arXiv subjects

Alexander Müller-Hermes

Publications and source records attributed to Alexander Müller-Hermes.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Factorization through Lorentz cones

A pair of proper cones $(\mathsf{C}_1,\mathsf{C}_2)$ is said to have the Lorentz factorization property (LFP) if every $(\mathsf{C}_1,\mathsf{C}_2)$-positive map factors through a direct sum of Lorentzian cones, i.e., cones over Euclidean balls. Clearly, $(\mathsf{C}_1,\mathsf{C}_2)$ has the LFP if either $\mathsf{C}_1$ or $\mathsf{C}_2$ is a direct sum of Lorentzian cones, and our main goal is to find other examples. We show that such examples cannot be found for pairs $(\mathsf{C}_1,\mathsf{C}_2)$ where $\mathsf{C}_1=\mathsf{C}_2$, or in the case where both $\mathsf{C}_1$ and $\mathsf{C}_2$ are polyhedral. We also focus on the case where $\mathsf{C}_1=\mathsf{C}_\square$ is the square-based cone in $\mathbf{R}^3$. Here, we show that $(\mathsf{C}_\square,\mathsf{C})$ has the LFP whenever $\mathsf{C}$ is a symmetric cone, i.e., a direct sum of Lorentz cones, cones of positive semidefinite matrices over the real numbers, complex numbers or quaternions, and the cone of $3\times 3$ positive semidefinite matrices over the octonions. We leave open the question whether there are more examples, but we show that this list cannot be extended by any strictly convex cone $\mathsf{C}$ or for a cone $\mathsf{C}$ with $\text{dim}(\mathsf{C})\leq 5$. Finally, we discuss an application to a problem in quantum information theory.

math.FA↗

arXiv2025

Monogamy of entanglement between cones

A separable quantum state shared between parties $A$ and $B$ can be symmetrically extended to a quantum state shared between party $A$ and parties $B_1,\ldots ,B_k$ for every $k\in\mathbf{N}$. Quantum states that are not separable, i.e., entangled, do not have this property. This phenomenon is known as "monogamy of entanglement". We show that monogamy is not only a feature of quantum theory, but that it characterizes the minimal tensor product of general pairs of convex cones $\mathsf{C}_A$ and $\mathsf{C}_B$: The elements of the minimal tensor product $\mathsf{C}_A\otimes_{\min} \mathsf{C}_B$ are precisely the tensors that can be symmetrically extended to elements in the maximal tensor product $\mathsf{C}_A\otimes_{\max} \mathsf{C}^{\otimes_{\max} k}_B$ for every $k\in\mathbf{N}$. Equivalently, the minimal tensor product of two cones is the intersection of the nested sets of $k$-extendible tensors. It is a natural question when the minimal tensor product $\mathsf{C}_A\otimes_{\min} \mathsf{C}_B$ coincides with the set of $k$-extendible tensors for some finite $k$. We show that this is universally the case for every cone $\mathsf{C}_A$ if and only if $\mathsf{C}_B$ is a polyhedral cone with a base given by a product of simplices. Our proof makes use of a new characterization of products of simplices up to affine equivalence that we believe is of independent interest.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Annihilating and breaking Lorentz cone entanglement

Linear maps between finite-dimensional ordered vector spaces with orders induced by proper cones $C_A$ and $C_B$ are called entanglement breaking if their partial application sends the maximal tensor product $K\otimes_{\max} C_A$ into the minimal tensor product $K\otimes_{\min} C_B$ for any proper cone $K$. We study the larger class of Lorentz-entanglement breaking maps where $K$ is restricted to be a Lorentz cone of any dimension, i.e., any cone over a Euclidean ball. This class of maps appeared recently in the study of asymptotic entanglement annihilation and it is dual to the linear maps factoring through Lorentz cones. Our main results establish connections between these classes of maps and operator ideals studied in the theory of Banach spaces. For operators $u:X\rightarrow Y$ between finite-dimensional normed spaces $X$ and $Y$ we consider so-called central maps which are positive with respect to the cones $C_A=C_X$ and $C_B=C_Y$. We show how to characterize when such a map factors through a Lorentz cone and when it is Lorentz-entanglement breaking by using the Hilbert-space factorization norm $γ_2$ and its dual $γ^*_2$. We also study the class of Lorentz-entanglement annihilating maps whose local application sends the Lorentzian tensor product $C_A\otimes_{L} C_A$ into the minimal tensor product $C_B\otimes_{\min} C_B$. When $C_A$ is a cone over a finite-dimensional normed space and $C_B$ is a Lorentz cone itself, the central maps of this kind can be characterized by the $2$-summing norm $π_2$. Finally, we prove interesting connections between these classes of maps for general cones, and we identify examples with particular properties, e.g., cones with an analogue of the $2$-summing property.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Fault-tolerant Coding for Quantum Communication

