Strong Converse Bound on the Two-Way Assisted

Quantum Capacity

Mark M. Wilde

Hearne Institute for Theoretical Physics,

Department of Physics and Astronomy,
Center for Computation and Technology,
Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
mwilde@lsu.edu

joint work with Mario Berta, Department of Computing, Imperial College, London, UK

2018 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory

Vail, Colorado, USA
Thursday, June 21, 2018

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 1 / 24

Main message

Important goal of quantum Shannon theory is to characterize

communication rates over quantum channels

One notable setting, relevant for distributed quantum computation, is

the quantum capacity assisted by local operations and classical
communication (LOCC-assisted quantum capacity) [BDSW96].

In this work, we prove that the max-Rains information of a

quantum channel is an efficiently computable, single-letter,
strong-converse upper bound on the LOCC-assisted quantum capacity
of an arbitrary quantum channel.

This is the tightest known upper bound on LOCC-assisted quantum

capacity, which applies to an arbitrary quantum channel.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 2 / 24

LOCC channel

In the theory of entanglement and quantum communication, one often

assumes that Alice and Bob can communicate classical data for free.

Paradigm is local op.’s and classical comm. (LOCC) [BDSW96].

A one-way LOCC channel from Alice to Bob consists of Alice

performing a quantum instrument, sending classical outcome to Bob,
who performs a quantum channel conditioned on the classical data.

An LOCC channel consists of finite, but arbitrarily large number of

1-way LOCC channels from Alice to Bob and then from Bob to Alice.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 3 / 24

LOCC channel (ctd.)

An LOCC channel can be written as a separable channel LAB→A0 B 0 :

X
z z
LAB→A0 B 0 (ρAB ) = EA→A 0 ⊗ FB→B 0 (ρAB ),

z
where {EA→A z
0 }z and {FB→B 0 }z are sets of completely positive, trace

non-increasing maps, such that LAB→A0 B 0 is a completely positive,

trace-preserving map (quantum channel).

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 4 / 24

LOCC-assisted quantum communication

A1’ A2’ A’n MA

A1 B1 A2 B2 An Bn
LOCC N LOCC N LOCC LOCC N LOCC

B1’ B2’ B’n MB

An (n, M, ε) protocol for LOCC-assisted quantum communication

over the quantum channel N calls the channel n times.
In between every channel use, Alice and Bob are allowed to perform
an LOCC channel for free.
The final state ωMA MB should have fidelity larger than 1 − ε with a
maximally entangled state ΦMA MB of Schmidt rank M:

hΦ|MA MB ωMA MB |ΦiMA MB ≥ 1 − ε.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 5 / 24

LOCC-assisted quantum capacity

A rate R is achievable for LOCC-assisted quantum communication if

for all ε ∈ (0, 1] and δ > 0, there exists an (n, 2n(R−δ) , ε)
LOCC-assisted quantum communication protocol.

The LOCC-assisted quantum capacity of a channel N , denoted by

Q ↔ (N ), is equal to the supremum of all achievable rates.

A rate R is a strong converse rate for LOCC-assisted quantum

communication if for all ε ∈ [0, 1) and δ > 0, there does not exist an
(n, 2n(R+δ) , ε) LOCC-assisted quantum communication protocol.

The strong converse LOCC-assisted quantum capacity of a

channel N , denoted by Q ↔† (N ), is equal to the infimum of all strong
converse rates.

From definitions, Q ↔ (N ) ≤ Q ↔† (N ).

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 6 / 24

PPT-P channels

LOCC channels can be difficult to work with.

As a way around, Rains proposed positive-partial-transpose-preserving

(PPT-P) channels [Rai99, Rai01]. Every LOCC channel is a PPT-P
channel.

Definition: A quantum channel PAB→A0 B 0 is PPT-P if the map

TB 0 ◦ PAB→A0 B 0 ◦ TB is a quantum channel, where T denotes the
transpose map.

Positive-partial-transpose (PPT) states are such that TB (ρAB ) ≥ 0.

PPT-P channels preserve the set of PPT states.

So work with PPT-P channels instead.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 7 / 24

PPT-P-assisted quantum capacity

A1’ A2’ A’n MA

A1 B1 A2 B2 An Bn
PPT-P N PPT-P N PPT-P PPT-P N PPT-P

B1’ B2’ B’n MB

A PPT-P-assisted protocol for quantum communication is similar to

what we defined previously for LOCC, except we allow Alice and Bob
to employ PPT-P channels interleaved between every channel use.

