"Pretty strong" converse for the private capacity of degraded quantum wiretap channels

In the vein of the recent "pretty strong" converse for the quantum and private capacity of degradable quantum channels [Morgan/Winter, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 60(1):317-333, 2014], we use the same techniques, in particular the calculus of min-entropies, to show a pretty strong converse for the private capacity of degraded classical-quantum-quantum (cqq-)wiretap channels, which generalize Wyner's model of the degraded classical wiretap channel. While the result is not completely tight, leaving some gap between the region of error and privacy parameters for which the converse bound holds, and a larger no-go region, it represents a further step towards an understanding of strong converses of wiretap channels [cf. Hayashi/Tyagi/Watanabe, arXiv:1410.0443 for the classical case].Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, IEEEtran.cls. V2 final (conference) version, accepted for ISIT 2016 (Barcelona, 10-15 July 2016

The strong converse theorem for the product-state capacity of quantum channels with ergodic Markovian memory

Establishing the strong converse theorem for a communication channel confirms that the capacity of that channel, that is, the maximum achievable rate of reliable information communication, is the ultimate limit of communication over that channel. Indeed, the strong converse theorem for a channel states that coding at a rate above the capacity of the channel results in the convergence of the error to its maximum value 1 and that there is no trade-off between communication rate and decoding error. Here we prove that the strong converse theorem holds for the product-state capacity of quantum channels with ergodic Markovian correlated memory.Comment: 11 pages, single colum

Short proofs of the Quantum Substate Theorem

The Quantum Substate Theorem due to Jain, Radhakrishnan, and Sen (2002) gives us a powerful operational interpretation of relative entropy, in fact, of the observational divergence of two quantum states, a quantity that is related to their relative entropy. Informally, the theorem states that if the observational divergence between two quantum states rho, sigma is small, then there is a quantum state rho' close to rho in trace distance, such that rho' when scaled down by a small factor becomes a substate of sigma. We present new proofs of this theorem. The resulting statement is optimal up to a constant factor in its dependence on observational divergence. In addition, the proofs are both conceptually simpler and significantly shorter than the earlier proof.Comment: 11 pages. Rewritten; included new references; presented the results in terms of smooth relative min-entropy; stronger results; included converse and proof using SDP dualit

The invalidity of a strong capacity for a quantum channel with memory

The strong capacity of a particular channel can be interpreted as a sharp limit on the amount of information which can be transmitted reliably over that channel. To evaluate the strong capacity of a particular channel one must prove both the direct part of the channel coding theorem and the strong converse for the channel. Here we consider the strong converse theorem for the periodic quantum channel and show some rather surprising results. We first show that the strong converse does not hold in general for this channel and therefore the channel does not have a strong capacity. Instead, we find that there is a scale of capacities corresponding to error probabilities between integer multiples of the inverse of the periodicity of the channel. A similar scale also exists for the random channel.Comment: 7 pages, double column. Comments welcome. Repeated equation removed and one reference adde

Partial decode-forward for quantum relay channels

A relay channel is one in which a Source and Destination use an intermediate Relay station in order to improve communication rates. We propose the study of relay channels with classical inputs and quantum outputs and prove that a "partial decode and forward" strategy is achievable. We divide the channel uses into many blocks and build codes in a randomized, block-Markov manner within each block. The Relay performs a standard Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland quantum measurement on each block in order to decode part of the Source's message and then forwards this partial message in the next block. The Destination performs a novel "sliding-window" quantum measurement on two adjacent blocks in order to decode the Source's message. This strategy achieves non-trivial rates for classical communication over a quantum relay channel.Comment: 7 pages, submission to the 2012 International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT 2012), Boston, MA, US