Designing encoding and decoding circuits to reliably send messages over many uses of a noisy channel is a central problem in communication theory. When studying the optimal transmission rates achievable with asymptotically vanishing error it is usually assumed that these circuits can be implemented using noise-free gates. While this assumption is satisfied for classical machines in many scenarios, it is not expected to be satisfied in the near term future for quantum machines where decoherence leads to faults in the quantum gates. As a result, fundamental questions regarding the practical relevance of quantum channel coding remain open. By combining techniques from fault-tolerant quantum computation with techniques from quantum communication, we initiate the study of these questions. We introduce fault-tolerant versions of quantum capacities quantifying the optimal communication rates achievable with asymptotically vanishing total error when the encoding and decoding circuits are affected by gate errors with small probability. Our main results are threshold theorems for the classical and quantum capacity: For every quantum channel $T$ and every $ε>0$ there exists a threshold $p(ε,T)$ for the gate error probability below which rates larger than $C-ε$ are fault-tolerantly achievable with vanishing overall communication error, where $C$ denotes the usual capacity. Our results are not only relevant in communication over large distances, but also on-chip, where distant parts of a quantum computer might need to communicate under higher levels of noise than affecting the local gates.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Limit formulas for norms of tensor power operators

Given an operator $ϕ:X\rightarrow Y$ between Banach spaces, we consider its tensor powers $ϕ^{\otimes k}$ as operators from the $k$-fold injective tensor product of $X$ to the $k$-fold projective tensor product of $Y$. We show that after taking the $k$th root, the operator norm of $ϕ^{\otimes k}$ converges to the $2$-dominated norm $γ^*_2(ϕ)$, one of the standard operator ideal norms.

math.FA↗

arXiv2024

Completely Bounded Norms of $k$-positive Maps

Given an operator system $\mathcal{S}$, we define the parameters $r_k(\mathcal{S})$ (resp. $d_k(\mathcal{S})$) defined as the maximal value of the completely bounded norm of a unital $k$-positive map from an arbitrary operator system into $\mathcal{S}$ (resp. from $\mathcal{S}$ into an arbitrary operator system). In the case of the matrix algebras $M_n$, for $1 \leq k \leq n$, we compute the exact value $r_k(M_n) = \frac{2n-k}{k}$ and show upper and lower bounds on the parameters $d_k(M_n)$. Moreover, when $\mathcal{S}$ is a finite-dimensional operator system, adapting recent results of Passer and the 4th author, we show that the sequence $(r_k( \mathcal{S}))$ tends to $1$ if and only if $\mathcal{S}$ is exact and that the sequence $(d_k(\mathcal{S}))$ tends to $1$ if and only if $\mathcal{S}$ has the lifting property.

math.OA↗

arXiv2024

A lower bound on the space overhead of fault-tolerant quantum computation

The threshold theorem is a fundamental result in the theory of fault-tolerant quantum computation stating that arbitrarily long quantum computations can be performed with a polylogarithmic overhead provided the noise level is below a constant level. A recent work by Fawzi, Grospellier and Leverrier (FOCS 2018) building on a result by Gottesman (QIC 2013) has shown that the space overhead can be asymptotically reduced to a constant independent of the circuit provided we only consider circuits with a length bounded by a polynomial in the width. In this work, using a minimal model for quantum fault tolerance, we establish a general lower bound on the space overhead required to achieve fault tolerance. For any non-unitary qubit channel $\mathcal{N}$ and any quantum fault tolerance schemes against $\mathrm{i.i.d.}$ noise modeled by $\mathcal{N}$, we prove a lower bound of $\max\left\{\mathrm{Q}(\mathcal{N})^{-1}n,α_\mathcal{N} \log T\right\}$ on the number of physical qubits, for circuits of length $T$ and width $n$. Here, $\mathrm{Q}(\mathcal{N})$ denotes the quantum capacity of $\mathcal{N}$ and $α_\mathcal{N}>0$ is a constant only depending on the channel $\mathcal{N}$. In our model, we allow for qubits to be replaced by fresh ones during the execution of the circuit and we allow classical computation to be free and perfect. This improves upon results that assumed classical computations to be also affected by noise, and that sometimes did not allow for fresh qubits to be added. Along the way, we prove an exponential upper bound on the maximal length of fault-tolerant quantum computation with amplitude damping noise resolving a conjecture by Ben-Or, Gottesman, and Hassidim (2013).

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Fault-tolerant Coding for Entanglement-Assisted Communication

Channel capacities quantify the optimal rates of sending information reliably over noisy channels. Usually, the study of capacities assumes that the circuits which sender and receiver use for encoding and decoding consist of perfectly noiseless gates. In the case of communication over quantum channels, however, this assumption is widely believed to be unrealistic, even in the long-term, due to the fragility of quantum information, which is affected by the process of decoherence. Christandl and Müller-Hermes have therefore initiated the study of fault-tolerant channel coding for quantum channels, i.e. coding schemes where encoder and decoder circuits are affected by noise, and have used techniques from fault-tolerant quantum computing to establish coding theorems for sending classical and quantum information in this scenario. Here, we extend these methods to the case of entanglement-assisted communication, in particular proving that the fault-tolerant capacity approaches the usual capacity when the gate error approaches zero. A main tool, which might be of independent interest, is the introduction of fault-tolerant entanglement distillation. We furthermore focus on the modularity of the techniques used, so that they can be easily adopted in other fault-tolerant communication scenarios.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

A refinement of Reznick's Positivstellensatz with applications to quantum information theory

In his solution of Hilbert's 17th problem Artin showed that any positive definite polynomial in several variables can be written as the quotient of two sums of squares. Later Reznick showed that the denominator in Artin's result can always be chosen as an $N$-th power of the squared norm of the variables and gave explicit bounds on $N$. By using concepts from quantum information theory (such as partial traces, optimal cloning maps, and an identity due to Chiribella) we give simpler proofs and minor improvements of both real and complex versions of this result. Moreover, we discuss constructions of Hilbert identities using Gaussian integrals and we review an elementary method to construct complex spherical designs. Finally, we apply our results to give improved bounds for exponential quantum de Finetti theorems in the real and in the complex setting.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Bi-PPT channels are entanglement breaking

In a recent paper, Hirche and Leditzky introduced the notion of bi-PPT channels which are quantum channels that stay completely positive under composition with a transposition and such that the same property holds for one of their complementary channels. They asked whether there are examples of such channels that are not antidegradable. We show that this is not the case, since bi-PPT channels are always entanglement breaking. We also show that degradable quantum channels staying completely positive under composition with a transposition are entanglement breaking.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

On the monotonicity of a quantum optimal transport cost

We show that the quantum generalization of the $2$-Wasserstein distance proposed by Chakrabarti et al. is not monotone under partial traces. This disproves a recent conjecture by Friedland et al. Finally, we propose a stabilized version of the original definition, which we show to be monotone under the application of general quantum channels.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Characterizing Schwarz maps by tracial inequalities

Let $ϕ$ be a linear map from the $n\times n$ matrices ${\mathcal M}_n$ to the $m\times m$ matrices ${\mathcal M}_m$. It is known that $ϕ$ is $2$-positive if and only if for all $K\in {\mathcal M}_n$ and all strictly positive $X\in {\mathcal M}_n$, $ϕ(K^*X^{-1}K) \geq ϕ(K)^*ϕ(X)^{-1}ϕ(K)$. This inequality is not generally true if $ϕ$ is merely a Schwarz map. We show that the corresponding tracial inequality ${\rm Tr}[ϕ(K^*X^{-1}K)] \geq {\rm Tr}[ϕ(K)^*ϕ(X)^{-1}ϕ(K)]$ holds for a wider class of positive maps that is specified here. We also comment on the connections of this inequality with various monotonicity that have found wide use in mathematical physics, and apply it, and a close relative, to obtain some new, definitive results.

math-ph↗

arXiv2021

Annihilating Entanglement Between Cones

Every multipartite entangled quantum state becomes fully separable after an entanglement breaking quantum channel acted locally on each of its subsystems. Whether there are other quantum channels with this property has been an open problem with important implications for entanglement theory (e.g., for the distillation problem and the PPT squared conjecture). We cast this problem in the general setting of proper convex cones in finite-dimensional vector spaces. The entanglement annihilating maps transform the $k$-fold maximal tensor product of a cone $C_1$ into the $k$-fold minimal tensor product of a cone $C_2$, and the pair $(C_1,C_2)$ is called resilient if all entanglement annihilating maps are entanglement breaking. Our main result is that $(C_1,C_2)$ is resilient if either $C_1$ or $C_2$ is a Lorentz cone. Our proof exploits the symmetries of the Lorentz cones and applies two constructions resembling protocols for entanglement distillation: As a warm-up, we use the multiplication tensors of real composition algebras to construct a finite family of generalized distillation protocols for Lorentz cones, containing the distillation protocol for entangled qubit states by Bennett et al. as a special case. Then, we construct an infinite family of protocols using solutions to the Hurwitz matrix equations. After proving these results, we focus on maps between cones of positive semidefinite matrices, where we derive necessary conditions for entanglement annihilation similar to the reduction criterion in entanglement distillation. Finally, we apply results from the theory of Banach space tensor norms to show that the Lorentz cones are the only cones with a symmetric base for which a certain stronger version of the resilience property is satisfied.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Asymptotic Tensor Powers of Banach Spaces

