We prove that four capacities of single-mode bosonic dephasing channels coincide under an average photon-number constraint: the unassisted quantum capacity, the unassisted private capacity, the two-way classically assisted quantum capacity, and the two-way public-classically assisted private capacity. The assistance may be interactive: the parties can exchange classical messages between channel uses and choose subsequent inputs based on earlier outcomes. For every finite value of the constraint, their common value is the coherent information optimized over Fock-diagonal input states satisfying the constraint. The proof uses a relative entropy comparison with the completely dephasing channel to derive chain rules for the Rains relative entropy and the relative entropy of entanglement. These chain rules give an upper bound on the rates achievable by adaptive protocols whose mean input photon number is constrained on average over all channel uses. We also show that both chain rules are attained by canonical purifications of finite-energy Fock-diagonal states.
We prove that four capacities of single-mode bosonic dephasing channels coincide under an average photon-number constraint: the unassisted quantum capacity, the unassisted private capacity, the two-way classically assisted quantum capacity, and the two-way public-classically assisted private capacity. The assistance may be interactive: the parties can exchange classical messages between channel uses and choose subsequent inputs based on earlier outcomes. For every finite value of the constraint, their common value is the coherent information optimized over Fock-diagonal input states satisfying the constraint. The proof uses a relative entropy comparison with the completely dephasing channel to derive chain rules for the Rains relative entropy and the relative entropy of entanglement. These chain rules give an upper bound on the rates achievable by adaptive protocols whose mean input photon number is constrained on average over all channel uses. We also show that both chain rules are attained by canonical purifications of finite-energy Fock-diagonal states.
We determine the two-way quantum, entanglement-distribution, private, and secret-key capacities of the pure-loss bosonic channel under an unconditional mean transmitted-photon-number constraint. For transmissivity η and mean photon number N, all four capacities coincide and are given by g(N)−g((1−η)N), where g is the entropy of a thermal mode. This resolves the longstanding energy-constrained capacity problem by establishing the optimality of the reverse-coherent-information rate introduced in 2009. Our central tool is sector teleportation simulation, which we develop specifically to transfer the input-energy constraint to the shared entanglement resource, thereby preserving the constraint throughout converse arguments for general adaptive protocols. For every N>0, we further show that the corresponding strong-converse thresholds coincide with the unconstrained value −log2(1−η). For parallel protocols with a hard total-photon-number cutoff, the same energy-constrained capacity formula instead satisfies an exponential strong converse. As an extension, we determine the energy-constrained two-way capacities of the quantum-limited amplifier, showing that classical assistance does not improve its unassisted quantum and private rates. Together, these results establish a unified finite-energy framework for adaptive bosonic communication and reveal how energy constraints fundamentally reshape both attainable rates and converse bounds.
We study the LOCC-assisted quantum capacity of a bosonic dephasing channel with energy constraint on the input states. We start our analysis by focusing on the energy-constrained squashed entanglement of the channel, which is an upper bound for the energy-constrained LOCC-assisted quantum capacity. As computing energy-constrained squashed entanglement of the channel is challenging due to a double optimization (over the set of density matrices and the isometric extensions of a squashing channel), we first derive an upper bound for it, and then, we discuss how tight that bound is for the energy-constrained LOCC-assisted quantum capacity of the bosonic dephasing channel. In doling so, we prove that the optimal input state is diagonal in the Fock basis. Then, we analyze two explicit examples of squashing channels through which we derive explicit upper and lower bounds for the energy-constrained LOCC-assisted quantum capacity of the bosonic dephasing channel in terms of its quantum capacity with different noise parameters. As the difference between upper and lower bounds becomes smaller by increasing the dephasing parameter, the bounds become tighter.
