Bounds on the Performance of Protocols for a Multiple-Access Broadcast Channel

A general model is presented for synchronous protocols that resolve conflicts among message transmissions to a multiple-access broadcast channel. An information-theoretic method is used now to show that if only finitely many types of conflicts can be distinguished by the protocol, utilization of the channel at rates approaching capacity is impossible. A random-coding argument is used to show that if the number of conflicting transmissions can be determined (which requires distinguishing infinitely many types of conflicts) then utilization of the channel at rates arbitrarily close to capacity can be achieved

Unconstrained distillation capacities of a pure-loss bosonic broadcast channel

Bosonic channels are important in practice as they form a simple model for free-space or fiber-optic communication. Here we consider a single-sender two-receiver pure-loss bosonic broadcast channel and determine the unconstrained capacity region for the distillation of bipartite entanglement and secret key between the sender and each receiver, whenever they are allowed arbitrary public classical communication. We show how the state merging protocol leads to achievable rates in this setting, giving an inner bound on the capacity region. We also evaluate an outer bound on the region by using the relative entropy of entanglement and a `reduction by teleportation' technique. The outer bounds match the inner bounds in the infinite-energy limit, thereby establishing the unconstrained capacity region for such channels. Our result could provide a useful benchmark for implementing a broadcasting of entanglement and secret key through such channels. An important open question relevant to practice is to determine the capacity region in both this setting and the single-sender single-receiver case when there is an energy constraint on the transmitter.Comment: v2: 6 pages, 3 figures, introduction revised, appendix added where the result is extended to the 1-to-m pure-loss bosonic broadcast channel. v3: minor revision, typo error correcte