A pure-loss bosonic channel is a simple model for communication over free-space or fiber-optic links. More generally, phase-insensitive bosonic channels model other kinds of noise, such as thermalizing or amplifying processes. Recent work has established the classical capacity of all of these channels, and furthermore, it is now known that a strong converse theorem holds for the classical capacity of these channels under a particular photon-number constraint. The goal of the present paper is to initiate the study of second-order coding rates for these channels, by beginning with the simplest one, the pure-loss bosonic channel. In a second-order analysis of communication, one fixes the tolerable error probability and seeks to understand the back-off from capacity for a sufficiently large yet finite number of channel uses. We find a lower bound on the maximum achievable code size for the pure-loss bosonic channel, in terms of the known expression for its capacity and a quantity called channel dispersion. We accomplish this by proving a general “one-shot” coding theorem for channels with classical inputs and pure-state quantum outputs which reside in a separable Hilbert space. The theorem leads to an optimal second-order characterization when the channel output is finite-dimensional, and it remains an open question to determine whether the characterization is optimal for the pure-loss bosonic channel.
A pure-loss bosonic channel is a simple model for communication over free-space or fiber-optic links. More generally, phase-insensitive bosonic channels model other kinds of noise, such as thermalizing or amplifying processes. Recent work has established the classical capacity of all of these channels, and furthermore, it is now known that a strong converse theorem holds for the classical capacity of these channels under a particular photon-number constraint. The goal of the present paper is to initiate the study of second-order coding rates for these channels, by beginning with the simplest one, the pure-loss bosonic channel. In a second-order analysis of communication, one fixes the tolerable error probability and seeks to understand the back-off from capacity for a sufficiently large yet finite number of channel uses. We find a lower bound on the maximum achievable code size for the pure-loss bosonic channel, in terms of the known expression for its capacity and a quantity called channel dispersion. We accomplish this by proving a general “one-shot” coding theorem for channels with classical inputs and pure-state quantum outputs which reside in a separable Hilbert space. The theorem leads to an optimal second-order characterization when the channel output is finite-dimensional, and it remains an open question to determine whether the characterization is optimal for the pure-loss bosonic channel.
This paper strengthens the interpretation and understanding of the classical capacity of the pure-loss bosonic channel, first established in [1]. In particular, we first prove that there exists a trade-off between communication rate and error probability if one imposes only a mean photon number constraint on the channel inputs. That is, if we demand that the mean number of photons at the channel input cannot be any larger than some positive number NS , then it is possible to respect this constraint with a code that operates at a rate g ( ηNS /(1- p )) where p is the code error probability, η is the channel transmissivity, and g ( x ) is the entropy of a bosonic thermal state with mean photon number x . Then we prove that a strong converse theorem holds for the classical capacity of this channel (that such a rate-error trade-off cannot occur) if one instead demands for a maximum photon number constraint, in such a way that mostly all of the “shadow” of the average density operator for a given code is required to be on a subspace with photon number no larger than nNS , so that the shadow outside this subspace vanishes as the number n of channel uses becomes large. Finally, we prove that a small modification of the well-known coherent-state coding scheme meets this more demanding constraint.
We determine the finite-blocklength asymptotics of classical communication over the pure-loss bosonic channel under a maximum-photon-number occupation constraint. Wilde, Renes and Guha previously derived a second-order achievable rate governed by thermal photon-number fluctuations and left its optimality open. We show that fixed-total-photon-number encoding removes input-number fluctuations while preserving the first-order capacity, leaving binomial photon-survival fluctuations as the operational second-order contribution. For fixed transmissivity 0 < η < 1, signal photon number NS > 0, and error probability 0 < ε < 1, we determine the optimal fixed-error expansion through third order. The operational dispersion is Vsh = η(1 − η)NS [log2(1 + 1/(ηNS))]^2, and the optimal code size contains the third-order correction −(1/2)log2 n up to a bounded O(1) remainder. The achievability construction uses fixed-photon-number shell codes, while the converse applies to arbitrary multimode quantum encodings and arbitrary joint decoding measurements within the stated occupation constraint. This Zenodo record contains the preprint, LaTeX source, vector figures, source data, and reproducibility code used for the numerical checks and figure generation.
