The novel ways in which correlations may be encoded non-locally in quantum mechanics have led to the promise of new technologies. This, in turn, has led to the first attempts at the development of quantum networks. Nonetheless, our understanding of quantum correlations and the limits of how we may process them over a quantum network remains nascent. This thesis studies the limits of processing quantum correlations between spatially separated parties in various settings and the mathematical tools necessary to determine such limits. To do so, this thesis studies three general problems in quantum network theory. The first problem is the minimum resources to prepare a quantum correlation between non-communicative receivers, which may be viewed as a star network. This study is separated into three pieces. The first piece is a near-tight one-shot quantum generalization of a problem introduced by Wyner, distributed source simulation. Establishing our one-shot bounds builds on recent work on soft-covering without smoothing and relies on establishing a variety of properties for one-shot entropic quantities, as well as improving our understanding of the smooth entropy framework in quantum network information theory. As distributed source simulation cannot be achieved to arbitrary error for sufficiently entangled states, the second piece characterizes the minimal error of converting one entangled state to another using zero communication. This relies on establishing new properties of the fidelity measure. The third piece establishes an entanglement-assisted version of the distributed source simulation task that can be achieved to arbitrary error for arbitrary quantum systems. This result builds on recent work on multipartite state splitting and establishing new properties of one-shot multipartite max mutual information quantities. The second problem is the extraction of perfect classical correlation from a multipartite quantum source where the receivers do not communicate. This may be seen as the reverse process of distributed source simulation. We establish that this is asymptotically possible in quantum mechanics for the first time and establish the asymptotic rate for classical-quantum states. The technical barrier in establishing the asymptotic rate is establishing a limit on how much noiseless correlation can be extracted without communication. Our major technical contribution is establishing such a limit by generalizing a technical lemma of Gács and Körner to classical-quantum states. The final problem is distributed state discrimination of quantum product states. This is motivated by its relevance to both understanding non-locality in quantum mechanics and developing quantum cryptographic schemes. Our study again breaks into three key pieces. First, we study the framework of local operations and simultaneous classical or quantum communication (LOSCC and LOSQC respectively) for product states, which is relevant to quantum cryptography. We establish the first separation between quantum and classical communication in the simultaneous communication model using only product state inputs. We also establish a new uncertainty relation that implies error bounds for discriminating product states using LOSQC. Second, we study state discrimination under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We develop a new framework for zero-error state discrimination under LOCC. Our framework provides a simple proof of orthogonal product states that cannot be distinguished using LOCC--- a property introduced by Bennett et al. Finally, we study the thermodynamics of zero-error distributed state discrimination in the framework of Faist et al. This allows us to resolve an open problem from the aforementioned paper of Bennett et al.
The novel ways in which correlations may be encoded non-locally in quantum mechanics have led to the promise of new technologies. This, in turn, has led to the first attempts at the development of quantum networks. Nonetheless, our understanding of quantum correlations and the limits of how we may process them over a quantum network remains nascent. This thesis studies the limits of processing quantum correlations between spatially separated parties in various settings and the mathematical tools necessary to determine such limits. To do so, this thesis studies three general problems in quantum network theory. The first problem is the minimum resources to prepare a quantum correlation between non-communicative receivers, which may be viewed as a star network. This study is separated into three pieces. The first piece is a near-tight one-shot quantum generalization of a problem introduced by Wyner, distributed source simulation. Establishing our one-shot bounds builds on recent work on soft-covering without smoothing and relies on establishing a variety of properties for one-shot entropic quantities, as well as improving our understanding of the smooth entropy framework in quantum network information theory. As distributed source simulation cannot be achieved to arbitrary error for sufficiently entangled states, the second piece characterizes the minimal error of converting one entangled state to another using zero communication. This relies on establishing new properties of the fidelity measure. The third piece establishes an entanglement-assisted version of the distributed source simulation task that can be achieved to arbitrary error for arbitrary quantum systems. This result builds on recent work on multipartite state splitting and establishing new properties of one-shot multipartite max mutual information quantities. The second problem is the extraction of perfect classical correlation from a multipartite quantum source where the receivers do not communicate. This may be seen as the reverse process of distributed source simulation. We establish that this is asymptotically possible in quantum mechanics for the first time and establish the asymptotic rate for classical-quantum states. The technical barrier in establishing the asymptotic rate is establishing a limit on how much noiseless correlation can be extracted without communication. Our major technical contribution is establishing such a limit by generalizing a technical lemma of Gács and Körner to classical-quantum states. The final problem is distributed state discrimination of quantum product states. This is motivated by its relevance to both understanding non-locality in quantum mechanics and developing quantum cryptographic schemes. Our study again breaks into three key pieces. First, we study the framework of local operations and simultaneous classical or quantum communication (LOSCC and LOSQC respectively) for product states, which is relevant to quantum cryptography. We establish the first separation between quantum and classical communication in the simultaneous communication model using only product state inputs. We also establish a new uncertainty relation that implies error bounds for discriminating product states using LOSQC. Second, we study state discrimination under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We develop a new framework for zero-error state discrimination under LOCC. Our framework provides a simple proof of orthogonal product states that cannot be distinguished using LOCC--- a property introduced by Bennett et al. Finally, we study the thermodynamics of zero-error distributed state discrimination in the framework of Faist et al. This allows us to resolve an open problem from the aforementioned paper of Bennett et al.
