We discussed the major noiseless quantum communication protocols such as teleportation, super-dense coding, their coherent versions, and entanglement distribution in detail in Chapters 6, 7,and 8. Each of these protocols relies on the assumption that noiseless resources are available. For example, the entanglement distribution protocol assumes that a noiseless qubit channel is available to generate a noiseless ebit. This idealization allowed us to develop the main principles of the protocols without having to think about more complicated issues, but in practice, the protocols do not work as expected under the presence of noise. Given that quantum systems suffer noise in practice, we would like to have a way to determine how well a protocol is performing. The simplest way to do so is to compare the output of an ideal protocol to the output of the actual protocol using a distance measure of the two respective output quantum states. That is, suppose that a quantum information-processing protocol should ideally output some quantum state ∣ψ⟩, but the actual output of the protocol is a quantum state with density operator ρ. Then a performance measure P (∣ψ⟩,ρ) should indicate how close the ideal output is to the actual output. Figure 9.1 depicts the comparison of an ideal protocol with another protocol that is noisy. This chapter introduces two distance measures that allow us to determine how close two quantum states are to each other.
We discussed the major noiseless quantum communication protocols such as teleportation, super-dense coding, their coherent versions, and entanglement distribution in detail in Chapters 6, 7,and 8. Each of these protocols relies on the assumption that noiseless resources are available. For example, the entanglement distribution protocol assumes that a noiseless qubit channel is available to generate a noiseless ebit. This idealization allowed us to develop the main principles of the protocols without having to think about more complicated issues, but in practice, the protocols do not work as expected under the presence of noise. Given that quantum systems suffer noise in practice, we would like to have a way to determine how well a protocol is performing. The simplest way to do so is to compare the output of an ideal protocol to the output of the actual protocol using a distance measure of the two respective output quantum states. That is, suppose that a quantum information-processing protocol should ideally output some quantum state ∣ψ⟩, but the actual output of the protocol is a quantum state with density operator ρ. Then a performance measure P (∣ψ⟩,ρ) should indicate how close the ideal output is to the actual output. Figure 9.1 depicts the comparison of an ideal protocol with another protocol that is noisy. This chapter introduces two distance measures that allow us to determine how close two quantum states are to each other.
This chapter demonstrates the power of both coherent communication from Chapter 7 and the particular protocol for entanglement-assisted classical coding from the previous chapter. Recall that coherent dense coding is a version of the dense coding protocol in which the sender and receiver perform all of its steps coherently.1 Since our protocol for entanglement-assisted classical coding from the previous chapter is really just a glorified dense coding protocol, the sender and receiver can perform each of its steps coherently, generating a protocol for entanglement-assisted coherent coding. Then, by exploiting the fact that two coherent bits are equivalent to a qubit and an ebit, we obtain a protocol for entanglement-assisted quantum coding that consumes far less entanglement than a naive strategy would in order to accomplish this task. We next combine this entanglement-assisted quantum coding protocol with entanglement distribution (Section 6.2.1) and obtain a protocol for quantum communication at a rate equal to the channel's coherent information (Section 13.5). This sequence of steps demonstrates an alternate proof of the direct part of the quantum capacity theorem stated in Chapter 24. Entanglement-assisted classical communication is one generalization of superdense coding, in which the noiseless qubit channel becomes an arbitrary noisy quantum channel while the noiseless ebits remain noiseless. Another generalization of super-dense coding is a protocol named noisy super-dense coding , in which the shared entanglement becomes a shared noisy state ρ AB and the noiseless qubit channels remain noiseless. Interestingly, the protocol that we employ in this chapter for noisy super-dense coding is essentially equivalent to the protocol from the previous chapter for entanglement-assisted classical communication, with some slight modifications to account for the different setting. We can also construct a coherent version of noisy super-dense coding, leading to a protocol that we name coherent state transfer . Coherent state transfer accomplishes not only the task of generating coherent communication between Alice and Bob, but it also allows Alice to transfer her share of the state ρ AB to Bob.