Achievable rates, strong converse rates, capacity, and strong converse

capacity are defined similarly. Denote capacity by Q PPT-P,↔ (N ) and
strong converse capacity by Q PPT-P,↔† (N ). From definitions,
Q ↔ (N ) ≤ Q PPT-P,↔ (N ) and Q ↔† (N ) ≤ Q PPT-P,↔† (N ).

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 8 / 24

Entanglement of a quantum channel

How to bound the quantum capacity of a channel? Can start by

defining the entanglement of the channel.

Let E (A; B)ρ be an entanglement measure [HHHH09] for a

bipartite state ρAB (E should be monotone under LOCC and equal to
zero for separable states). If analyzing PPT-P-assisted protocols, it
should be monotone under PPT-P and equal to zero for PPT states.

Examples: measures based on relative entropy “distance” of state to

separable or PPT states [VP98, Rai99, Rai01].

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 9 / 24

Entanglement of a quantum channel (ctd.)

The entanglement of a channel NA→B is equal to how much

entanglement the channel can generate, if there is none available to
begin with:
E (N ) = sup E (S; B)ω
ψSA

where ωSB = NA→B (ψSA ).

|ψ〉SA
A B
N

Generally useful for bounding unassisted capacities

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 10 / 24

Amortized entanglement of a quantum channel [KW18]
Need a general approach to analyze LOCC-assisted quantum capacity
For an entanglement measure E , amortized entanglement EA (N )
of a quantum channel N is helpful [KW18]:
EA (N ) = sup E (A; BB 0 )τ − E (A0 A; B 0 )ρ
ρA0 AB 0

where τABB 0 = NA→B (ρA0 AB 0 ).

A’

Alice

A B
NA→B

Bob
B’

EA (N ) is equal to the largest difference of output and input

entanglement of the channel.
Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 11 / 24
Amortized entanglement of a quantum channel (ctd.)

It always holds that amortized entanglement of a channel is larger

than its entanglement:

E (N ) ≤ EA (N )

The other inequality holds sometimes, in which case, we have that

E (N ) = EA (N ). If it does, then this collapse leads to good bounds
on LOCC-assisted capacity.

Our main technical result is that the equality E (N ) = EA (N ) holds

when E is the max-Rains relative entropy entanglement measure.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 12 / 24

Amortized entanglement as a general bound [KW18]
How to use amortized entanglement to bound capacity?

E (MA ; MB )ω ≤ E (A0n ; Bn Bn0 )σ(n) = E (A0n ; Bn Bn0 )σ(n) − E (A01 A1 ; B10 )ρ(1)
n
X
= E (A0n ; Bn Bn0 )σ(n) − E (A01 A1 ; B10 )ρ(1) + E (A0i Ai ; Bi0 )ρ(i) − E (A0i Ai ; Bi0 )ρ(i)
i=2
n
X
≤ E (A0i ; Bi Bi0 )σ(i) − E (A0i Ai ; Bi0 )ρ(i)
i=1

≤ n · EA (N )
Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 13 / 24
Amortized entanglement as a general bound (ctd.)

(Meta-converse for LOCC-assisted protocols)

The entanglement of the final state ωMA MB is bounded from above by n
times the amortized entanglement of the channel:

E (MA ; MB )ω ≤ n · EA (N )

Then consider particular entanglement measures, to relate to

parameters of (n, M, ε) protocol and to determine whether
EA (N ) = E (N ) for a given entanglement measure E .

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 14 / 24

Summary of main result

Choosing E to be the max-Rains relative entropy, one of our main

results is that

log2 M ≤ nRmax (N ) + log2 (1/[1 − ε])

for any (n, M, ε) PPT-P-assisted quantum communication protocol.

This can alternatively be written as

1 − ε ≤ 2−n[Q−Rmax (N )]
1
where Q = n log2 M is the quantum communication rate.

Thus, Rmax (N ) is a strong converse rate for PPT-P-assisted quantum

communication:
Q PPT-P,↔† (N ) ≤ Rmax (N ).

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 15 / 24

Max-Rains relative entropy of a bipartite state

To understand the main result, we first recall the definition of max-Rains

relative entropy Rmax (A; B)ρ of a bipartite state ρAB :

Rmax (A; B)ρ = min Dmax (ρAB kσAB ) [WD16]

σAB ∈PPT0 (A:B)

where

Dmax (ωkτ ) = min{λ : ω ≤ 2λ τ } [Dat09]

0
PPT (A : B) = {σAB | σAB ≥ 0 ∧ kTB (σAB )k1 ≤ 1} [ADMVW02]

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 16 / 24

Max-Rains relative entropy of a bipartite state (ctd.)