Abstract: We determine the two-way quantum, entanglement-distribution, private, and secret-key capacities of the pure-loss bosonic channel under an unconditional mean transmitted-photon-number constraint. For transmissivity η and mean photon number N, all four capacities coincide and are given by g(N)−g((1−η)N),where g is the entropy of a thermal mode. This resolves the longstanding finite-energy capacity problem by establishing the optimality of the reverse-coherent-information rate introduced in 2009. Our central tool is sector teleportation simulation, which we develop specifically to transfer the input-energy constraint to the shared entanglement resource, thereby preserving the constraint throughout converse arguments for general adaptive protocols. For every N>0, we further show that the corresponding strong-converse thresholds coincide with the unconstrained value −log2(1−η). For parallel protocols with a hard total-photon-number cutoff, the same finite-energy capacity formula instead satisfies an exponential strong converse. Together, these results establish a unified finite-energy framework for adaptive bosonic communication and reveal how energy constraints fundamentally reshape both attainable rates and converse bounds.
The classical capacity of a noisy optical channel is the maximum rate at which information can be transmitted reliably, given a constraint on the mean input energy. For the ubiquitous bosonic Gaussian channels, which include standard models of loss and noise in fibre and free-space optical links, determining this rate requires addressing whether entanglement between channel uses or non-Gaussian signals can outperform Gaussian encodings. More precisely, the question is whether the energy-constrained Holevo information is additive across arbitrarily many channel uses and coincides with its Gaussian counterpart. We answer these fundamental questions in the affirmative for every single-mode bosonic Gaussian channel at every input energy. Namely, we prove that independently prepared Gaussian states with Gaussian-distributed random displacements achieve the capacity, including in the low-energy regime where squeezing the signals competes with encoding information in their displacement. Our proof connects an entanglement inequality to a sharp, additive lower bound on output entropy. We then characterise communication above capacity: under a strict total photon-number cutoff, the probability of correct decoding decreases exponentially with the number of channel uses, and we derive explicit bounds on the decay exponent. When only the mean photon number is constrained, a simple energy-rescaling formula determines exactly the entire asymptotic rate--error trade-off: the capacity at mean photon number N and allowed average decoding error ε equals the vanishing-error capacity at mean photon number N/(1−ε). Together, these results identify the ultimate limits of classical communication for some of the most fundamental models of optical communication.
Abstract: Two-way classical assistance does not increase the energy-constrained quantum or private capacity of the quantum-limited bosonic amplifier. We establish this optimality through a matching converse for adaptive protocols with arbitrary separable quantum memories. For amplification gain κ>1 and an unconditional mean input photon number bounded by N, quantum transmission, entanglement distribution, private communication, and secret-key agreement share the capacityg(κN+κ−1)−g((κ−1)(N+1)), where g denotes the entropy of a thermal mode. The proof extends sector teleportation simulation from pure loss to amplification. A correspondence between their conditional resources provides the entanglement estimate needed to retain the transmitted-energy budget throughout the adaptive converse, despite the amplifier's unbounded output photon number. We also determine the strong-converse thresholds under the same averaged energy constraint. For every N>0, these equal log2[κ/(κ−1)], separating the energy-dependent vanishing-error capacities from an energy-independent strong-converse threshold.
With the rapid growth of quantum technologies, knowing the fundamental characteristics of quantum systems and protocols is essential for their effective implementation. A particular communication setting that has received increased focus is related to quantum key distribution and distributed quantum computation. In this setting, a quantum channel connects a sender to a receiver, and their goal is to distill either a secret key or entanglement, along with the help of arbitrary local operations and classical communication (LOCC). In this work, we establish a general theory of energy-constrained, LOCC-assisted private and quantum capacities of quantum channels, which are the maximum rates at which an LOCC-assisted quantum channel can reliably establish a secret key or entanglement, respectively, subject to an energy constraint on the channel input states. We prove that the energy-constrained squashed entanglement of a channel is an upper bound on these capacities. We also explicitly prove that a thermal state maximizes a relaxation of the squashed entanglement of all phase-insensitive, single-mode input bosonic Gaussian channels, generalizing results from prior work. After doing so, we prove that a variation of the method introduced by Goodenough et al. [New J. Phys. 18, 063005 (2016)] leads to improved upper bounds on the energy-constrained secret-key-agreement capacity of a bosonic thermal channel. We then consider a multipartite setting and prove that two known multipartite generalizations of the squashed entanglement are in fact equal. We finally show that the energy-constrained, multipartite squashed entanglement plays a role in bounding the energy-constrained LOCC-assisted private and quantum capacity regions of quantum broadcast channels.