We study the asymptotic behaviour of large tensor powers of normed spaces and of operators between them. We define the tensor radius of a finite-dimensional normed space $X$ as the limit of the sequence $A_k^{1/k}$, where $A_k$ is the equivalence constant between the projective and injective norms on $X^{\otimes k}$. We show that Euclidean spaces are characterized by the property that their tensor radius equals their dimension. Moreover, we compute the tensor radius for spaces with enough symmetries, such as the spaces $\ell_p^n$. We also define the tensor radius of an operator $T$ as the limit of the sequence $B_k^{1/k}$, where $B_k$ is the injective-to-projective norm of $T^{\otimes k}$. We show that the tensor radius of an operator whose domain or range is Euclidean is equal to its nuclear norm, and give some evidence that this property might characterize Euclidean spaces.

math.FA↗

arXiv2021

Cutting cakes and kissing circles

To divide a cake into equal sized pieces most people use a knife and a mixture of luck and dexterity. These attempts are often met with varying success. Through precise geometric constructions performed with the knife replacing Euclid's straightedge and without using a compass we find methods for solving certain cake-cutting problems exactly. Since it is impossible to exactly bisect a circular cake when its center is not known, our constructions need to use multiple cakes. Using three circular cakes we present a simple method for bisecting each of them or to find their centers. Moreover, given a cake with marked center we present methods to cut it into n pieces of equal size for n=3,4 and 6. Our methods are based upon constructions by Steiner and Cauer from the 19th and early 20th century.

math.HO↗

arXiv2020

Decomposable Pauli diagonal maps and Tensor Squares of Qubit Maps

It is a well-known result due to E. Størmer that every positive qubit map is decomposable into a sum of a completely positive map and a completely copositive map. Here, we generalize this result to tensor squares of qubit maps. Specifically, we show that any positive tensor product of a qubit map with itself is decomposable. This solves a recent conjecture by S. Fillipov and K. Magadov. We contrast this result with examples of non-decomposable positive maps arising as the tensor product of two distinct qubit maps or as the tensor square of a decomposable map from a qubit to a ququart. To show our main result, we reduce the problem to Pauli diagonal maps. We then characterize the cone of decomposable ququart Pauli diagonal maps by determining all 252 extremal rays of ququart Pauli diagonal maps that are both completely positive and completely copositive. These extremal rays split into three disjoint orbits under a natural symmetry group, and two of these orbits contain only entanglement breaking maps. Finally, we develop a general combinatorial method to determine the extremal rays of Pauli diagonal maps that are both completely positive and completely copositive between multi-qubit systems using the ordered spectra of their Choi matrices. Classifying these extremal rays beyond ququarts is left as an open problem.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

When Do Composed Maps Become Entanglement Breaking?

For many completely positive maps repeated compositions will eventually become entanglement breaking. To quantify this behaviour we develop a technique based on the Schmidt number: If a completely positive map breaks the entanglement with respect to any qubit ancilla, then applying it to part of a bipartite quantum state will result in a Schmidt number bounded away from the maximum possible value. Iterating this result puts a successively decreasing upper bound on the Schmidt number arising in this way from compositions of such a map. By applying this technique to completely positive maps in dimension three that are also completely copositive we prove the so called PPT squared conjecture in this dimension. We then give more examples of completely positive maps where our technique can be applied, e.g.~maps close to the completely depolarizing map, and maps of low rank. Finally, we study the PPT squared conjecture in more detail, establishing equivalent conjectures related to other parts of quantum information theory, and we prove the conjecture for Gaussian quantum channels.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Decomposability of Linear Maps under Tensor Products

Both completely positive and completely copositive maps stay decomposable under tensor powers, i.e under tensoring the linear map with itself. But are there other examples of maps with this property? We show that this is not the case: Any decomposable map, that is neither completely positive nor completely copositive, will lose decomposability eventually after taking enough tensor powers. Moreover, we establish explicit bounds to quantify when this happens. To prove these results we use a symmetrization technique from the theory of entanglement distillation, and analyze when certain symmetric maps become non-decomposable after taking tensor powers. Finally, we apply our results to construct new examples of non-decomposable positive maps, and establish a connection to the PPT squared conjecture.

quant-ph↗