Max-Rains relative entropy of a bipartite state ρAB can be written as

[WD16]
Rmax (A; B)ρ = log2 W (A; B)ρ ,
where W (A; B)ρ is the solution to the following semi-definite program:

minimize Tr{CAB + DAB }

subject to CAB , DAB ≥ 0,
TB (CAB − DAB ) ≥ ρAB .

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 17 / 24

Max-Rains information of a quantum channel

The max-Rains information Rmax (N ) of a channel N is defined as

Rmax (N ) = max Rmax (S; B)ω

ψSA

where ωSB = NA→B (ψSA )

It can alternatively be expressed as Rmax (N ) = log Γ(N ), where Γ(N ) is

the solution to the following semi-definite program [WFD17]:

minimize kTrB {VSB + YSB }k∞

subject to YSB , VSB ≥ 0,
N
TB (VSB − YSB ) ≥ JSB ,
N is the Choi operator for the channel N .
and JSB

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 18 / 24

Amortization does not increase the max-Rains information

Our main technical result is that amortization does not increase the
max-Rains information of a quantum channel, in the sense that
Amortization collapse
Let ρA0 AB 0 be a state and let NA→B be a quantum channel. Then

Rmax (A0 ; BB 0 )ω ≤ Rmax (N ) + Rmax (A0 A; B 0 )ρ ,

where ωA0 BB 0 = NA→B (ρA0 AB 0 ).

This proves that Rmax,A (N ) = Rmax (N ) for all channels.

The proof relies on semi-definite programming duality.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 19 / 24

Final proof steps

Combined with the fact that

Dmax (ωMA MB kσMA MB ) ≥ log2 [(1 − ε)M]

for a state ωMA MB satisfying

hΦ|MA MB ωMA MB |ΦiMA MB ≥ 1 − ε

and σMA MB ∈ PPT0 (MA : MB ), we conclude the previously claimed bound:

log2 M ≤ nRmax (N ) + log2 (1/[1 − ε])

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 20 / 24

Summary and conclusion

The quantum capacity assisted by local operations and classical

communication (LOCC-assisted quantum capacity) is relevant
quantity for characterizing the performance of distributed quantum
computation.

In this work, we prove that the max-Rains information of a quantum

channel is an efficiently computable, single-letter, strong-converse
upper bound on the LOCC-assisted quantum capacity of an arbitrary
quantum channel.

This is the tightest known upper bound on LOCC-assisted quantum

capacity, which applies to an arbitrary quantum channel.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 21 / 24

References I

[ADMVW02] Koenraad Audenaert, Bart De Moor, Karl Gerd H. Vollbrecht, and

Reinhard F. Werner. Asymptotic relative entropy of entanglement for
orthogonally invariant states. Physical Review A, 66(3):032310,
September 2002. arXiv:quant-ph/0204143.

[BDSW96] Charles H. Bennett, David P. DiVincenzo, John A. Smolin, and

William K. Wootters. Mixed-state entanglement and quantum error
correction. Physical Review A, 54(5):3824–3851, November 1996.
arXiv:quant-ph/9604024.

[Dat09] Nilanjana Datta. Min- and max-relative entropies and a new

entanglement monotone. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory,
55(6):2816–2826, June 2009. arXiv:0803.2770.

[HHHH09] Ryszard Horodecki, Pawel Horodecki, Michal Horodecki, and Karol

Horodecki. Quantum entanglement. Reviews of Modern Physics,
81(2):865–942, June 2009. arXiv:quant-ph/0702225.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 22 / 24

References II

[KW18] Eneet Kaur and Mark M. Wilde. Amortized entanglement of a quantum

channel and approximately teleportation-simulable channels. Journal of
Physics A, 51(3):035303, January 2018. arXiv:1707.07721.

[Rai99] Eric M. Rains. Bound on distillable entanglement. Physical Review A,

60(1):179–184, July 1999. arXiv:quant-ph/9809082.

[Rai01] Eric M. Rains. A semidefinite program for distillable entanglement. IEEE

Transactions on Information Theory, 47(7):2921–2933, November 2001.
arXiv:quant-ph/0008047.

[VP98] Vlatko Vedral and Martin B. Plenio. Entanglement measures and

purification procedures. Physical Review A, 57(3):1619–1633, March
1998. arXiv:quant-ph/9707035.

[WD16] Xin Wang and Runyao Duan. An improved semidefinite programming

upper bound on distillable entanglement. Physical Review A,
94(5):050301, November 2016. arXiv:1601.07940.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 23 / 24

References III

[WFD17] Xin Wang, Kun Fang, and Runyao Duan. Semidefinite programming
converse bounds for quantum communication. September 2017.
arXiv:1709.00200.

Mark M. Wilde (LSU) 24 / 24