Activation and superactivation of single-mode Gaussian quantum channels

Abstract

Activation of quantum capacity is a surprising phenomenon according to which the quantum capacity of a certain channel may increase by combining it with another channel with zero quantum capacity. Superactivation describes an even more particular occurrence, in which both channels have zero quantum capacity, but their composition has a nonvanishing one. We investigate these effects for all single-mode phase-insensitive Gaussian channels, which include thermal attenuators and amplifiers, assisted by a two-mode positive-partial-transpose channel. Our result shows that activation phenomena are special but not uncommon. We can reveal superactivation in a broad range of thermal attenuator channels, even when the transmissivity is quite low. This means that we can transmit quantum information reliably through very noisy Gaussian channels having zero quantum capacity. We further show that no superactivation is possible for entanglement-breaking Gaussian channels in physically relevant circumstances by proving the non-activation property of the coherent information of bosonic entanglement-breaking channels with finite input energy.