Classical Channel Capacity Research Articles

The n-shot classical capacity of the quantum erasure channel

Abstract We compute the n-shot classical capacity of the quantum erasure channel, providing upper bounds and almost-matching lower bounds for it, the latter achievable via large-minimum-distance classical linear codes for any n. The protocols are in full product form, i.e. no entanglement is needed either at the encoder or decoder to attain the capacity, and they explicitly adapt to the transition between different error regimes as the erasure probability increases. Finally, we show that our upper and lower bounds on the capacity are tighter than those obtainable from the general theory of finite-size capacity via generalized divergences.

Asymmetric Adaptive LDPC-Based Information Reconciliation for Industrial Quantum Key Distribution.

We develop a new approach for asymmetric LDPC-based information reconciliation in order to adapt to the current channel state and achieve better performance and scalability in practical resource-constrained QKD systems. The new scheme combines the advantages of LDPC codes, a priori error rate estimation, rate-adaptive and blind information reconciliation techniques. We compare the performance of several asymmetric and symmetric error correction schemes using a real industrial QKD setup. The proposed asymmetric algorithm achieves significantly higher throughput, providing a secret key rate that is close to the symmetric one in a wide range of error rates. Thus, our approach is found to be particularly efficient for applications with high key rates, limited classical channel capacity and asymmetric computational resource allocation.

Control power of high-dimensional controlled dense coding

We quantitatively analyze and evaluate the control power in a high-dimensional noisy quantum channel for transmitting classical information. We calculate the control power of the controlled dense coding scheme in a four-dimensional extended Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) class state channel. Different from controlled teleportation, there is no tradeoff between the control power and the classical capacity of the optimal four-dimensional GHZ state quantum channel. Only when the channel is noisy and the sender is allowed to gain some control authority can the tradeoff between the control power and the classical capacity be activated, and the overall control power for transmitting classical information will be enhanced by reducing the classical capacity of the high-dimensional quantum channel. This noise induced characteristic is very different from that of transmitting quantum information, and it may provide new ideas and methods to develop the resource theory of quantum channels.

On classical capacity of Weyl channels

The additivity of minimal output entropy is proved for the Weyl channel obtained by the deformation of a q-c Weyl channel. The classical capacity of channel is calculated.

Communication through quantum-controlled noise

In a recent series of works [Ebler et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 120502 (2018); arXiv:1809.06655v2; arXiv:1810.10457v2], it has been proposed that the quantum superposition of causal order -- the quantum switch -- may offer an enhancement of classical and quantum channel capacity through noisy channels, a phenomena that was coined `causal activation'. In this paper we attempt to clarify the nature of the purported advantage, by comparing the quantum switch to a class of processes that can be interpreted as quantum superposition of processes with the same causal order. We show that some of these processes can match or even outperform the quantum switch at enhancing classical and quantum channel capacity, and argue that they require the same resources as the switch. We conclude, in agreement with Abbott et al. [arXiv:1810.09826v1], that the aforementioned advantages appear to be attributable to the ability to coherently control quantum operations, and not to indefinite causal order per se.

Regularized maximal fidelity of the generalized Pauli channels

We consider the asymptotic regularization of the maximal fidelity for the generalized Pauli channels, which is a problem similar to the classical channel capacity. In particular, we find the exact formulas for the extremal channel fidelities and the maximal output $\ensuremath{\infty}$-norm. For wide classes of channels, we show that these quantities are weakly multiplicative. Finally, we find the regularized maximal fidelity for the channels satisfying the time-local master equations.

