The Capacity of a Quantum Channel for Simultaneous Transmission of Classical and Quantum Information

An expression is derived characterizing the set of admissible rate pairs for simultaneous transmission of classical and quantum information over a given quantum channel, generalizing both the classical and quantum capacities of the channel. Although our formula involves regularization, i.e. taking a limit over many copies of the channel, it reduces to a single-letter expression in the case of generalized dephasing channels. Analogous formulas are conjectured for the simultaneous public-private capacity of a quantum channel and for the simultaneously 1-way distillable common randomness and entanglement of a bipartite quantum state.     

Entanglement can completely defeat quantum noise

We describe two quantum channels that individually cannot send any classical information without some chance of decoding error. But together a single use of each channel can send quantum information perfectly reliably. This proves that the zero-error classical capacity exhibits superactivation, the extreme form of the superadditivity phenomenon in which entangled inputs allow communication over zero-capacity channels. But our result is stronger still, as it even allows zero-error quantum communication when the two channels are combined. Thus our result shows a new remarkable way in which entanglement across two systems can be used to resist noise, in this case perfectly. We also show a new form of superactivation by entanglement shared between sender and receiver.     

Entanglement Transmission and Generation under Channel Uncertainty: Universal Quantum Channel Coding

We determine the optimal rates of universal quantum codes for entanglement transmission and generation under channel uncertainty. In the simplest scenario the sender and receiver are provided merely with the information that the channel they use belongs to a given set of channels, so that they are forced to use quantum codes that are reliable for the whole set of channels. This is precisely the quantum analog of the compound channel coding problem. We determine the entanglement transmission and entanglement-generating capacities of compound quantum channels and show that they are equal. Moreover, we investigate two variants of that basic scenario, namely the cases of informed decoder or informed encoder, and derive corresponding capacity results.     

Continuity of Quantum Channel Capacities

We prove that a broad array of capacities of a quantum channel are continuous. That is, two channels that are close with respect to the diamond norm have correspondingly similar communication capabilities. We first show that the classical capacity, quantum capacity, and private classical capacity are continuous, with the variation on arguments e{\varepsilon} apart bounded by a simple function of e{\varepsilon} and the channel’s output dimension. Our main tool is an upper bound of the variation of output entropies of many copies of two nearby channels given the same initial state; the bound is linear in the number of copies. Our second proof is concerned with the quantum capacities in the presence of free backward or two-way public classical communication. These capacities are proved continuous on the interior of the set of non-zero capacity channels by considering mutual simulation between similar channels.     

Entanglement can Increase Asymptotic Rates of Zero-Error Classical Communication over Classical Channels

It is known that the number of different classical messages which can be communicated with a single use of a classical channel with zero probability of decoding error can sometimes be increased by using entanglement shared between sender and receiver. It has been an open question to determine whether entanglement can ever increase the zero-error communication rates achievable in the limit of many channel uses. In this paper we show, by explicit examples, that entanglement can indeed increase asymptotic zero-error capacity, even to the extent that it is equal to the normal capacity of the channel.     

The Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem Based on One-Shot Information Theory

The Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem states that any quantum channel can be simulated by an unlimited amount of shared entanglement and an amount of classical communication equal to the channel’s entanglement assisted classical capacity. In this paper, we provide a new proof of this theorem, which has previously been proved by Bennett, Devetak, Harrow, Shor, and Winter. Our proof has a clear structure being based on two recent information-theoretic results: one-shot Quantum State Merging and the Post-Selection Technique for quantum channels.     

Quantum secure direct communication by entangled qutrits and entanglement swapping

A protocol for quantum secure direct communication by using entangled qutrits and swapping quantum entanglement is proposed. In this protocol, a set of ordered two-qutrit entangled states is used as quantum information channels for sending secret messages directly. During the process of transmission of particles, the transmitted particles do not carry any secret messages and are transmitted only one time. The protocol has higher source capacity than protocols using usual two-dimensional Bell-basis states as quantum channel. The security is ensured by the unitary operations randomly performed on all checking groups before the particle sequence is transmitted and the application of entanglement swapping.     

Quantum Correlations Evolution Asymmetry in Quantum Channels

It was demonstrated that the entanglement evolution of a specially designed quantum state in the bistochastic channel is asymmetric. In this work, we generalize the study of the quantum correlations, including entanglement and quantum discord, evolution asymmetry to various quantum channels. We found that the asymmetry of entanglement and quantum discord only occurs in some special quantum channels, and the behavior of the entanglement evolution may be quite different from the behavior of the quantum discord evolution. To quantum entanglement, in some channels it decreases monotonously with the increase of the quantum channel intensity. In some other channels, when we increase the intensity of the quantum channel, it decreases at first, then keeps zero for some time, and then rises up. To quantum discord, the evolution becomes more complex and you may find that it evolutes unsmoothly at some points. These results illustrate the strong dependence of the quantum correlations evolution on the property of the quantum channels.     

