Capacities of quantum channels and how to find them

David Elkouss, Sergii Strelchuk

The capacity of classical channels is convex. This is not the case for the quantum capacity of a channel: The capacity of a mixture of different quantum channels exceeds the mixture of the individual capacities and thus is nonconvex. Here we show that this effect goes beyond the quantum capacity and holds for the private and classical environment-assisted capacities of quantum channels.

Masanori Ohya, Dėnes Petz, Noboru Watanabe

László Gyöngyösi, Sándor Imre

One of the most surprising recent results in quantum Shannon theory is the superactivation of the quantum capacity of a quantum channel. This phenomenon has its roots in the extreme violation of additivity of the channel capacity and enables reliable transmission of quantum information over zero-capacity quantum channels. In this work we demonstrate a similar effect for the classical capacity of a quantum channel which previously was thought to be impossible. We show that a nonzero classical capacity can be achieved for all zero-capacity quantum channels and it only requires the assistance of an elementary photon–atom interaction process – stimulated emission.

John Watrous

Jeong-Hoon Park, Jun Heo

Channel capacities of quantum channels can be nonadditive even if one of two quantum channels has no channel capacity. We call this phenomenon activation of the channel capacity. In this paper, we show that when we use a quantum channel on a qubit system, only a noiseless qubit channel can generate the activation of the zero-error classical capacity. In particular, we show that the zero-error classical capacity of two quantum channels on qubit systems cannot be activated. Furthermore, we present a class of examples showing the activation of the zero-error classical capacity in low-dimensional systems.

Elloá B. Guedes, Francisco de Assis, Rex A. C. Medeiros