Barycentric Rényi divergences were introduced in [Mosonyi, Bunth, Vrana, Linear Algebra and its Applications, 2024] as an alternative to standard Kubo-Ando constructions to define multivariate quantum Rényi divergences. They are defined via a variational expression and depend on a finite collection of quantum relative entropies $D^{q_x}$. When all the relative entropies are monotone under CPTP maps then so are the corresponding barycentric Rényi divergences, and when all the relative entropies are additive then the corresponding barycentric Rényi divergences are subadditive under tensor product. Additivity has only been established before for the case where all $D^{q_x}$ are chosen to be the Umegaki relative entropy, which is also the only case where the barycentric Rényi divergence (called the minimal one) was known to admit an explicit expression.
Here we settle the problem of additivity by showing that for any choice of monotone quantum relative entropies, the regularized barycentric Rényi divergence coincides with the minimal barycentric Rényi divergence on invertible inputs. This in turn implies that if at least two of the $D^{q_x}$ are strictly larger than the Umegaki relative entropy (in a precise sense), then the resulting barycentric Rényi divergence is not even weakly additive.
Barycentric Rényi divergences were introduced in [Mosonyi, Bunth, Vrana, Linear Algebra and its Applications, 2024] as an alternative to standard Kubo-Ando constructions to define multivariate quantum Rényi divergences. They are defined via a variational expression and depend on a finite collection of quantum relative entropies Dqx. When all the relative entropies are monotone under CPTP maps then so are the corresponding barycentric Rényi divergences, and when all the relative entropies are additive then the corresponding barycentric Rényi divergences are subadditive under tensor product. Additivity has only been established before for the case where all Dqx are chosen to be the Umegaki relative entropy, which is also the only case where the barycentric Rényi divergence (called the minimal one) was known to admit an explicit expression.
Here we settle the problem of additivity by showing that for any choice of monotone quantum relative entropies, the regularized barycentric Rényi divergence coincides with the minimal barycentric Rényi divergence on invertible inputs. This in turn implies that if at least two of the Dqx are strictly larger than the Umegaki relative entropy (in a precise sense), then the resulting barycentric Rényi divergence is not even weakly additive.
Quantum generalizations of Rényi's entropies are a useful tool to describe a variety of operational tasks in quantum information processing. Two families of such generalizations turn out to be particularly useful: the Petz quantum Rényi divergence Dˉα and the minimal quantum Rényi divergence Dα. Moreover, the maximum quantum Rényi divergence Dα is of particular mathematical interest. In this Master thesis, we investigate relations between these divergences and their applications in quantum information theory. Our main result is a reverse Araki-Lieb-Thirring inequality that implies a new relation between the minimal and the Petz divergence, namely that αDˉα(ρ∥σ)⩽Dα(ρ∥σ) for α∈[0,1] and where ρ and σ are density operators. This bound suggests defining a "pretty good fidelity", whose relation to the usual fidelity implies the known relations between the optimal and pretty good measurement as well as the optimal and pretty good singlet fraction. In addition, we provide a new proof of the inequality D1(ρ∥σ)⩽D1(ρ∥σ), based on the Araki-Lieb-Thirring inequality. This leads to an elegant proof of the logarithmic form of the reverse Golden-Thompson inequality.
We introduce a new cumulant-based quantum relative Rényi functional as a candidate quantum Rényi divergence, derived from the cumulant-generating function (CGF) of the quantum relative surprisal operator and extending the classical connection between Rényi divergence and statistical cumulants to the quantum setting. Unlike the Petz and sandwiched quantum Rényi divergences, the proposed construction is motivated by statistical structure rather than operator-algebraic or operational principles. The functional naturally admits a path-integral-like representation through the Lie-Trotter product expansion, providing a trajectory-based interpretation of quantum divergence in Hilbert space. On its natural non-regularized domain for α>1 under the support condition supp(ρ)⊆supp(σ), we establish several fundamental properties, including positivity, reduction to the classical case, additivity, unitary invariance, continuity, and monotonicity with respect to the Renyi parameter α. Whether the functional satisfies the quantum data-processing inequality (QDPI) under arbitrary CPTP maps remains open. To extend the analysis beyond the studied regime, we introduce a regularized version of the functional and study its behavior at α=0. We show that the resulting relative quantumness quantity vanishes if and only if the underlying states commute, yielding a necessary and sufficient characterization of non-commutativity. For commutativity-preserving (CoP) channels, we further conjecture a QDPI-type monotonicity relation for this quantity. Extensive numerical simulations provide strong evidence in support of this conjecture, with no violations observed for the CoP channels considered in this work.
