This thesis explores connections between information theory and graph theory. We prove a number of seemingly new results on graph entropy, a classical information theoretic quantity introduced by Korner. Our work includes the determination of the graph entropy of the odd cycles and their complements under certain probability distributions. We develop a theory of convex corners in finite dimensional spaces of matrices appropriate for applications in quantum information, and discuss the concept of entropy over a convex corner. We recall the definition of a non-commutative graph from the work of Duan, Severini and Winter, and with a given non-commutative graph we associate a number of convex corners, before proving a "quantum sandwich theorem". We define several new parameters for non-commutative graphs, and show them to be generalisations of the corresponding graph parameters. This includes two quantum versions of the Lovasz number, one of which is seen to be an upper bound on the Shannon capacity of an associated quantum channel. Finally we return to examine graph entropy in the case of a non-i.i.d. classical source, and attempt to generalise the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy of a dynamical system to this setting.
This thesis explores connections between information theory and graph theory. We prove a number of seemingly new results on graph entropy, a classical information theoretic quantity introduced by Korner. Our work includes the determination of the graph entropy of the odd cycles and their complements under certain probability distributions. We develop a theory of convex corners in finite dimensional spaces of matrices appropriate for applications in quantum information, and discuss the concept of entropy over a convex corner. We recall the definition of a non-commutative graph from the work of Duan, Severini and Winter, and with a given non-commutative graph we associate a number of convex corners, before proving a "quantum sandwich theorem". We define several new parameters for non-commutative graphs, and show them to be generalisations of the corresponding graph parameters. This includes two quantum versions of the Lovasz number, one of which is seen to be an upper bound on the Shannon capacity of an associated quantum channel. Finally we return to examine graph entropy in the case of a non-i.i.d. classical source, and attempt to generalise the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy of a dynamical system to this setting.
We establish a second anti-blocker theorem for noncommutative convex corners, show that the anti-blocking operation is continuous on bounded sets of convex corners, and define optimization parameters for a given convex corner that generalize well-known graph theoretic quantities. We define the entropy of a state with respect to a convex corner, characterize its maximum value in terms of a generalized fractional chromatic number and establish entropy splitting results that demonstrate the entropic complementarity between a convex corner and its anti-blocker. We identify two extremal tensor products of convex corners and examine the behavior of the introduced parameters with respect to tensoring. Specializing to noncommutative graphs, we obtain quantum versions of the fractional chromatic number and the clique covering number, as well as a notion of noncommutative graph entropy of a state, which we show to be continuous with respect to the state and the graph. We define the Witsenhausen rate of a noncommutative graph and compute the values of our parameters in some specific cases.
We study quantum versions of the Shannon capacity of graphs and non-commutative graphs. We introduce the asymptotic spectrum of graphs with respect to quantum and entanglement-assisted homomorphisms, and we introduce the asymptotic spectrum of non-commutative graphs with respect to entanglement-assisted homomorphisms. We apply Strassen's spectral theorem (J. Reine Angew. Math., 1988) in order to obtain dual characterizations of the corresponding Shannon capacities and asymptotic preorders in terms of their asymptotic spectra. This work extends the study of the asymptotic spectrum of graphs initiated by Zuiddam (Combinatorica, 2019) to the quantum domain. We then exhibit spectral points in the new quantum asymptotic spectra and discuss their relations with the asymptotic spectrum of graphs. In particular, we prove that the (fractional) real and complex Haemers bounds upper bound the quantum Shannon capacity, which is defined as the regularization of the quantum independence number (Mančinska and Roberson, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 2016), and that the fractional real and complex Haemers bounds are elements in the quantum asymptotic spectrum of graphs. This is in contrast to the Haemers bounds defined over certain finite fields, which can be strictly smaller than the quantum Shannon capacity. Moreover, since the Haemers bound can be strictly smaller than the Lovász theta function (Haemers, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 1979), we find that the quantum Shannon capacity and the Lovász theta function do not coincide. As a consequence, two well-known conjectures in quantum information theory, namely: 1) the entanglement-assisted zero-error capacity of a classical channel is equal to the Lovász theta function and 2) maximally entangled states and projective measurements are sufficient to achieve the entanglement-assisted zero-error capacity, cannot both be true.
