Bidirectional coherent classical communication

A unitary interaction coupling two parties enables quantum communication in both the forward and backward directions. Each communication capacity can be thought of as a tradeoff between the achievable rates of specific types of forward and backward communication. Our first result shows that for any bipartite unitary gate, coherent classical communication is no more difficult than classical communication -- they have the same achievable rate regions. Previously this result was known only for the unidirectional capacities (i.e., the boundaries of the tradeoff). We then relate the tradeoff curve for two-way coherent communication to the tradeoff for two-way quantum communication and the tradeoff for coherent communiation in one direction and quantum communication in the other.Comment: 11 pages, v2 extensive modification and rewriting of the main proof, v3 published version with only a few more change

An exact effective two-qubit gate in a chain of three spins

We show that an effective two-qubit gate can be obtained from the free evolution of three spins in a chain with nearest neighbor XY coupling, without local manipulations. This gate acts on the two remote spins and leaves the mediating spin unchanged. It can be used to perfectly transfer an arbitrary quantum state from the first spin to the last spin or to simultaneously communicate one classical bit in each direction. One ebit can be generated in half of the time for state transfer. For longer spin chains, we present methods to create or transfer entanglement between the two end spins in half of the time required for quantum state transfer, given tunable coupling strength and local magnetic field. We also examine imperfect state transfer through a homogeneous XY chain.Comment: RevTeX4, 7 pages, 4 figue

Reversible simulation of bipartite product Hamiltonians

Consider two quantum systems A and B interacting according to a product Hamiltonian H = H_A x H_B. We show that any two such Hamiltonians can be used to simulate each other reversibly (i.e., without efficiency losses) with the help of local unitary operations and local ancillas. Accordingly, all non-local features of a product Hamiltonian -- including the rate at which it can be used to produce entanglement, transmit classical or quantum information, or simulate other Hamiltonians -- depend only upon a single parameter. We identify this parameter and use it to obtain an explicit expression for the entanglement capacity of all product Hamiltonians. Finally, we show how the notion of simulation leads to a natural formulation of measures of the strength of a nonlocal Hamiltonian.Comment: 10 page

Quantum Data Hiding

We expand on our work on Quantum Data Hiding -- hiding classical data among parties who are restricted to performing only local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC). We review our scheme that hides one bit between two parties using Bell states, and we derive upper and lower bounds on the secrecy of the hiding scheme. We provide an explicit bound showing that multiple bits can be hidden bitwise with our scheme. We give a preparation of the hiding states as an efficient quantum computation that uses at most one ebit of entanglement. A candidate data hiding scheme that does not use entanglement is presented. We show how our scheme for quantum data hiding can be used in a conditionally secure quantum bit commitment scheme.Comment: 19 pages, IEEE style, 8 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor