arXiv subjects

Debbie Leung

Publications and source records attributed to Debbie Leung.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Achieving fault tolerance on capped color codes with few ancillas

Attaining fault tolerance while maintaining low overhead is one of the main challenges in a practical implementation of quantum circuits. One major technique that can overcome this problem is the flag technique, in which high-weight errors arising from a few faults can be detected by a few ancillas and distinguished using subsequent syndrome measurements. The technique can be further improved using the fact that for some families of codes, errors of any weight are logically equivalent if they have the same syndrome and weight parity, as previously shown in [Phys. Rev. A 104, 042410 (2021)]. In this work, we develop a notion of distinguishable fault set which captures both concepts of flags and weight parities, and extend the use of weight parities in error correction from [Phys. Rev. A 104, 042410 (2021)] to families of capped and recursive capped color codes. We also develop fault-tolerant protocols for error correction, measurement, state preparation, and logical T gate implementation via code switching, which are sufficient for performing fault-tolerant Clifford computation on a capped color code, and performing fault-tolerant universal quantum computation on a recursive capped color code. Our protocols for a capped or a recursive capped color code of any distance require only 2 ancillas, assuming that the ancillas can be reused. The concept of distinguishable fault set also leads to a generalization of the definitions of fault-tolerant gadgets proposed by Aliferis, Gottesman, and Preskill.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Incompressibility of classical distributions

In blind compression of quantum states, a sender Alice is given a specimen of a quantum state $ρ$ drawn from a known ensemble (but without knowing what $ρ$ is), and she transmits sufficient quantum data to a receiver Bob so that he can decode a near perfect specimen of $ρ$. For many such states drawn iid from the ensemble, the asymptotically achievable rate is the number of qubits required to be transmitted per state. The Holevo information is a lower bound for the achievable rate, and is attained for pure state ensembles, or in the related scenario of entanglement-assisted visible compression of mixed states wherein Alice knows what state is drawn. In this paper, we prove a general and robust lower bound on the achievable rate for ensembles of classical states, which holds even in the least demanding setting when Alice and Bob share free entanglement and a constant per-copy error is allowed. We apply the bound to a specific ensemble of only two states and prove a near-maximal separation (saturating the dimension bound in leading order) between the best achievable rate and the Holevo information for constant error. This also implies that the ensemble is incompressible -- compression does not reduce the communication cost by much. Since the states are classical, the observed incompressibility is not fundamentally quantum mechanical. We lower bound the difference between the achievable rate and the Holevo information in terms of quantitative limitations to clone the specimen or to distinguish the two classical states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Fault-tolerant quantum error correction using error weight parities

In quantum error correction using imperfect primitives, errors of high weight arising from a few faults are major concerns since they might not be correctable by the quantum error correcting code. Fortunately, some errors of different weights are logically equivalent and the same correction procedure is applicable to all equivalent errors, thus correcting high-weight errors is sometimes possible. In this work, we introduce a technique called weight parity error correction (WPEC) which can correct Pauli error of any weight in some stabilizer codes provided that the parity of the weight of the error is known. We show that the technique is applicable to concatenated codes constructed from the [[7,1,3]] Steane code or the [[23,1,7]] Golay code. We also provide a fault-tolerant error correction protocol using WPEC for the [[49,1,9]] concatenated Steane code which can correct up to 3 faults and requires only 2 ancillas.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

A three-player coherent state embezzlement game

We introduce a three-player nonlocal game, with a finite number of classical questions and answers, such that the optimal success probability of $1$ in the game can only be achieved in the limit of strategies using arbitrarily high-dimensional entangled states. Precisely, there exists a constant $0 <c\leq 1$ such that to succeed with probability $1-\varepsilon$ in the game it is necessary to use an entangled state of at least $Ω(\varepsilon^{-c})$ qubits, and it is sufficient to use a state of at most $O(\varepsilon^{-1})$ qubits. The game is based on the coherent state exchange game of Leung et al. (CJTCS 2013). In our game, the task of the quantum verifier is delegated to a third player by a classical referee. Our results complement those of Slofstra (arXiv:1703.08618) and Dykema et al. (arXiv:1709.05032), who obtained two-player games with similar (though quantitatively weaker) properties based on the representation theory of finitely presented groups and $C^*$-algebras respectively.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