Semidefinite Programming Strong Converse Bounds for Classical Capacity

We investigate the classical communication over quantum channels when assisted by no-signaling (NS) and positive-partial-transpose-preserving (PPT) codes, for which both the optimal success probability of a given transmission rate and the one-shot $\epsilon$-error capacity are formalized as semidefinite programs (SDPs). Based on this, we obtain improved SDP finite blocklength converse bounds of general quantum channels for entanglement-assisted codes and unassisted codes. Furthermore, we derive two SDP strong converse bounds for the classical capacity of general quantum channels: for any code with a rate exceeding either of the two bounds of the channel, the success probability vanishes exponentially fast as the number of channel uses increases. In particular, applying our efficiently computable bounds, we derive an improved upper bound on the classical capacity of the amplitude damping channel. We also establish the strong converse property for the classical and private capacities of a new class of quantum channels. We finally study the zero-error setting and provide efficiently computable upper bounds on the one-shot zero-error capacity of a general quantum channel.

Quantum signaling in relativistic motion and across acceleration horizons

The quantum channel between two particle detectors provides a prototype framework for the study of wireless quantum communication via relativistic quantum fields. In this article we calculate the classical channel capacity between two Unruh–DeWitt detectors arising from couplings within the perturbative regime. To this end, we identify the detector states which achieve maximal signal strength. We use these results to investigate the impact of relativistic effects on signaling between detectors in inertial and uniformly accelerated motion which communicate via a massless field in Minkowski spacetime.

Classical and entanglement-assisted capacity of a qubit depolarizing memory channel

We study the classical and entanglement-assisted capacity of a forgetful quantum memory channel that randomly switches between two qubit depolarizing channels. We show that when the input consists of two qubits then depending on channel parameters either the maximally entangled input states or product input states achieve the two-use classical capacity. We conjecture that as the number of input qubits is increased the classical capacity approaches the product state capacity for all values of the parameters. We also derive an expression for the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of this quantum memory channel in terms of the entropy rate of a Markov chain.

On the second-order asymptotics for entanglement-assisted communication

The entanglement-assisted classical capacity of a quantum channel is known to provide the formal quantum generalization of Shannon's classical channel capacity theorem, in the sense that it admits a single-letter characterization in terms of the quantum mutual information and does not increase in the presence of a noiseless quantum feedback channel from receiver to sender. In this work, we investigate second-order asymptotics of the entanglement-assisted classical communication task. That is, we consider how quickly the rates of entanglement-assisted codes converge to the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of a channel as a function of the number of channel uses and the error tolerance. We define a quantum generalization of the mutual information variance of a channel in the entanglement-assisted setting. For covariant channels, we show that this quantity is equal to the channel dispersion, and thus completely characterize the convergence towards the entanglement-assisted classical capacity when the number of channel uses increases. Our results also apply to entanglement-assisted quantum communication, due to the equivalence between entanglement-assisted classical and quantum communication established by the teleportation and super-dense coding protocols.

Information transmission over an amplitude damping channel with an arbitrary degree of memory

We study the performance of a partially correlated amplitude damping channel acting on two qubits. We derive lower bounds for the single-shot classical capacity by studying two kinds of quantum ensembles, one which allows to maximize the Holevo quantity for the memoryless channel and the other allowing the same task but for the full-memory channel. In these two cases, we also show the amount of entanglement which is involved in achieving the maximum of the Holevo quantity. For the single-shot quantum capacity we discuss both a lower and an upper bound, achieving a good estimate for high values of the channel transmissivity. We finally compute the entanglement-assisted classical channel capacity.

On the gain of entanglement assistance in the classical capacity of quantum Gaussian channels

