The minimum entropy output of a quantum channel is locally additive

We show that the minimum von-Neumann entropy output of a quantum channel is locally additive. Hasting's counterexample for the additivity conjecture, makes this result quite surprising. In particular, it indicates that the non-additivity of the minimum entropy output is a global effect of quantum channels.Comment: Shorter Version, further simplifications of proof

Equivalence of Additivity Questions in Quantum Information Theory

We reduce the number of open additivity problems in quantum information theory by showing that four of them are equivalent. We show that the conjectures of additivity of the minimum output entropy of a quantum channel, additivity of the Holevo expression for the classical capacity of a quantum channel, additivity of the entanglement of formation, and strong superadditivity of the entanglement of formation, are either all true or all false.Comment: now 20 pages, replaced to add a reference, remove a reference to a claimed result about locally minimal output entropy states (my proof of this was incorrect), correct minor typos, and add more explanation for the background of these conjecture

Covert sensing using floodlight illumination

We propose a scheme for covert active sensing using floodlight illumination from a THz-bandwidth amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source and heterodyne detection. We evaluate the quantum-estimation-theoretic performance limit of covert sensing, wherein a transmitter's attempt to sense a target phase is kept undetectable to a quantum-equipped passive adversary, by hiding the signal photons under the thermal noise floor. Despite the quantum state of each mode of the ASE source being mixed (thermal), and hence inferior compared to the pure coherent state of a laser mode, the thousand-times higher optical bandwidth of the ASE source results in achieving a substantially superior performance compared to a narrowband laser source by allowing the probe light to be spread over many more orthogonal temporal modes within a given integration time. Even though our analysis is restricted to single-mode phase sensing, this system could be applicable extendible for various practical optical sensing applications.Comment: We present new results and discuss some results found in arXiv:1701.06206. Comments are welcom

Entanglement cost and quantum channel simulation

This paper proposes a revised definition for the entanglement cost of a quantum channel $\mathcal{N}$. In particular, it is defined here to be the smallest rate at which entanglement is required, in addition to free classical communication, in order to simulate $n$ calls to $\mathcal{N}$, such that the most general discriminator cannot distinguish the $n$ calls to $\mathcal{N}$ from the simulation. The most general discriminator is one who tests the channels in a sequential manner, one after the other, and this discriminator is known as a quantum tester [Chiribella et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 101, 060401 (2008)] or one who is implementing a quantum co-strategy [Gutoski et al., Symp. Th. Comp., 565 (2007)]. As such, the proposed revised definition of entanglement cost of a quantum channel leads to a rate that cannot be smaller than the previous notion of a channel's entanglement cost [Berta et al., IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 59, 6779 (2013)], in which the discriminator is limited to distinguishing parallel uses of the channel from the simulation. Under this revised notion, I prove that the entanglement cost of certain teleportation-simulable channels is equal to the entanglement cost of their underlying resource states. Then I find single-letter formulas for the entanglement cost of some fundamental channel models, including dephasing, erasure, three-dimensional Werner--Holevo channels, epolarizing channels (complements of depolarizing channels), as well as single-mode pure-loss and pure-amplifier bosonic Gaussian channels. These examples demonstrate that the resource theory of entanglement for quantum channels is not reversible. Finally, I discuss how to generalize the basic notions to arbitrary resource theories.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure

The entanglement of purification

We introduce a measure of both quantum as well as classical correlations in a quantum state, the entanglement of purification. We show that the (regularized) entanglement of purification is equal to the entanglement cost of creating a state $\rho$ asymptotically from maximally entangled states, with negligible communication. We prove that the classical mutual information and the quantum mutual information divided by two are lower bounds for the regularized entanglement of purification. We present numerical results of the entanglement of purification for Werner states in ${\cal H}_2 \otimes {\cal H}_2$.Comment: 12 pages RevTex, 1 figure, to appear in JMP special issue on quantum information. v3 contains additional references, motivation, and a small change in the figur

Local versus non-local information in quantum information theory: formalism and phenomena

In spite of many results in quantum information theory, the complex nature of compound systems is far from being clear. In general the information is a mixture of local, and non-local ("quantum") information. To make this point more clear, we develop and investigate the quantum information processing paradigm in which parties sharing a multipartite state distill local information. The amount of information which is lost because the parties must use a classical communication channel is the deficit. This scheme can be viewed as complementary to the notion of distilling entanglement. After reviewing the paradigm, we show that the upper bound for the deficit is given by the relative entropy distance to so-called psuedo-classically correlated states; the lower bound is the relative entropy of entanglement. This implies, in particular, that any entangled state is informationally nonlocal i.e. has nonzero deficit. We also apply the paradigm to defining the thermodynamical cost of erasing entanglement. We show the cost is bounded from below by relative entropy of entanglement. We demonstrate the existence of several other non-local phenomena. For example,we prove the existence of a form of non-locality without entanglement and with distinguishability. We analyze the deficit for several classes of multipartite pure states and obtain that in contrast to the GHZ state, the Aharonov state is extremely nonlocal (and in fact can be thought of as quasi-nonlocalisable). We also show that there do not exist states, for which the deficit is strictly equal to the whole informational content (bound local information). We then discuss complementary features of information in distributed quantum systems. Finally we discuss the physical and theoretical meaning of the results and pose many open questions.Comment: 35 pages in two column, 4 figure