Capacity estimation and verification of quantum channels with arbitrarily correlated errors

Abstract

One of the main figures of merit for quantum memories and quantum communication devices is their quantum capacity. It has been studied for arbitrary kinds of quantum channels, but its practical estimation has so far been limited to devices that implement independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) quantum channels, where each qubit is affected by the same noise process. Real devices, however, typically exhibit correlated errors. Here, we overcome this limitation by presenting protocols that estimate a channel's one-shot quantum capacity for the case where the device acts on (an arbitrary number of) qubits. The one-shot quantum capacity quantifies a device's ability to store or communicate quantum information, even if there are correlated errors across the different qubits. We present a protocol which is easy to implement and which comes in two versions. The first version estimates the one-shot quantum capacity by preparing and measuring in two different bases, where all involved qubits are used as test qubits. The second version verifies on-the-fly that a channel's one-shot quantum capacity exceeds a minimal tolerated value while storing or communicating data, therefore combining test qubits and data qubits in one protocol. We discuss the performance of our method using simple examples, such as the dephasing channel for which our method is asymptotically optimal. Finally, we apply our method to estimate the one-shot capacity in an experiment using a transmon qubit.