This chapter demonstrates the power of both coherent communication from Chapter 7 and the particular protocol for entanglement-assisted classical coding from the previous chapter. Recall that coherent dense coding is a version of the dense coding protocol in which the sender and receiver perform all of its steps coherently. Since our protocol for entanglement-assisted classical coding from the previous chapter is really just a glorified dense coding protocol, the sender and receiver can perform each of its steps coherently, generating a protocol for entanglement-assisted coherent coding. Then, by exploiting the fact that two coherent bits are equivalent to a qubit and an ebit, we obtain a protocol for entanglement-assisted quantum coding that consumes far less entanglement than a naive strategy would in order to accomplish this task. We next combine this entanglement-assisted quantum coding protocol with entanglement distribution (Section 6.2.1) and obtain a protocol for which the channel's coherent information (Section 12.5) is an achievable rate for quantum communication. This sequence of steps demonstrates an alternate proof of the direct part of the quantum channel coding theorem stated in Chapter 23. Entanglement-assisted classical communication is one generalization of superdense coding, in which the noiseless qubit channel becomes an arbitrary noisy quantum channel while the noiseless ebits remain noiseless. Another generalization of super-dense coding is a protocol named noisy super-dense coding , in which the shared entanglement becomes a shared noisy state ρ AB and the noiseless qubit channels remain noiseless.
This chapter begins our first exciting application of the postulates of the quantum theory to quantum communication. We study the fundamental, unit quantum communication protocols. These protocols involve a single sender Alice and a single receiver Bob. The protocols are ideal and noiseless because we assume that Alice and Bob can exploit perfect classical communication, perfect quantum communication, and perfect entanglement. At the end of this chapter, we suggest how to incorporate imperfections into these protocols for later study. Alice and Bob may wish to perform one of several quantum informationprocessing tasks, such as the transmission of classical information, quantum information, or entanglement. Several fundamental protocols make use of these resources: 1. We will see that noiseless entanglement is an important resource in quantum Shannon theory because it enables Alice and Bob to perform other protocols that are not possible with classical resources only. We will present a simple, idealized protocol for generating entanglement, named entanglement distribution . 2. Alice may wish to communicate classical information to Bob. A trivial method, named elementary coding , is a simple way of doing so and we discuss it briefly. 3. A more interesting technique for transmitting classical information is superdense coding . It exploits a noiseless qubit channel and shared entanglement to transmit more classical information than would be possible with a noiseless qubit channel alone. 4. Finally, Alice may wish to transmit quantum information to Bob. A trivial method for her to do so is to exploit a noiseless qubit channel. However, it is useful to have other ways for transmitting quantum information because such a resource is difficult to engineer in practice. An alternative, surprising method for transmitting quantum information is quantum teleportation . The teleportation protocol exploits classical communication and shared entanglement to transmit quantum information. Each of these protocols is a fundamental unit protocol and provides a foundation for asking further questions in quantum Shannon theory. In fact, the discovery of these latter two protocols was the stimulus for much of the original research in quantum Shannon theory. One could take each of these protocols and ask about its performance if one or more of the resources involved is noisy rather than noiseless. Later chapters of this book explore many of these possibilities.
