Channel Divergences and Complexity in Algebraic QFT

Abstract

We consider a notion of divergence between quantum channels in relativistic continuum quantum field theory (QFT) that is derived from the Belavkin–Staszewski relative entropy and the concept of bimodules for general von Neumann algebras. Key concepts of the divergence that we shall prove based on a new variational formulation of that relative entropy are the subadditivity under composition and additivity under the tensor product between channels. Based on these properties, we propose to use the channel divergence relative to the trivial (identity-) channel as a novel measure of complexity. Using the properties of our channel divergence, we prove in the prerequisite generality necessary for the algebras in QFT that the corresponding complexity has several reasonable properties: (i) the complexity of a composite channel is not larger than the sum of its parts, (ii) it is additive for channels localized in spacelike separated regions, (iii) it is convex, (iv) for an N-ary measurement channel it is log N, (v) for a conditional expectation associated with an inclusion of QFTs with finite Jones index it is given by log (text {Jones Index}).