Most quantum divergences derive their structure from classical f-divergences or Renyi-type constructions, a dependence that obscures several quantum geometric effects. We introduce a quantum relative-alpha-entropy that extends Umegaki's relative entropy while falling outside the f-divergence class. The proposed divergence exhibits a nonlinear convexity property, which yields a generalized convexity result for the Petz-Renyi divergence for alpha greater than one, complementing the known convexity for alpha less than one. It is additive under tensor products, invariant under unitary transformations, and depends only on the relative geometry of quantum states rather than their absolute magnitudes. Using Nussbaum-Szkola-type distributions, we also establish an exact correspondence of this divergence with classical relative-alpha-entropy. This reveals relative-alpha-entropy as a fundamentally geometric notion of quantum distinguishability not captured by existing divergence frameworks.
Abstract The asymptotic restriction problem for tensors can be reduced to finding all parameters that are normalized, monotone under restrictions, additive under direct sums and multiplicative under tensor products, the simplest of which are the flattening ranks. Over the complex numbers, a refinement of this problem, originating in the theory of quantum entanglement, is to find the optimal rate of entanglement transformations as a function of the error exponent. This trade-off can also be characterized in terms of the set of normalized, additive, multiplicative functionals that are monotone in a suitable sense, which includes the restriction-monotones as well. For example, the flattening ranks generalize to the (exponentiated) Rényi entanglement entropies of order α∈[0,1] α ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] . More complicated parameters of this type are known, which interpolate between the flattening ranks or Rényi entropies for special bipartitions, with one of the parts being a single tensor factor. We introduce a new construction of subadditive and submultiplicative monotones in terms of a regularized Rényi divergence between many copies of the pure state represented by the tensor and a suitable sequence of positive operators. We give explicit families of operators that correspond to the flattening-based functionals, and show that they can be combined in a nontrivial way using weighted operator geometric means. This leads to a new characterization of the previously known additive and multiplicative monotones, and gives new submultiplicative and subadditive monotones that interpolate between the Rényi entropies for all bipartitions. We show that for each such monotone there exist pointwise smaller multiplicative and additive ones as well. In addition, we find lower bounds on the new functionals that are superadditive and supermultiplicative.
In the problem of binary quantum channel discrimination with product inputs, the supremum of all type II error exponents for which the optimal type I errors go to zero is equal to the Umegaki channel relative entropy, while the infimum of all type II error exponents for which the optimal type I errors go to one is equal to the infimum of the sandwiched channel Rényi$\alpha −divergencesoverall\alpha >1$. We prove the equality of these two threshold values (and therefore the strong converse property for this problem) using a minimax argument based on a newly established continuity property of the sandwiched Rényi divergences. Motivated by this, we give a detailed analysis of the continuity properties of various other quantum (channel) Rényi divergences, which may be of independent interest.
We introduce the geodesic quantum f-divergences Dft, 0≤t≤1, obtained from the affine-invariant geodesic between the standard and maximal relative modular operators. They reduce to the classical f-divergence for commuting states. The logarithmic generator yields geodesic relative entropies joining the Umegaki and Belavkin-Staszewski entropies, while the power generators yield (t,α)-Rényi divergences joining the Petz and geometric families.
Our first main result is data processing of Dft for every finite operator-convex generator f and every t∈[0,1]. In particular, this gives DPI for the geodesic relative entropies and for the (t,α)-Rényi divergences when 0<α<1 or 1<α≤2. Our second main result identifies equality in the DPI: for invertible states, every equality-determining operator-convex generator has, at each nonmaximal parameter 0≤t<1, exactly the Petz sufficiency class; at t=1, this changes to the generally larger maximal, or BS, class, which also coincides with the equality class of the divergences associated with the quadratic generator for every t. Our third main result is the corresponding collapse of invertible geodesic quantum Markov chains: for each of the three ordered conditional-mutual-information constructions, the t-quantum Markov chains are precisely the quantum Markov chains for 0≤t<1, whereas at t=1 they are the invertible BS quantum Markov chains, a class that can be strictly larger.
We also determine parameter-monotonicity regimes and the intersections with the (α,z) family. We prove strengthened data-processing and reconstruction estimates; we compare the three conditional orientations; we establish continuity bounds under positive lower-eigenvalue assumptions together with complementary discontinuity results; and we give a capacity-per-unit-cost interpretation.