Equivalence of Additivity Questions in Quantum Information Theory

We reduce the number of open additivity problems in quantum information theory by showing that four of them are equivalent. Namely, we show that the conjectures of additivity of the minimum output entropy of a quantum channel, additivity of the Holevo expression for the classical capacity of a quantum channel, additivity of the entanglement of formation, and strong superadditivity of the entanglement of formation, are either all true or all false.An erratum to this article can be found at     

Quantum one-time pad in the presence of an eavesdropper

A classical one-time pad allows two parties to send private messages over a public classical channel-an eavesdropper who intercepts the communication learns nothing about the message. A quantum one-time pad is a shared quantum state which allows two parties to send private messages or private quantum states over a public quantum channel. If the eavesdropper intercepts the quantum communication she learns nothing about the message. In the classical case, a one-time pad can be created using shared and partially private correlations. Here we consider the quantum case in the presence of an eavesdropper, and find the single-letter formula for the rate at which the two parties can send messages using a general quantum state as a quantum one-time pad. Surprisingly, the formula coincides with the distillable entanglement assisted by a symmetric channel, an important quantity in quantum information theory, but which lacked a clear operational meaning.     

Quantum error rejection for faithful quantum communication over noise channels

Quantum state transmission is a prerequisite for various quantum communication networks. The channel noise inevitably introduces distortion of quantum states passing through either a free-space channel or a fibre channel, which leads to errors or decreases the security of a practical quantum communication network. Quantum error rejection is a useful technology to faithfully transmit quantum states over large-scale quantum channels. It provides the communication parties with an uncorrupted quantum state by rejecting error states. Usually, additional photons or degrees of freedom are required to overcome the adverse effects of channel noise. As quantum error rejection method consumes less quantum resource than other anti-noise methods, it is more convenient to perform error-rejection quantum state transmission with current technology. In this review, several typical quantum errorrejection schemes for single-photon state transmission are introduced in brief and some error-rejection schemes for entanglement distribution are also briefly presented.     

Quantum Communication Complexity

Can quantum communication be more efficient than its classical counterpart? Holevo's theorem rules out the possibility of communicating more than n bits of classical information by the transmission of n quantum bits—unless the two parties are entangled, in which case twice as many classical bits can be communicated but no more. In apparent contradiction, there are distributed computational tasks for which quantum communication cannot be simulated efficiently by classical means. In some cases, the effect of transmitting quantum bits cannot be achieved classically short of transmitting an exponentially larger number of bits. In a similar vein, can entanglement be used to save on classical communication? It is well known that entanglement on its own is useless for the transmission of information. Yet, there are distributed tasks that cannot be accomplished at all in a classical world when communication is not allowed, but that become possible if the non-communicating parties share prior entanglement. This leads to the question of how expensive it is, in terms of classical communication, to provide an exact simulation of the spooky power of entanglement.     

Fault-tolerant Remote Quantum Entanglement Establishment for Secure Quantum Communications

This work presents a strategy for constructing long-distance quantum communications among a number of remote users through collective-noise channel. With the assistance of semi-honest quantum certificate authorities (QCAs), the remote users can share a secret key through fault-tolerant entanglement swapping. The proposed protocol is feasible for large-scale distributed quantum networks with numerous users. Each pair of communicating parties only needs to establish the quantum channels and the classical authenticated channels with his/her local QCA. Thus, it enables any user to communicate freely without point-to-point pre-establishing any communication channels, which is efficient and feasible for practical environments.     

Properties on the distant distribution of entanglement for arbitrary two-qubit pure states via noisy quantum channels

This paper investigates the change of entanglement for transmitting an arbitrarily entangled two-qubit pure state via one of three typical kinds of noisy quantum channels: amplitude damping quantum channel, phase damping quantum channel and depolarizing quantum channel. It finds, in all these three cases, that the output distant entanglement (measured by concurrence) reduces proportionately with respect to its initial amount, and the decaying ratio is determined only by the noisy characteristics of quantum channels and independent of the form of initial input state.     

