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Entropy

Quantum Shannon Information Theory—Design of Communication, Ciphers, and Sensors

Osamu Hirota

Published Nov 14, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

One of the key aspects of Shannon theory is that it provides guidance for designing the most efficient systems, such as minimizing errors and clarifying the limits of coding. This theory has seen great developments in the 50 years since 1948. It has played a vital role in enabling the development of modern ultra-fast, stable, and highly dependable information and communication systems. Shannon theory is supported by statistical communication theories such as detection and estimation theory. The theory of communication systems that transmit Shannon information using quantum media is called quantum Shannon information theory, and research began in the 1960s. The theoretical formulation comparable to conventional Shannon theory has been completed. Its important role is to suggest that application of quantum effects will surpass existing communication performance. It would be meaningless if performance, efficiency, and utility were to deteriorate due to quantum effects, even if a certain new function is given. This paper suggests that there are various limitations to utilizing quantum Shannon information theory to benefit real-world communication systems and presents a theoretical framework for achieving the ultimate goal. Finally, we present the perfect secure cipher that overcomes the Shannon impossibility theorem without degrading communication performance and sensors as an example.

DOI
10.3390/e27111158

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One of the key aspects of Shannon theory is that it provides guidance for designing the most efficient systems, such as minimizing errors and clarifying the limits of coding. This theory has seen great developments in the 50 years since 1948. It has played a vital role in enabling the development of modern ultra-fast, stable, and highly dependable information and communication systems. Shannon theory is supported by statistical communication theories such as detection and estimation theory. The theory of communication systems that transmit Shannon information using quantum media is called quantum Shannon information theory, and research began in the 1960s. The theoretical formulation comparable to conventional Shannon theory has been completed. Its important role is to suggest that application of quantum effects will surpass existing communication performance. It would be meaningless if performance, efficiency, and utility were to deteriorate due to quantum effects, even if a certain new function is given. This paper suggests that there are various limitations to utilizing quantum Shannon information theory to benefit real-world communication systems and presents a theoretical framework for achieving the ultimate goal. Finally, we present the perfect secure cipher that overcomes the Shannon impossibility theorem without degrading communication performance and sensors as an example.
One of the key aspects of Shannon's theory is that it provides guidance for designing the most efficient systems, such as minimizing errors and clarifying the limits of coding. Such theories have made great developments in the 50 years since 1948. It has played a vital role in enabling the development of modern ultra-fast, stable, and highly dependable information and communication systems. The Shannon theory is supported by the statistical communication theory such as detection and estimation theory. The theory of communication systems that transmit Shannon information using quantum media is called quantum Shannon information theory, and research began in the 1960s. The theoretical formulation comparable to conventional Shannon theory has been completed. Its important role is to suggest that application of quantum effect will surpass existing communication performance. It would be meaningless if performance, efficiency, and utility were to deteriorate due to quantum effects, even if certain new function is given. This paper suggests that there are various limitations to utilizing quantum Shannon information theory to benefit real-world communication systems and presents a theoretical framework for achieving the ultimate goal. Finally, we introduce the perfect secure cipher that overcome the Shannon impossibility theorem without degrading communication performance and sensor et al as the examples.
This paper is dedicated to the late Professor H.P. Yuen in commemoration to our 50-year friendship. He invented the concept of quantum stream cipher. It is designed based on a completely different concept from conventional ciphers. The purpose of this cipher is to provide information-theoretic security of long data and secret key with short key length. It is based on hiding the ciphertext of mathematical cipher with quantum noise, achieving unprecedented information-theoretic security in any cipher. The protocol corresponds to randomizing the ciphertext by means of differentiating the receiving performance of Bob with key and Eve without key according to the principle of quantum communication theory. In this paper, we introduce some progress on the specific method to develop from the standard type to generalized quantum stream cipher (Quantum Enigma Cipher). There are two methods for generalization. One is the additional randomization method by the product cipher form and the other is the M-th order extended quantum coding method. Here we discuss the former. The results proved that it has sufficient information-theoretic security against known plaintext attack on key in comparison with quantum data locking. The latter method will be reported in Part II.
