On privacy amplification, lossy compression, and their duality to channel coding

We examine the task of privacy amplification from information-theoretic and coding-theoretic points of view. In the former, we give a one-shot characterization of the optimal rate of privacy amplification against classical adversaries in terms of the optimal type-II error in asymmetric hypothesis testing. This formulation can be easily computed to give finite-blocklength bounds and turns out to be equivalent to smooth min-entropy bounds by Renner and Wolf [Asiacrypt 2005] and Watanabe and Hayashi [ISIT 2013], as well as a bound in terms of the $E_\gamma$ divergence by Yang, Schaefer, and Poor [arXiv:1706.03866 [cs.IT]]. In the latter, we show that protocols for privacy amplification based on linear codes can be easily repurposed for channel simulation. Combined with known relations between channel simulation and lossy source coding, this implies that privacy amplification can be understood as a basic primitive for both channel simulation and lossy compression. Applied to symmetric channels or lossy compression settings, our construction leads to proto- cols of optimal rate in the asymptotic i.i.d. limit. Finally, appealing to the notion of channel duality recently detailed by us in [IEEE Trans. Info. Theory 64, 577 (2018)], we show that linear error-correcting codes for symmetric channels with quantum output can be transformed into linear lossy source coding schemes for classical variables arising from the dual channel. This explains a "curious duality" in these problems for the (self-dual) erasure channel observed by Martinian and Yedidia [Allerton 2003; arXiv:cs/0408008] and partly anticipates recent results on optimal lossy compression by polar and low-density generator matrix codes.Comment: v3: updated to include equivalence of the converse bound with smooth entropy formulations. v2: updated to include comparison with the one-shot bounds of arXiv:1706.03866. v1: 11 pages, 4 figure

Asymmetric Protocols for Scalable High-Rate Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution Networks

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) can eliminate detector side channels and prevent all attacks on detectors. The future of MDI-QKD is a quantum network that provides service to many users over untrusted relay nodes. In a real quantum network, the losses of various channels are different and users are added and deleted over time. To adapt to these features, we propose a type of protocols that allow users to independently choose their optimal intensity settings to compensate for different channel losses. Such protocol enables a scalable high-rate MDI-QKD network that can easily be applied for channels of different losses and allows users to be dynamically added/deleted at any time without affecting the performance of existing users.Comment: Changed the title to better represent the generality of our method, and added more discussions on its application to alternative protocols (in Sec. II, the new Table II, and Appendix E with new Fig. 9). Added more conceptual explanations in Sec. II on the difference between X and Z bases in MDI-QKD. Added additional discussions on security of the scheme in Sec. II and Appendix

Weighted Norms of Ambiguity Functions and Wigner Distributions

In this article new bounds on weighted p-norms of ambiguity functions and Wigner functions are derived. Such norms occur frequently in several areas of physics and engineering. In pulse optimization for Weyl--Heisenberg signaling in wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering channels for example it is a key step to find the optimal waveforms for a given scattering statistics which is a problem also well known in radar and sonar waveform optimizations. The same situation arises in quantum information processing and optical communication when optimizing pure quantum states for communicating in bosonic quantum channels, i.e. find optimal channel input states maximizing the pure state channel fidelity. Due to the non-convex nature of this problem the optimum and the maximizers itself are in general difficult find, numerically and analytically. Therefore upper bounds on the achievable performance are important which will be provided by this contribution. Based on a result due to E. Lieb, the main theorem states a new upper bound which is independent of the waveforms and becomes tight only for Gaussian weights and waveforms. A discussion of this particular important case, which tighten recent results on Gaussian quantum fidelity and coherent states, will be given. Another bound is presented for the case where scattering is determined only by some arbitrary region in phase space.Comment: 5 twocolumn pages,2 figures, accepted for 2006 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, typos corrected, some additional cites, legend in Fig.2 correcte

Entropy Production of Doubly Stochastic Quantum Channels

We study the entropy increase of quantum systems evolving under primitive, doubly stochastic Markovian noise and thus converging to the maximally mixed state. This entropy increase can be quantified by a logarithmic-Sobolev constant of the Liouvillian generating the noise. We prove a universal lower bound on this constant that stays invariant under taking tensor-powers. Our methods involve a new comparison method to relate logarithmic-Sobolev constants of different Liouvillians and a technique to compute logarithmic-Sobolev inequalities of Liouvillians with eigenvectors forming a projective representation of a finite abelian group. Our bounds improve upon similar results established before and as an application we prove an upper bound on continuous-time quantum capacities. In the last part of this work we study entropy production estimates of discrete-time doubly-stochastic quantum channels by extending the framework of discrete-time logarithmic-Sobolev inequalities to the quantum case.Comment: 24 page

Random quantum channels II: Entanglement of random subspaces, Renyi entropy estimates and additivity problems

In this paper we obtain new bounds for the minimum output entropies of random quantum channels. These bounds rely on random matrix techniques arising from free probability theory. We then revisit the counterexamples developed by Hayden and Winter to get violations of the additivity equalities for minimum output R\'enyi entropies. We show that random channels obtained by randomly coupling the input to a qubit violate the additivity of the $p$-R\'enyi entropy. For some sequences of random quantum channels, we compute almost surely the limit of their Schatten $S_1 \to S_p$ norms.Comment: 3 figures added, minor typos correcte