The main focus of this thesis is quantum entanglement and, more specifically, pro- tocols that allow its distribution between distant places. In the last decades, with the rise of attention on quantum technologies, entangle- ment is mostly seen as a resource, that could be exchanged, measured, and ideally stored and used when convenient. However, entanglement is not as stable and cheap as the classical resources. One reason for this is that entanglement between two quantum systems is easily disrupted by the interaction with the environment that surrounds them. The presence of noise is even more significant when we wish to entangle two systems that are very far away, a task that is essential for quantum communication technologies. In this case, what can disrupt the entanglement is not only the noise that the particles experience locally, but also the noise in the quantum channel during the communication process, which can be significant over long distances. For this reason, it is important to design distribution protocols that work well in such conditions. In 2003, Cubitt et al. showed the existence of a very curious class of protocols, often called entanglement distribution with separable states (EDSS). They proved that a non-entangled (separable) carrier can be used to increase, or even gener- ate entanglement between two already distant parties. From this, some questions arise. First, what limits or allows an entanglement distribution protocol, if not the entanglement that is sent. Quantum discord was shown to be a necessary, but not sufficient, resource for entanglement distribution. Another natural question is whether these protocols can beat others, for technological purposes, especially in noisy conditions. I will describe some work I have done in an attempt to partially 9 address both of these questions. After introducing various tools and concepts that are useful to understand this topic (chapter 1) and motivate the necessity of entanglement distribution in quantum communication (chapter 2), I will describe a proof-of-principle experiment demon- strating EDSS schemes (chapter 3). Later (chapter 4), I will introduce a more general classification of distribution protocols (excessive or non-excessive protocols), based on whether the entanglement gain is larger than the one that is communicated, describing specific examples and general properties of such protocols. I will then partially address the problem regarding the robustness to the noise of communica- tion protocols (chapter 5). Finally, in chapter 6, I will describe how entanglement of a bipartite state can grow with a quantum measurement with unknown results. I discuss the properties of the measurement and of the initial state that make this process effective.
This chapter begins our first exciting application of the postulates of the quantum theory to quantum communication. We study the fundamental, unit quantum communication protocols. These protocols involve a single sender, whom we name Alice, and a single receiver, whom we name Bob. The protocols are ideal and noiseless because we assume that Alice and Bob can exploit perfect classical communication, perfect quantum communication, and perfect entanglement. At the end of this chapter, we suggest how to incorporate imperfections into these protocols for later study. Alice and Bob may wish to perform one of several quantum information-processing tasks, such as the transmission of classical information, quantum information, or entanglement. Several fundamental protocols make use of these resources: 1. We will see that noiseless entanglement is an important resource in quantum Shannon theory because it enables Alice and Bob to perform other protocols that are not possible with classical resources only. We will present a simple, idealized protocol for generating entanglement, named entanglement distribution . 2. Alice may wish to communicate classical information to Bob. A trivial method, named elementary coding , is a simple way for doing so and we discuss it briefly. 3. A more interesting technique for transmitting classical information is superdense coding . It exploits a noiseless qubit channel and shared entanglement to transmit more classical information than would be possible with a noiseless qubit channel alone. […]
We look at the problem of communication of states of a finite level quantum system through a channel disturbed by noise. Such a quantum system is described by a finite dimensional complex Hilbert space ℋ H and its states are density operators, in other words, positive hermitian operators of unit trace. We assume that any such state ρ, when transmitted through the channel K K under consideration is received as an output state ρ′ of the form (5.1.1) ρ'= ∑ j N j ρ N j † T r ρ ∑ j N j † N j , N j ∈N ρ′=Trρ∑jNj†Nj∑jNjρNj†,Nj∈N where N1, N N 2,… is an arbitrary finite subset of operators in a subspace N N of ℬ B ( ℋ H ), the algebra of all operators in ℋ H . We shall assume that the noise is moderate in the sense that the dimension of N N is ‘small’ relative to the dimension of ℬ B ( ℋ H ). We call N N the noise space of the channel K K and any element of K K a noise or error operator. If |ψ〉 ∈ ℋ H is a unit vector and ρ = |ψ〉 〈ψ|, the corresponding pure state density operator then the output state ρ′ of (5.1.1) assumes the form (5.1.2) ρ'= ∑ j N j 〈ψ|〈ψ| N j † ∑ j ‖ N j ψ ‖ 2 . ρ′=∑jNjψ2∑jNj⟨ψ∣⟨ψ∣Nj†. It is to be noted that this output state need not be pure. If the same input state ρ is transmitted repeatedly the noise operators {N j } in (5.1.1) can differ for different transmissions and the output states can be different. However, the noise operators come from the same noise space N N .