity of the χ\chiχ-function for two infinite dimensional channels with one of them noiseless or entanglement breaking is also proved.
A class of problems in quantum information theory, having an elementary formulation but still resisting solution, concerns the additivity properties of various quantities characterizing quantum channels, notably the “classical capacity”, and the “maximal output purity”. All known results, including extensive numerical work, are consistent with the conjecture that these quantities are indeed additive (resp. multiplicative) with respect to tensor products of channels. A proof of this conjecture would have important consequences in quantum information theory. In particular, according to this conjecture, the classical capacity or the maximal purity of outputs cannot be increased by using entangled inputs of the channel. In this paper we state the additivity/multiplicativity problems, give some relations between them, and prove some new partial results, which also support the conjecture. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.