The conditional entropy power inequality for Gaussian quantum states

Abstract

We propose a generalization of the quantum entropy power inequality involving condi-tional entropies. For the special case of Gaussian states, we give a proof based on perturba-tion theory for symplectic spectra. We discuss some implications for entanglement-assisted classical communication over additive bosonic noise channels. 1 Classical and quantum entropy-power inequalities The entropy power inequality, proposed by Shannon [27] and later established with increasing rigor by Stam [29] and Blachman [5], has become a fundamental tool in classical informa-tion theory. Shannon’s original application of the entropy power inequality is a lower bound on the capacity of an additive (but potentially non-Gaussian) noise channel [27, Theorem 18]. However, the usefulness of the entropy power inequality is especially evident in multi-terminal information theory. Among the most well-known applications are the characterization of the Gaussian broadcast channel by Bergman [4], the Gaussian two-description problem by Ozarow [25] and the quadratic Gaussian CEO problem by Oohama [24]. In these multi-user settings, Fano’s inequality by itself is insufficient to characterize different tradeoffs. A more recent application proposed by Liu and Viswanath [23] uses entropy power inequalities to solve certain optimization problems. The entropy power inequality lower bounds the differential entropy of the convolution of two independent random variables X, Y taking values in Rn. Its covariance-preserving version states that H( λX + 1 − λY) ≥ λH(X) + (1 − λ)H(Y) for all 0 ≤ λ ≤ 1. (1) Eq. (1) can be shown [22, 32] to be equivalent to the more commonly used statement e2H(X+Y)/n ≥ e2H(X)/n + e2H(Y)/n. The latter explains the terminology as e2H(X)/n is the power, i.e., variance of a Gaussian ran-dom variable with identical entropy as H(X). Inequalities such as (1) are closely related to Log-Sobolev inequalities (see e.g., [31]) as well as Brunn-Minkowski-type inequalities [6]. Gen-eralizations to free probability [30] and quantum states have been considered. 1 ar