We study quantum versions of the Shannon capacity of graphs and non-commutative graphs. We introduce the asymptotic spectrum of graphs with respect to quantum and entanglement-assisted homomorphisms, and we introduce the asymptotic spectrum of non-commutative graphs with respect to entanglement-assisted homomorphisms. We apply Strassen's spectral theorem (J. Reine Angew. Math., 1988) in order to obtain dual characterizations of the corresponding Shannon capacities and asymptotic preorders in terms of their asymptotic spectra. This work extends the study of the asymptotic spectrum of graphs initiated by Zuiddam (Combinatorica, 2019) to the quantum domain. We then exhibit spectral points in the new quantum asymptotic spectra and discuss their relations with the asymptotic spectrum of graphs. In particular, we prove that the (fractional) real and complex Haemers bounds upper bound the quantum Shannon capacity, which is defined as the regularization of the quantum independence number (Mančinska and Roberson, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 2016), and that the fractional real and complex Haemers bounds are elements in the quantum asymptotic spectrum of graphs. This is in contrast to the Haemers bounds defined over certain finite fields, which can be strictly smaller than the quantum Shannon capacity. Moreover, since the Haemers bound can be strictly smaller than the Lovász theta function (Haemers, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 1979), we find that the quantum Shannon capacity and the Lovász theta function do not coincide. As a consequence, two well-known conjectures in quantum information theory cannot both be true.
We generalize some well-known graph parameters to operator systems by considering their underlying quantum channels. In particular, we introduce the quantum complexity as the dimension of the smallest co-domain Hilbert space a quantum channel requires to realize a given operator system as its non-commutative confusability graph. We describe quantum complexity as a generalized minimum semidefinite rank and, in the case of a graph operator system, as a quantum intersection number. The quantum complexity and a closely related quantum version of orthogonal rank turn out to be upper bounds for the Shannon zero-error capacity of a quantum channel, and we construct examples for which these bounds beat the best previously known general upper bound for the capacity of quantum channels, given by the quantum Lovász theta number.
We study quantum entanglement and some of its applications in graph theory and zero-error information theory. In Chapter 1 we introduce entanglement and other fundamental concepts of quantum theory. In Chapter 2 we address the question of how much quantum correlations generated by entanglement can deviate from classical predictions. We focus on non-local games: experiments in which two players are separated and forbidden to communicate, and have to collaborate to accomplish a task. We give two games exhibiting quantum-classical separations close to optimal. Remarkably, our results in theoretical physics are inspired by theoretical computer science. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the study of quantum graph parameters. Well-known quantities such as the chromatic number and the independence number of a graph can be interpreted as parameters for non-local games. A definition of quantum graph parameters follows from this fact. We contribute to the field in a number of ways. Among other results, we find a surprising characterization of the quantum chromatic number that relates to the Kochen-Specker theorem, a result in the foundations of quantum mechanics. In Chapter 4, we move to zero-error information theory. We study the zero error capacity of a classical noisy channel when the sender and the receiver can use quantum entanglement. We initiate the study of the source problem and source-channel problem with entanglement and we find channels and sources that exhibit a strong divergence in quantum and classical behaviours. To do that, we use results in combinatorics, linear algebra, optimization and number theory.
Quantum graphs have been introduced by Duan, Severini, and Winter to describe the zero-error behaviour of quantum channels. Since then, quantum graph theory has become a field of study in its own right. A substantial source of difficulty in working with quantum graphs compared to classical graphs stems from the fact that they are no longer discrete objects. This makes it generally difficult to construct insightful, non-trivial examples. We present a collection of non-trivial quantum graphs that can be thought of in discrete terms, and that can be expressed in the diagrammatic formalism introduced by Musto, Reutter, and Verdon. The examples arise as the quantum graphs acted on by increasingly smaller classical matrix groups, and are parametrised by triples of matrices (A,B,C). The parametrisation reveals a clean decomposition of quantum graph structure into classical and genuinely quantum components: A and C are described by a classical weighted graph called the strange graph, while B provides a purely quantum contribution with no classical analogue. Based on this model, we give exact formulas or establish bounds for quantum graph parameters, such as the number of connected components, the chromatic number, the independence number, and the clique number. Our results provide the first large, parametric families of quantum graphs for which standard graph parameters can be computed analytically.