This paper surveys a new way for research of quantum cryptography. The conventional cipher is designed by a mathematical algorithm and its security is evaluated by the complexity of the algorithm for the cryptanalysis and ability of computers. This kind of cipher cannot exceed the Shannon limit of cryptography, and it can be decrypted with probability one in principle by trying all the possible keys against the data length equal to the secret key length. A cipher based on quantum effect so called physical cipher may exceed the Shannon limit of the cryptography. The quantum stream cipher by �/� or Yuen-2000 protocol (Y- 00) which operates at Gbit/sec is a typical example of such a cipher, and may exceed the Shannon limit. In this paper, we show an existence of cipher which exceeds the Shannon limit, and discuss practical realization methods for them. First, the conditions to exceed the Shannon limit are summarized. Then we discuss the generalized secret capacity of the wiretap channel model supported by a secret key to discuss an existence of cipher exceeding the Shannon limit. The generalized secret capacities for space communication and fiber communication are given. In gen- eral, one needs quantum optimum receiver to realize such capacity. But when bandwidth limitation of users is deleted or the eavesdropper has a device limit, a cipher scheme exceeding the Shannon limit may be realized merely by the conventional optical communication devices which are affected by quantum noise at optical signal measurement.
The rapid development of the digital era and the increasing demands of information technologies create a need to create more reliable, secure and efficient communication systems. In this context, quantum signals represent a technology of the future that responds to the challenges that classical signal systems can no longer cope with — for example, the highest level of information security, accuracy and transmission speed. The use of quantum entanglement, superposition and correlations makes it possible to protect and process information at the highest level. Accordingly, the implementation of quantum signals is critically important for areas such as quantum communication, secure cyberinfrastructure, high-tech sensors and quantum computing systems. The paper reviews the role of quantum signals in modern technologies and their potential in the near future. Quantum signal theory combines the principles of quantum physics, information theory and signal processing. These features provide the highest accuracy in information transmission and processing, which is especially important in the development of quantum communication, quantum radars, and quantum sensors. This paper reviews the theoretical foundations of quantum signals, basic models, and their potential applications in modern technologies.
Shannon's perfect-secrecy theorem states that a perfect encryption system that yields zero information to the adversary must be a one-time pad (OTP) with the keys randomly generated and never reused. In this work we design the first encryption method (classical or quantum) that overcomes Shannon's theorem to achieve perfect secrecy with reusable keys. Because the mechanisms used are fundamentally quantum, Shannon's theorem remains true in the classical regime. Consequently, the quantum encryption design demonstrates decisive quantum advantage by achieving a goal impossible for classical systems. Finally, the design has major practical advantages by not requiring authentication and having silent tampering detection.
Born about a century ago, Quantum Mechanics has revolutionized the description and the interpretation of Physics at sub-microscopic level. In the last decades, due to the influence of mathematical and engineering research fields, Quantum Mechanics has given birth to related research areas like Quantum Computation, Quantum Information and Quantum Communication. With the discovery of the laser, and later the development of fiber optics and satellite networks, Quantum Communication and Quantum Optics seems to have a natural field of application in Communication Systems. Despite this, the interest in this technology and studies for communication purpose has been overshadowed by the great results in communication networks achieved in the last decades with classical paradigms. However, due to the increasing demand of communication data rate, system designers are now looking at Quantum Mechanics for new and more performanting solutions in communication purposes. Early theoretical studies on Quantum Discrimination Theory and Quantum Information predict better performance for Communication Systems that take advantage of the quantum laws. In addition, Quantum Mechanics provides the deepest description of the physical phenomena, and there are scenarios where a quantum model fits best, as in in deep space communications, where the received signal is really weak, or in a satellite networks, where we are interested in strongly reducing the power of transmitted signals, possibly without sacrificing performance significantly. However, if on one side Quantum Communication Theory promises great gains in the performance of communication systems, on the other hand it fails to describe how to implement physical devices that reach these ultimate limits. So far, only a few architectures achieving these performances are known, and only for simple modulation formats. We are interested in the scenario of optical communications, where the message transmitted is encoded in a sequence of coherent states. Transmitter devices for coherent modulation are well known and consist in laser pulse generators. Instead, receiver implementations working at the quantum limit performance limit are yet to be found. In this Thesis I deal with different topics in the quantum transmission scenario. First, I review existing classical (suboptimal) and quantum (suboptimal and optimal) receiver schemes for the binary coherent modulation. I present a new formulation of the optimal scheme known as Dolinar Receiver with the multiple copies problem, focusing on the information gained during the measurement. Second, I analyze the binary communication in a noisy environment, studying the error probability and the capacity of the binary channel induced. Given the description of the quantum channel, I optimize both the transmitted quantum states and the measurement operators employed in the communication. Third, I consider the Pulse Position Modulation, that is particularly suitable for space and satellite communication due to its simplicity of implementation and high capacity. I review some known suboptimal receivers, and I propose a receiver scheme which approaches the limit performance predicted with quantum theory outperforming the existing schemes. To sum up the results of this Thesis, in order to approach the limit performance predicted by Quantum Mechanics, an optimization is always necessary to exceed the classical effects and trigger the quantum phenomena. In particular, the information gained during the measurement plays an important role, for example in the definition of adaptive receivers. In this Thesis both these aspects have been deeply investigated.