Distributed source simulation is the task where two (or more) parties share some correlated randomness and use local operations and no communication to convert this into some target correlation. Wyner’s seminal result showed that asymptotically the rate of uniform shared randomness needed for this task is given by a mutual information induced measure, now referred to as Wyner’s common information. This asymptotic result was extended by Hayashi in the quantum setting to separable states, the largest class of states for which this task can be performed to vanishing error. In this work we characterize this task in a near-tight manner in the one-shot setting using the smooth entropy framework. We do this by introducing one-shot operational quantities and correlation measures that characterize them. We establish asymptotic equipartition properties for our correlation measures thereby recovering the previous vanishing-error asymptotic results. In doing so, we consider technical points in one-shot network information theory and provide methods for cardinality bounds in the smooth entropy calculus. We also introduce entangled state versions of the distributed source simulation task and determine bounds in this setting via quantum embezzling. This provides a strong characterization of this network task in the one-shot, quantum regime.
Distributed source simulation is the task where two (or more) parties share some correlated randomness and use local operations and no communication to convert this into some target correlation. Wyner’s seminal result showed that asymptotically the rate of uniform shared randomness needed for this task is given by a mutual information induced measure, now referred to as Wyner’s common information. In this work we characterize the quantum version of this task in the one-shot setting using the smooth entropy framework and one-shot operational quantities. We further establish asymptotic equipartition properties for our correlation measures. We also introduce entanglement versions of the distributed source simulation task and determine bounds in this setting via quantum embezzling.
Quantum algorithms require quantum computers performing logical operations on a sufficiently large number of entangled qubits. Unfortunately, state-of-the-art quantum computers can only operate on tens of qubits. A solution to this scalability challenge is to employ the distributed paradigm, where a network of small-scale quantum computers are used in a distributed manner. It is the aim of my work to study the fundamental limits of distributed quantum problems and to further enhance their performance by exploiting the structure inherent to these problems employing asymptotically good Algebraic codes. This thesis consists of two parts. The first part studies the task of faithfully simulating a distributed quantum measurement, wherein we provide a protocol for the three parties, Alice, Bob and {Charlie}, to simulate a repeated action of a distributed quantum measurement using a pair of non-product approximating measurements by Alice and Bob, followed by a stochastic mapping at {Charlie}. The objective of the protocol is to utilize minimum resources, in terms of classical bits needed by Alice and Bob to communicate their measurement outcomes to {Charlie}, and the common randomness shared among the three parties, while faithfully simulating independent repeated instances of the original measurement. We characterize a set of sufficient communication and common randomness rates required for asymptotic simulatability in terms of single-letter quantum information quantities. We further improve the results obtained in the above by exploiting the structure present in the Charlie's stochastic bivariate mapping using random structured POVMs based on asymptotically good algebraic codes. The algebraic structure of these codes is matched to that of the bivariate function that models the action of Charlie. This leads to the computation being performed on the fly, thus obviating the need to reconstruct individual measurement outcomes at Charlie. We provide examples to illustrate the information-theoretic gains attained by endowing POVMs with algebraic structure. As an application of the distributed measurement compression problem, we also demonstrate a multi-party purity distillation protocol. Concluding this part, we consider the lossy quantum source coding problem where the objective is to compress a given quantum source below its von Neumann entropy. Inspired by the duality connections between the rate-distortion and channel coding problems in the classical setting, we propose a new formulation for the lossy quantum source coding problem. We require that the reconstruction of the compressed quantum source fulfill a global error constraint and employ the notion of a ``posterior reference map'' to measure the reconstruction error. Using these, we characterize the asymptotic performance limit of this problem in terms of single-letter coherent information of the given posterior reference map. In the second part of this thesis, we study the advantage algebraic structured codes can provide, to the class of the classical-quantum network problems. In particular, we investigate two problems. Firstly, we consider the problem of communicating a general bivariate function of two classical sources observed at the encoders of a classical-quantum multiple access channel. We propose and analyze a coding scheme based on algebraic structured coset codes that enables the decoder to recover the desired function without recovering the sources themselves. We derive a new set of sufficient conditions that are weaker than the current known for identified examples. In addition, we analyze the performance of these algebraic codes toward studying the capacity of a special class of 3-user classical-quantum interference channel.
