Energy requirements for quantum data compression and 1-1 coding

Abstract

By looking at quantum data compression in the second quantization, we present a model for the efficient generation and use of variable length codes. In this picture, lossless data compression can be seen as the minimum energy required to faithfully represent or transmit classical information contained within a quantum state. In order to represent information, we create quanta in some predefined modes (i.e., frequencies) prepared in one of the two possible internal states (the information carrying degrees of freedom). Data compression is now seen as the selective annihilation of these quanta, the energy of which is effectively dissipated into the environment. As any increase in the energy of the environment is intricately linked to any information loss and is subject to Landauer's erasure principle, we use this principle to distinguish lossless and lossy schemes and to suggest bounds on the efficiency of our lossless compression protocol. In line with the work of Bostroem and Felbinger [Phys. Rev. A 65, 032313 (2002)], we also show that when using variable length codes the classical notions of prefix or uniquely decipherable codes are unnecessarily restrictive given the structure of quantum mechanics and that a 1-1 mapping is sufficient. In the absence of this restraint, we translate existing classical results on 1-1 coding to the quantum domain to derive a new upper bound on the compression of quantum information. Finally, we present a simple quantum circuit to implement our scheme.