The pure-loss channel is a fundamental noise model for bosonic quantum platforms, characterised by a single parameter, the transmissivity. In realistic scenarios such as free-space quantum communication, the transmissivity fluctuates from one channel use to another, and the channel is a convex combination of pure-loss channels, known as a fading channel. Despite its practical relevance, its quantum Shannon theory has remained largely unexplored. Here we investigate degradability, anti-degradability, entanglement breakingness, and capacities of the fading channel. We prove that entanglement distribution and quantum key distribution can be achieved at a strictly positive rate over any fading channel that is not completely noisy. When the transmissivity takes a finite set of values, we determine the energy-unconstrained two-way quantum and secret-key capacities exactly, as the averages of those of the pure-loss components. We prove that thermal states, optimal for a broad class of static bosonic Gaussian channels, do not in general achieve the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of fading channels: for a binary fading model we derive the capacity-achieving state in closed form, and we exhibit channels for which non-Gaussian Fock-diagonal states strictly outperform every Gaussian encoding. For the quantum capacity, we give a simple sufficient condition on the transmissivity distribution under which weak thermal inputs yield a strictly positive rate. Outside this condition, we numerically identify parameter regions where no thermal input compatible with the energy constraint has a positive coherent information, while optimized non-Gaussian inputs do. For general fading distributions, we design an iterative variational algorithm to optimize the coherent and mutual information. Our work advances the study of quantum communication in the non-Gaussian regime.
We prove that a strong converse theorem holds for the classical capacity of all phase-insensitive bosonic Gaussian channels, when imposing a maximum photon number constraint on the inputs of the channel. This class is a natural extension of classical continuous Gaussian channels, and the well studied pure-loss, thermal, additive noise, and amplifier channels are all in this class of channels. The statement of the strong converse theorem is that the probability of correctly decoding a classical message rapidly converges to zero in the limit of many channel uses if the communication rate exceeds the classical capacity. We prove this theorem by relating the success probability of any code with its rate of data transmission, the effective dimension of the channel output space, and the purity of the channel as quantified by the minimum output entropy. Our result bolsters the understanding of the classical capacity of these channels by establishing it as a sharp dividing line between possible and impossible communication rates over them.
We establish the classical capacity of optical quantum channels as a sharp transition between two regimes - one which is an error-free regime for communication rates below the capacity, and the other in which the probability of correctly decoding a classical message converges exponentially fast to zero if the communication rate exceeds the classical capacity. This result is obtained by proving a strong converse theorem for the classical capacity of all phase-insensitive bosonic Gaussian channels, a well-established model of optical quantum communication channels, such as lossy optical fibers, amplifier, and free-space communication. The theorem holds under a particular photon-number occupation constraint, which we describe in detail in this paper. Our result bolsters the understanding of the classical capacity of these channels and opens the path to applications, such as proving the security of noisy quantum storage models of cryptography with optical links.
The classical capacity of a noisy optical channel is the maximum rate at which information can be transmitted reliably, given a constraint on the mean input energy. For the ubiquitous bosonic Gaussian channels, which include standard models of loss and noise in fibre and free-space optical links, determining this rate requires addressing whether entanglement between channel uses or non-Gaussian signals can outperform Gaussian encodings. More precisely, the question is whether the energy-constrained Holevo information is additive across arbitrarily many channel uses and coincides with its Gaussian counterpart. We answer these fundamental questions in the affirmative for every single-mode bosonic Gaussian channel at every input energy. Namely, we prove that independently prepared Gaussian states with Gaussian-distributed random displacements achieve the capacity, including in the low-energy regime where squeezing the signals competes with encoding information in their displacement. Our proof connects an entanglement inequality to a sharp, additive lower bound on output entropy. We then characterise communication above capacity: under a strict total photon-number cutoff, the probability of correct decoding decreases exponentially with the number of channel uses, and we derive explicit bounds on the decay exponent. When only the mean photon number is constrained, a simple energy-rescaling formula determines exactly the entire asymptotic rate--error trade-off: the capacity at mean photon number N and allowed average decoding error ε equals the vanishing-error capacity at mean photon number N/(1−ε). Together, these results identify the ultimate limits of classical communication for some of the most fundamental models of optical communication.