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Counterexample to an additivity conjecture for output purity of quantum channels

Werner, R F, Holevo, A S

Published Mar 1, 2002• 134 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

A conjecture arising naturally in the investigation of additivity of classical information capacity of quantum channels states that the maximal purity of outputs from a quantum channel, as measured by the p-norm, should be multiplicative with respect to the tensor product of channels. We disprove this conjecture for p>4.79. The same example (with p=infinity) also disproves a conjecture for the multiplicativity of the injective norm of Hilbert space tensor products.

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Counterexample to an additivity conjecture for output purity of quantum channels

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Notes on multiplicativity of maximal output purity for completely positive qubit maps

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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 $q$-norm, and is denoted by $ν_q$. The multiplicativity problem is the question whether two channels used in parallel have a combined $ν_q$ that is the product of the $ν_q$ 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 $q>1$. Nevertheless, these counterexamples require that the dimension of these channels increases with $1-q$ and therefore do not rule out multiplicativity for $q$ in intervals $[1,q_0)$ with $q_0$ 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.

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arXiv:quant-ph/0606040•Jun 6, 2006•0 citations
A conjecture arising naturally in the investigation of additivity of classical information capacity of quantum channels states that the maximal purity of outputs from a quantum channel, as measured by the p-norm, should be multiplicative with respect to the tensor product of channels. We disprove this conjecture for p>4.79. The same example (with p=infinity) also disproves a conjecture for the multiplicativity of the injective norm of Hilbert space tensor products.
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.
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.
For all 1 < p < 2, we demonstrate the existence of quantum channels with non-multiplicative maximal p-norms. Equivalently, the minimum output Renyi entropy of order p of a quantum channel is not additive for all 1 < p < 2. The violations found are large. As p approaches 1, the minimum output Renyi entropy of order p for a product channel need not be significantly greater than the minimum output entropy of its individual factors. Since p=1 corresponds to the von Neumann entropy, these counterexamples demonstrate that if the additivity conjecture of quantum information theory is true, it cannot be proved as a consequence of maximal p-norm multiplicativity.
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.