Quantum Communication with Continuous Variables

Many quantum communication schemes rely on the resource of entanglement. For example, quantum teleportation is the transfer of arbitrary quantum states through a classical communication channel using shared entanglement. Entanglement, however, is in general not easy to produce on demand. The bottom line of this work is that a particular kind of entanglement, namely that based on continuous quantum variables, can be created relatively easily. Only squeezers and beam splitters are required to entangle arbitrarily many electromagnetic modes. Similarly, other relevant operations in quantum communication protocols become feasible in the continuous‐variable setting. For instance, measurements in the maximally entangled basis of arbitrarily many modes can be accomplished via linear optics and efficient homodyne detections. In the first two chapters, some basics of quantum optics and quantum information theory are presented. These results are then needed in Chapter III, where we characterize continuous‐variable entanglement and show how to make it. The members of a family of multi‐mode states are found to be truly multi‐party entangled with respect to all their modes. These states also violate multi‐party inequalities imposed by local realism, as we demonstrate for some members of the family. Further, we discuss how to measure and verify multi‐party continuous‐variable entanglement. Various quantum communication protocols based on the continuous‐variable entangled states are discussed and developed in Chapter IV. These include the teleportation of entanglement (entanglement swapping) as a test for genuine quantum teleportation. It is shown how to optimize the performance of continuous‐variable entanglement swapping. We highlight the similarities and differences between continuous‐variable entanglement swapping and entanglement swapping with discrete variables. Chapter IV also contains a few remarks on quantum dense coding, quantum error correction, and entanglement distillation with continuous variables, and in addition a review of quantum cryptographic schemes based on continuous variables. Finally, in Chapter V, we consider a multi‐party generalization of quantum teleportation. This so‐called telecloning means that arbitrary quantum states are transferred not only to a single receiver, but to several. However, due to the quantum mechanical no‐cloning theorem, arbitrary quantum states cannot be perfectly copied. We present a protocol that enables telecloning of arbitrary coherent states with the optimal quality allowed by quantum theory. The entangled states needed in this scheme are again producible with squeezed light and beam splitters. Although the telecloning scheme may also be used for "local'' cloning of coherent states, we show that cloning coherent states locally can be achieved in an optimal fashion without entanglement. It only requires a phase‐insensitive amplifier and beam splitters.     

Quantum Dialogue by Using Non-Symmetric Quantum Channel

A protocol for quantum dialogue is proposed to exchange directly the communicator＇s secret messages by using a three-dimensional Bell state and a two-dimensional Bell state as quantum channel with quantum superdence coding, local collective unitary operations, and entanglement swapping. In this protocol, during the process of trans- mission of particles, the transmitted particles do not carry any secret messages and are transmitted only one time. The protocol has higher source capacity than protocols using symmetric two-dimensional states. The security is ensured by the unitary operations randomly performed on all checking groups before the particle sequence is transmitted and the application of entanglement swapping.     

Transmissions of quantum entangled states in anisotropic depolarizing channels

We investigate the effect of an anisotropic depolarizing channel on the classical transmission of quantum entangled states. We calculate numerically mutual information between honest parts as a function of the degree of anisotropy of the depolarizing channel. In contrast to the case of isotropic channels, we found that the mutual information depends on both the degree of anisotropy and the degree of entanglement. It increases with increase in the degree of entanglement for a quantum channel with sufficiently large depolarizing anisotropy and decreases with increase in the entanglement.     

Quantum capacities of bosonic channels

We investigate the capacity of bosonic quantum channels for the transmission of quantum information. We calculate the quantum capacity for a class of Gaussian channels, including channels describing optical fibers with photon losses, by proving that Gaussian encodings are optimal. For arbitrary channels we show that achievable rates can be determined from few measurable parameters by proving that every channel can asymptotically simulate a Gaussian channel which is characterized by second moments of the initial channel. Along the way we provide a complete characterization of degradable Gaussian channels and those arising from teleportation protocols.     

Extremality of Gaussian quantum states

We investigate Gaussian quantum states in view of their exceptional role within the space of all continuous variables states. A general method for deriving extremality results is provided and applied to entanglement measures, secret key distillation and the classical capacity of bosonic quantum channels. We prove that for every given covariance matrix the distillable secret key rate and the entanglement, if measured appropriately, are minimized by Gaussian states. This result leads to a clearer picture of the validity of frequently made Gaussian approximations. Moreover, it implies that Gaussian encodings are optimal for the transmission of classical information through bosonic channels, if the capacity is additive.     

基于纠缠的数据链路层量子通信协议

利用量子力学中的纠缠关联性，提出了数据链路层的量子通信协议. 该协议把线路分为忙闲时段，量子纠缠态的分发预先在闲时段完成，数据经由经典链路发送，确认帧经由量子纠缠信道发送. 量子信息的传输可以是瞬时的，因此两个发送成功的数据帧之间的最小时间间隔可以大为减小. 研究表明该协议能有效地提高数据链路的最大吞吐量，改善数据链路层停止等待协议的性能. 关键词： 量子通信 纠缠 停止等待协议 数据链路