Quantum channels are trace-preserving completely positive linear maps between Banach spaces of trace-class operators (Schatten classes of order 1); these are noncommutative analogs of Markov operators in classical probability theory. They also play the role of dynamical maps in quantum theory [1, Chap. 6]. The main characteristics determining the information properties of a quantum channel include its classical entanglement-assisted and unassisted capacities. The classical (unassisted) capacity C(Φ) of a channel Φ determines the limit rate of classical information transmission through Φ with any block coding at the input and the corresponding measurement at the output, and the classical entanglement-assisted channel capacity Cea(Φ) supposes, in addition, the presence of an entangled state between the input and the output of the channel Φ (a detailed description of transmission protocols can be found in [1, Chap. 8]). Since entanglement is an additional resource, it follows that Cea(Φ) ≥ C(Φ) for any channel Φ. LetH be a separable Hilbert space. By T(H) we denote the Banach space of all trace-class operators onH and byS(H), the subset of T(H) consisting of all positive operators with trace 1; we refer to such operators as quantum states and denote them by Greek letters ρ, σ, . . . . We denote a set of quantum states {ρi} with probability distributions {πi} by {πi, ρi} and call it an ensemble of states; the state ρ = ∑ i πiρi is called the average state of the ensemble {πi, ρi}. A quantum channel is a trace-preserving completely positive linear map Φ: T(HA) → T(HB) [1, Chap. 6]. Let H(ρ) be the von Neumann entropy of a state ρ, and let H(ρ‖σ) be the quantum relative entropy of states ρ and σ. For a given channel Φ and any ensemble {πi, ρi} of input quantum states, the output χ-quantity is determined by the expression

Tight Bound on Relative Entropy by Entropy Difference

We prove a lower bound on the relative entropy between two finite-dimensional states in terms of their entropy difference and the dimension of the underlying space. The inequality is tight in the sense that equality can be attained for any prescribed value of the entropy difference, both for quantum and classical systems. We outline implications for information theory and thermodynamics, such as a necessary condition for a process to be close to thermodynamic reversibility, or an easily computable lower bound on the classical channel capacity. Furthermore, we derive a tight upper bound, uniform for all states of a given dimension, on the variance of the surprisal, whose thermodynamic meaning is that of heat capacity.

A Flexible Modulation Scheme Design for C-Band GNSS Signals

Due to the spectrum congestion of current navigation signals in L-band, C-band has been taken into consideration as a candidate frequency band for global navigation satellite system (GNSS). As is known, modulation scheme is the core part of signal structure, and how to design a modulation waveform that could make full use of narrow bandwidth 20 MHz and satisfy the constraint condition of frequency compatibility in C-band is the main research content of this paper. In view of transmission characteristics and constraint condition of compatibility in C-band, multi-hcontinuous phase modulation (CPM) is proposed as a candidate modulation scheme. Then the classical channel capacity estimation and a comprehensive evaluation criterion for GNSS modulation signals are employed to assess the proposed scheme in the aspects of the capacity over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), tracking accuracy, multipath mitigation, antijamming, and so on. Simulation results reveal that, through optimizing the number and size of modulation indexes, the flexible scheme could offer better performance in terms of code tracking, multipath mitigation, and antijamming compared with other candidates such as MSK and GMSK while maintaining high band efficiency and moderate implementation complexity of receiver. Moreover, this paper also provides a reference for next generation modulation signals in C-band.

Strong converse for the classical capacity of the pure-loss bosonic channel

This paper strengthens the interpretation and understanding of the classical capacity of the pure-loss bosonic channel, first established in [1]. In particular, we first prove that there exists a trade-off between communication rate and error probability if one imposes only a mean photon number constraint on the channel inputs. That is, if we demand that the mean number of photons at the channel input cannot be any larger than some positive number NS, then it is possible to respect this constraint with a code that operates at a rate g(ηNS/(1-p)) where p is the code error probability, η is the channel transmissivity, and g(x) is the entropy of a bosonic thermal state with mean photon number x. Then we prove that a strong converse theorem holds for the classical capacity of this channel (that such a rate-error trade-off cannot occur) if one instead demands for a maximum photon number constraint, in such a way that mostly all of the “shadow” of the average density operator for a given code is required to be on a subspace with photon number no larger than nNS, so that the shadow outside this subspace vanishes as the number n of channel uses becomes large. Finally, we prove that a small modification of the well-known coherent-state coding scheme meets this more demanding constraint.