Distributed quantum information processing is a promising platform for scaling up quantum information processing, where small- and intermediate-scale quantum devices are connected by a network of quantum channels for communicating quantum information, so as to cooperate in achieving larger-scale information processing. In such distributed settings, entangled states shared among the multiple devices serve as a resource for achieving nonlocal information processing tasks by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), where transformations of multipartite entangled states play central roles. This thesis analyzes properties of quantum entanglement in these small- and intermediate-scale settings and multipartite settings. The first part of this thesis investigates a communication task, quantum state merging, on the small and intermediate scales. The second part of this thesis analyzes multipartite entanglement in distributed quantum information processing. These analyses clarify fundamental limitations and potential applications of distributed quantum information processing to characterize properties of quantum entanglement in the small- and intermediate-scale settings and multipartite settings, providing a paradigm for investigating multipartite entanglement in distributed quantum information processing over networks beyond the state convertibility under LOCC.
Free classical communication can yield an unbounded single-shot saving in quantum compression, even though it leaves the asymptotic rate of an i.i.d. source unchanged. At every fixed error in (0,1), we exhibit sources whose unassisted compression cost is arbitrarily large, yet a single qubit suffices with classical communication and no preshared entanglement. We establish this separation by determining the exact optimal source fidelity for compression through an m-dimensional noiseless quantum channel, with and without free classical communication, while preserving correlations with an inaccessible reference. Without classical assistance, the optimal fidelity is exactly the Ky Fan norm ∥ρ∥(m), the sum of the m largest eigenvalues of the source state. With classical assistance, we obtain an explicit spectral threshold formula and a protocol attaining it. Classical communication strictly improves fidelity whenever m is smaller than the source rank. The corresponding compression costs are two smoothed versions of the log-rank entropy, also called max-entropy: trace-distance smoothing under local operations and quadratic smoothing under LOCC. For i.i.d. copies of a fixed source with positive entropy variance, however, the two costs have identical first-, second-, and third-order asymptotic terms. For nonlattice spectra, we determine the constant-order advantage: classical communication saves log2(e)−1 bits per block asymptotically, and the ratio of assisted to unassisted minimum communication dimensions converges to 2/e.
Recently, Cheng et al generalized quantum state splitting (QSS) to the multipartite setting for applications in quantum network information theory. Furthermore, Cheng and Gao recently noted that unipartite convex splitting reduces to soft covering for classical-quantum states. Soft covering is a common primitive in (classical, network) information theory that does not seem to need an extension to the multipartite setting, e.g. when establishing rates for many party distributed source simulation (DSS). This suggests a gap in our understanding of how these tasks are related. In this work we clarify this relation. We first identify “incoherent” QSS without entanglement assistance with DSS in the bipartite setting. Motivated by this, we identify “coherent” DSS as a special case of multipartite QSS. We then establish a one-shot rate region for multipartite QSS in terms of smooth multipartite mutual information quantities, which in turn implies a one-shot rate region for coherent DSS. Lastly, we establish a strong asymptotic equipartition property for mutual information quantities to establish a strong converse rate region for multipartite QSS and coherent DSS.