The Holevo bound provides a limit to the amount of information which can be obtained by an observer for a fixed encoding. Here we point out that there exists a complementary bound, very similar in form, which provides a limit to the amount of information that can be obtained by an observer for a fixed measurement. Both of these bounds are corollaries of the Schumacher-Westmoreland-Wootters theorem [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3452 (1996)]. We discuss this theorem and another bound involving the effect of the incompleteness of a measurement on information gathering. We also show that, given the Holevo bound, the measurement bound may be proved in a special case by exploiting the partial duality between measurements and encodings.
The Holevo bound provides a limit to the amount of information which can be obtained by an observer for a fixed encoding. Here we point out that there exists a complementary bound, very similar in form, which provides a limit to the amount of information that can be obtained by an observer for a fixed measurement. Both of these bounds are corollaries of the Schumacher-Westmoreland-Wootters theorem [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3452 (1996)]. We discuss this theorem and another bound involving the effect of the incompleteness of a measurement on information gathering. We also show that, given the Holevo bound, the measurement bound may be proved in a special case by exploiting the partial duality between measurements and encodings.
The Holevo bound is a bound the mutual information for a given quantum encoding. In 1996 Schumacher, Westmoreland and Wootters [Schumacher, Westmoreland and Wootters, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3452 (1996)] derived a bound which reduces to the Holevo bound for complete measurements, but which is tighter for incomplete measurements. The most general quantum operations may be both incomplete and inefficient. Here we show that the bound derived by SWW can be further extended to obtain one which is yet again tighter for inefficient measurements. This allows us in addition to obtain a generalization of a bound derived by Hall, and to show that the average reduction in the von Neumann entropy during a quantum operation is concave in the initial state, for all quantum operations. This is a quantum version of the concavity of the mutual information. We also show that both this average entropy reduction, and the mutual information for pure state ensembles, are Schur-concave for unitarily covariant measurements; that is, for these measurements, information gain increases with initial uncertainty.
When a measurement is made on a quantum system in which classical information is encoded, the measurement reduces the observers' average Shannon entropy for the encoding ensemble. This reduction, being the mutual information, is always non-negative. For efficient measurements the state is also purified; that is, on average, the observers' von Neumann entropy for the state of the system is also reduced by a non-negative amount. Here we point out that by rewriting a bound derived by Hall [Phys. Rev. A 55, 100 (1997)], which is dual to the Holevo bound, one finds that for efficient measurements, the mutual information is bounded by the reduction in the von Neumann entropy. We also show that this result, which provides a physical interpretation for Hall's bound, may be derived directly from the Schumacher-Westmoreland-Wootters theorem [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3452 (1996)]. We discuss these bounds, and their relationship to another bound, valid for efficient measurements on pure state ensembles, which involves the subentropy.
To transmit classical information using a quantum system, the sender prepares the system in one of a set of possible states and sends it to the receiver. The receiver then makes a measurement on the system to obtain information about the senders choice of state. The amount of information which is accessible to the receiver depends upon the encoding and the measurement. Here we derive a bound on this information which generalizes the bound derived by Schumacher, Westmoreland and Wootters [Schumacher, Westmoreland and Wootters, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3452 (1996)] to include inefficient measurements, and thus all quantum operations. This also allows us to obtain a generalization of a bound derived by Hall [Hall, Phys. Rev. A 55, 100 (1997)], and to show that the average reduction in the von Neumann entropy which accompanies a measurement is concave in the initial state, for all quantum operations.
The Holevo bound is a bound on the mutual information for a given quantum encoding. In 1996 Schumacher, Westmoreland, and Wootters [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3452 (1996)] derived a bound that reduces to the Holevo bound for complete measurements, but that is tighter for incomplete measurements. The most general quantum operations may be both incomplete and inefficient. Here we show that the bound derived by SWW can be further extended to obtain one that is yet again tighter for inefficient measurements. This allows us, in addition, to obtain a generalization of a bound derived by Hall, and to show that the average reduction in the von Neumann entropy during a quantum operation is concave in the initial state, for all quantum operations. This is a quantum version of the concavity of the mutual information. We also show that both this average entropy reduction and the mutual information for pure state ensembles, are Schur concave for unitarily covariant measurements; that is, for these measurements, information gain increases with initial uncertainty.
This paper is primarily concerned with the development and application of quantum bounds on mutual information, although some of the methods developed can be applied to any figure of merit indicating degree of correlation, such as coincidence rate. Three basic techniques for obtaining bounds are described: mappings between joint-measurement and communication correlation contexts; a duality relation for quantum ensembles and quantum measurements; and an information exclusion principle [M. J. W. Hall, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 3307 (1995)]. Results include a proof of Holevo's communication bound from a joint-measurement inequality; a measurement-dependent dual to Holevo's bound; lower bounds for mutual information under ensemble and measurement constraints; information exclusion relations for measurements described by probability-operator measures; a proof that Glauber coherent states are optimal signal states for quantum communication based on (noisy) optical heterodyne detection; and an information inequality for quantum eavesdropping. Relations between the three techniques are used to further obtain upper bounds for quantum information, and to extend the information exclusion principle to a joint-measurement context.
Quantum theory imposes fundamental limitations on the amount of information that can be carried by any quantum system. On the one hand, the Holevo bound rules out the possibility of encoding more information in a quantum system than in its classical counterpart, comprised of perfectly distinguishable states. On the other hand, when states are uniformly distributed in the state space, the so-called subentropy lower bound is saturated. How uniform quantum systems are can be naturally quantified by characterizing them as t-designs, with $t=\ensuremath{\infty}$ corresponding to the uniform distribution. Here we show the existence of a trade-off between the uniformity of a quantum system and the amount of information it can carry. To this aim, we derive a hierarchy of informational bounds as a function of t and prove their tightness for qubits and qutrits. By deriving asymptotic formulas for large dimensions, we also show that the statistics generated by any t-design with t>1 contains no more than a single bit of information, and this amount decreases with t. Holevo and subentropy bounds are recovered as particular cases for t=1 and $t=\ensuremath{\infty}$, respectively.