We obtain a lower bound on the maximum number of qubits, Qn, e(N), which can be transmitted over n uses of a quantum channel N, for a given non-zero error threshold e. To obtain our result, we first derive a bound on the one-shot entanglement transmission capacity of the channel, and then compute its asymptotic expansion up to the second order. In our method to prove this achievability bound, the decoding map, used by the receiver on the output of the channel, is chosen to be the Petz recovery map (also known as the transpose channel). Our result, in particular, shows that this choice of the decoder can be used to establish the coherent information as an achievable rate for quantum information transmission. Applying our achievability bound to the 50-50 erasure channel (which has zero quantum capacity), we find that there is a sharp error threshold above which Qn, e(N) scales as n.
Our second order achievability bound is similar in form to . Nevertheless, its optimality is open. Note that it follows from the strong converse property of the quantum capacity of generalized dephasing channels @cite_0 that, for such channels, @math is exactly equal to the first order asymptotic rate (and not just a lower bound on it) for any @math . Moreover, from the result of @cite_16 it follows that, for degradable channels, the first order asymptotic rate is given by @math for @math . Our bound has recently been shown to be tight up to second order expansion for all @math for the qubit dephasing channel @cite_14 .
@cite_0 @cite_14 @cite_16
2027468780 906791365 1751436528 2950750721
We exhibit a possible road toward a strong converse for the quantum capacity of degradable channels. In particular, we show that all degradable channels obey what we call a “pretty strong” converse: when the code rate increases above the quantum capacity, the fidelity makes a discontinuous jump from 1 to at most 1 √2, asymptotically. A similar result can be shown for the private (classical) capacity. Furthermore, we can show that if the strong converse holds for symmetric channels (which have quantum capacity zero), then degradable channels obey the strong converse. The above-mentioned asymptotic jump of the fidelity at the quantum capacity then decreases from 1 to 0. The quantum capacity of a memoryless channel determines the maximal rate at which we can communicate reliably over asymptotically many uses of the channel. Here we illustrate that this asymptotic characterization is insufficient in practical scenarios where decoherence severely limits our ability to manipulate large quantum systems in the encoder and decoder. In practical settings, we should instead focus on the optimal trade-off between three parameters: the rate of the code, the size of the quantum devices at the encoder and decoder, and the fidelity of the transmission. We find approximate and exact characterizations of this trade-off for various channels of interest, including dephasing, depolarizing and erasure channels. In each case, the trade-off is parameterized by the capacity and a second channel parameter, the quantum channel dispersion. In the process, we develop several bounds that are valid for general quantum channels and can be computed for small instances. This paper investigates the information-theoretic limits of energy-harvesting (EH) channels in the finite blocklength regime. The EH process is characterized by a sequence of i.i.d. random variables with finite variances. We use the save-and-transmit strategy proposed by Ozel and Ulukus (2012) together with Shannon’s non-asymptotic achievability bound to obtain lower bounds on the achievable rates for both additive white Gaussian noise channels and discrete memoryless channels under EH constraints. The first-order terms of the lower bounds of the achievable rates are equal to @math and the second-order (backoff from capacity) terms are proportional to @math , where @math denotes the blocklength and @math denotes the capacity of the EH channel, which is the same as the capacity without the EH constraints. The constant of proportionality of the backoff term is found and qualitative interpretations are provided. In this paper we consider a three-state variant of the BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol. We derive a new lower-bound on the key rate of this protocol in the asymptotic scenario and use mismatched measurement outcomes to improve the channel estimation. Our new key rate bound remains positive up to an error rate of @math , exactly that achieved by the four-state BB84 protocol.