On the mixed-unitary rank of quantum channels

In the theory of quantum information, the mixed-unitary quantum channels, for any positive integer dimension $n$, are those linear maps that can be expressed as a convex combination of conjugations by $n\times n$ complex unitary matrices. We consider the mixed-unitary rank of any such channel, which is the minimum number of distinct unitary conjugations required for an expression of this form. We identify several new relationships between the mixed-unitary rank~$N$ and the Choi rank~$r$ of mixed-unitary channels, the Choi rank being equal to the minimum number of nonzero terms required for a Kraus representation of that channel. Most notably, we prove that the inequality $N\leq r^2-r+1$ is satisfied for every mixed-unitary channel (as is the equality $N=2$ when $r=2$), and we exhibit the first known examples of mixed-unitary channels for which $N>r$. Specifically, we prove that there exist mixed-unitary channels having Choi rank $d+1$ and mixed-unitary rank $2d$ for infinitely many positive integers $d$, including every prime power $d$. We also examine the mixed-unitary ranks of the mixed-unitary Werner--Holevo channels.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Capacity Approaching Coding for Low Noise Interactive Quantum Communication, Part I: Large Alphabets

We consider the problem of implementing two-party interactive quantum communication over noisy channels, a necessary endeavor if we wish to fully reap quantum advantages for communication. For an arbitrary protocol with $n$ messages, designed for a noiseless qudit channel over a $\mathrm{poly}(n)$ size alphabet, our main result is a simulation method that fails with probability less than $2^{-Θ(nε)}$ and uses a qudit channel over the same alphabet $n\left(1+Θ\left(\sqrtε\right)\right)$ times, of which an $ε$ fraction can be corrupted adversarially. The simulation is thus capacity achieving to leading order, and we conjecture that it is optimal up to a constant factor in the $\sqrtε$ term. Furthermore, the simulation is in a model that does not require pre-shared resources such as randomness or entanglement between the communicating parties. Our work improves over the best previously known quantum result where the overhead is a non-explicit large constant [Brassard et al., FOCS'14] for low $ε$.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Additive entanglemement measures cannot be more than asymptotically continuous

In this short note, we show that any non-constant quantity defined on density matrices that is additive on tensor products and invariant under permutations cannot be "more than asymptotically continuous." The proof can be adapted to show that any additive entanglement measure (on any number of parties) that is invariant under local unitary operations also cannot be more than asymptotically continuous. The proof is a direct consequence of generalizing a protocol in arXiv:0804.4118 for embezzling entanglement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Flag fault-tolerant error correction, measurement, and quantum computation for cyclic CSS codes

Flag qubits have recently been proposed in syndrome extraction circuits to detect high-weight errors arising from fewer faults. The use of flag qubits allows the construction of fault-tolerant protocols with the fewest number of ancillas known to-date. In this work, we prove some critical properties of CSS codes constructed from classical cyclic codes that enable the construction of a flag fault-tolerant error correction scheme. We then develop fault-tolerant protocols as well as a family of circuits for flag fault-tolerant error correction and operator measurement, requiring only four ancilla qubits and applicable to cyclic CSS codes of distance 3. The measurement protocol can be further used for logical Clifford gate implementation via quantum gate teleportation. We also provide examples of cyclic CSS codes with large encoding rates.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