Near-Capacity Code Design for Entanglement-Assisted Classical Communication over Quantum Depolarizing Channels

We have conceived a near-capacity code design for entanglement-assisted classical communication over the quantum depolarizing channel. The proposed system relies on efficient near-capacity classical code designs for approaching the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of a quantum depolarizing channel. It incorporates an Irregular Convolutional Code (IRCC), a Unity Rate Code (URC) and a soft-decision aided Superdense Code (SD), which is hence referred to as an IRCC-URC-SD arrangement. Furthermore, the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of an N-qubit superdense code transmitted over a depolarizing channel is invoked for benchmarking. It is demonstrated that the proposed system operates within 0.4 dB of the achievable noise limit for both 2-qubit as well as 3-qubit SD schemes. More specifically, our design exhibits a deviation of only 0.062 and 0.031 classical bits per channel use from the corresponding 2-qubit and 3-qubit capacity limits, respectively. The proposed system is also benchmarked against the classical convolutional and turbo codes.

Classical and quantum capacities of a fully correlated amplitude damping channel

We study information transmission over a fully correlated amplitude damping channel acting on two qubits. We derive the single-shot classical channel capacity and show that entanglement is needed to achieve the channel best performance. We discuss the degradability properties of the channel and evaluate the quantum capacity for any value of the noise parameter. We finally compute the entanglement-assisted classical channel capacity.

Fundamental Bound on the Reliability of Quantum Information Transmission

Information theory tells us that if the rate of sending information across a noisy channel were above the capacity of that channel, then the transmission would necessarily be unreliable. For classical information sent over classical or quantum channels, one could, under certain conditions, make a stronger statement that the reliability of the transmission shall decay exponentially to zero with the number of channel uses, and the proof of this statement typically relies on a certain fundamental bound on the reliability of the transmission. Such a statement or the bound has never been given for sending quantum information. We give this bound and then use it to give the first example where the reliability of sending quantum information at rates above the capacity decays exponentially to zero. We also show that our framework can be used for proving generalized bounds on the reliability.

Photonic Communications and Quantum Information Storage Capacities

This paper presents photonic communications and data storage capacitates for classical and quantum communications over a quantum channel. These capacities represent a generalization of Shannon’s classical channel capacity and coding theorem in two ways. First, it extends classical results for bit communication transport to all frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. Second, it extends the results to quantum bit (qubit) transport as well as a hybrid of classical and quantum communications. Nature’s limits on the rate at which classical and/or quantum information can be sent error-free over a quantum channel using classical and/or quantum error-correcting codes are presented as a function of the thermal background light level and Einstein zero-point energy. Graphical results are given as well as numerical results regarding communication rate limits using Planck’s natural frequency and time-interval units!

Quantum biological channel modeling and capacity calculation.

Quantum mechanics has an important role in photosynthesis, magnetoreception, and evolution. There were many attempts in an effort to explain the structure of genetic code and transfer of information from DNA to protein by using the concepts of quantum mechanics. The existing biological quantum channel models are not sufficiently general to incorporate all relevant contributions responsible for imperfect protein synthesis. Moreover, the problem of determination of quantum biological channel capacity is still an open problem. To solve these problems, we construct the operator-sum representation of biological channel based on codon basekets (basis vectors), and determine the quantum channel model suitable for study of the quantum biological channel capacity and beyond. The transcription process, DNA point mutations, insertions, deletions, and translation are interpreted as the quantum noise processes. The various types of quantum errors are classified into several broad categories: (i) storage errors that occur in DNA itself as it represents an imperfect storage of genetic information, (ii) replication errors introduced during DNA replication process, (iii) transcription errors introduced during DNA to mRNA transcription, and (iv) translation errors introduced during the translation process. By using this model, we determine the biological quantum channel capacity and compare it against corresponding classical biological channel capacity. We demonstrate that the quantum biological channel capacity is higher than the classical one, for a coherent quantum channel model, suggesting that quantum effects have an important role in biological systems. The proposed model is of crucial importance towards future study of quantum DNA error correction, developing quantum mechanical model of aging, developing the quantum mechanical models for tumors/cancer, and study of intracellular dynamics in general.