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Theory of Probability and Its Applications

On the Multiplicativity Hypothesis for Quantum Communication Channels

Grigori Gennadievich Amosov, Alexander Semenovich Holevo

Published Jan 1, 2003• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A formulation of the multiplicativity hypothesis for quantum communication channels is given, the validity of which for parameter values~p, arbitrarily close to~1, implies a positive solution of the fundamental additivity problem for channel capacity in quantum information theory. A proof of this hypothesis is given for depolarizing channels in the case of integer~p.

DOI
10.1137/s0040585x97979500

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A formulation of the multiplicativity hypothesis for quantum communication channels is given, the validity of which for parameter valuesp, arbitrarily close to1, implies a positive solution of the fundamental additivity problem for channel capacity in quantum information theory. A proof of this hypothesis is given for depolarizing channels in the case of integer~p.
A multiplicativity conjecture for quantum communication channels is formulated, validity of which for the values of parameter ppp close to 1 is related to the solution of the fundamental problem of additivity of the channel capacity in quantum information theory. The proof of the conjecture is given for the case of natural numbers ppp.
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.
One of the central problems of quantum information theory [1] is the additivity conjecture for the channel capacity of quantum communication channels [2]–[4]. Recently Shor showed [5] that the validity of this conjecture for all quantum channels was equivalent to a whole series of (super)additivity properties for other important characteristics such as minimal output entropy and entanglementof formation. The present paper introduces the new property of strong additivity (additivity for channels with input constraints) with several equivalent formulations, establishes that it is satisfied for some nontrivial classes of channels and notes that the validity of the additivity conjecture for all channels implies strong additivity. Let H, H′ be finite-dimensional unitary spaces. By a quantum channel we mean a completely positive trace-preserving linear map Φ: B(H) → B(H′), where B(H) is the algebra of all operators on H. In particular, Φ generates an affine map of the convex set S(H) of states (density operators) on the space H into the set S(H′) of states on H′ [1]. The quantum analogue of Shannon’s theorem, established in [4], gives the following expression for the classical channel capacity:
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.
The one-shot zero-error classical capacity of a quantum channel is the maximum amount of classical information that can be transmitted with zero probability of error via a single channel use. This capacity is fundamentally characterized by the logarithm of the independence number of the noncommutative graph induced by the quantum channel. Consequently, the additivity of the one-shot zero-error classical capacity is equivalent to the multiplicativity of the independence number of the associated noncommutative graphs. As the independence number is not multiplicative in general, the specific conditions under which multiplicativity is preserved remain an open question in quantum information theory. Here, we establish some sufficient conditions for the multiplicativity of the independence number and provide explicit examples of quantum channels that satisfy these criteria. Furthermore, we investigate the block form of noncommutative graphs and derive the conditions under which the independence number remains multiplicative within this framework. These results offer new insights into the structural properties of noncommutative graphs and the fundamental limits of zero-error quantum communication.
A problem in quantum information theory that has received considerable attention in recent years is the question of multiplicativity of the so-called maximal output purity (MOP) of a quantum channel. This quantity is defined as the maximum value of the purity one can get at the output of a channel by varying over all physical input states, when purity is measured by the Schatten qqq-norm, and is denoted by νqν_qνq​. The multiplicativity problem is the question whether two channels used in parallel have a combined νqν_qνq​ that is the product of the νqν_qνq​ of the two channels. A positive answer would imply a number of other additivity results in QIT. Very recently, P. Hayden has found counterexamples for every value of q>1q>1q>1. Nevertheless, these counterexamples require that the dimension of these channels increases with 1−q1-q1−q and therefore do not rule out multiplicativity for qqq in intervals [1,q0)[1,q_0)[1,q0​) with q0q_0q0​ depending on the channel dimension. I argue that this would be enough to prove additivity of entanglement of formation and of the classical capacity of quantum channels. More importantly, no counterexamples have as yet been found in the important special case where one of the channels is a qubit-channel, i.e. its input states are 2-dimensional. In this paper I focus attention to this qubit case and I rephrase the multiplicativity conjecture in the language of block matrices and prove the conjecture in a number of special cases.