LOCC protocols with bounded width per round optimize convex functions

We start with the task of discriminating finitely many multipartite quantum states using LOCC protocols, with the goal to optimize the probability of correctly identifying the state. We provide two different methods to show that finitely many measurement outcomes in every step are sufficient for approaching the optimal probability of discrimination. In the first method, each measurement of an optimal LOCC protocol, applied to a $d_{\rm loc}$-dim local system, is replaced by one with at most $2d_{\rm loc}^2$ outcomes, without changing the probability of success. In the second method, we decompose any LOCC protocol into a convex combination of a number of "slim protocols" in which each measurement applied to a $d_{\rm loc}$-dim local system has at most $d_{\rm loc}^2$ outcomes. To maximize any convex functions in LOCC (including the probability of state discrimination or fidelity of state transformation), an optimal protocol can be replaced by the best slim protocol in the convex decomposition without using shared randomness. For either method, the bound on the number of outcomes per measurement is independent of the global dimension, the number of parties, the depth of the protocol, how deep the measurement is located, and applies to LOCC protocols with infinite rounds, and the "measurement compression" can be done "top-down" -- independent of later operations in the LOCC protocol. The second method can be generalized to implement LOCC instruments with finitely many outcomes: if the instrument has $n$ coarse-grained final measurement outcomes, global input dimension $D_0$ and global output dimension $D_i$ for $i=1,...,n$ conditioned on the $i$-th outcome, then one can obtain the instrument as a convex combination of no more than $R=\sum_{i=1}^n D_0^2 D_i^2 - D_0^2 + 1$ slim protocols; in other words, $\log_2 R$ bits of shared randomess suffice.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Round elimination in exact communication complexity

We study two basic graph parameters, the chromatic number and the orthogonal rank, in the context of classical and quantum exact communication complexity. In particular, we consider two types of communication problems that we call promise equality and list problems. For both of these, it was already known that the one-round classical and one-round quantum complexities are characterized by the chromatic number and orthogonal rank of a certain graph, respectively. In a promise equality problem, Alice and Bob must decide if their inputs are equal or not. We prove that classical protocols for such problems can always be reduced to one-round protocols with no extra communication. In contrast, we give an explicit instance of a promise equality problem that exhibits an exponential gap between the one- and two-round exact quantum communication complexities. Whereas the chromatic number thus fully captures the complexity of promise equality problems, the hierarchy of "quantum chromatic numbers" (starting with the orthogonal rank) giving the quantum communication complexity for every fixed number of communication rounds turns out to enjoy a much richer structure. In a list problem, Bob gets a subset of some finite universe, Alice gets an element from Bob's subset, and their goal is for Bob to learn which element Alice was given. The best general lower bound (due to Orlitsky) and upper bound (due to Naor, Orlitsky, and Shor) on the classical communication complexity of such problems differ only by a constant factor. We exhibit an example showing that, somewhat surprisingly, the four-round protocol used in the bound of Naor et al. can in fact be optimal. Finally, we pose a conjecture on the orthogonality rank of a certain graph whose truth would imply an intriguing impossibility of round elimination in quantum protocols for list problems, something that works trivially in the classical case.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Dephrasure channel and superadditivity of coherent information

The quantum capacity of a quantum channel captures its capability for noiseless quantum communication. It lies at the heart of quantum information theory. Unfortunately, our poor understanding of nonadditivity of coherent information makes it hard to understand the quantum capacity of all but very special channels. In this paper, we consider the dephrasure channel, which is the concatenation of a dephasing channel and an erasure channel. This very simple channel displays remarkably rich and exotic properties: we find nonadditivity of coherent information at the two-letter level, a big gap between single-letter coherent and private informations, and positive quantum capacity for all complementary channels. Its clean form simplifies the evaluation of coherent information substantially and, as such, we hope that the dephrasure channel will provide a much-needed laboratory for the testing of new ideas about nonadditivity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

On the complementary quantum capacity of the depolarizing channel

The qubit depolarizing channel with noise parameter $η$ transmits an input qubit perfectly with probability $1-η$, and outputs the completely mixed state with probability $η$. We show that its complementary channel has positive quantum capacity for all $η>0$. Thus, we find that there exists a single parameter family of channels having the peculiar property of having positive quantum capacity even when the outputs of these channels approach a fixed state independent of the input. Comparisons with other related channels, and implications on the difficulty of studying the quantum capacity of the depolarizing channel are discussed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Near-linear constructions of exact unitary 2-designs

A unitary 2-design can be viewed as a quantum analogue of a 2-universal hash function: it is indistinguishable from a truly random unitary by any procedure that queries it twice. We show that exact unitary 2-designs on n qubits can be implemented by quantum circuits consisting of ~O(n) elementary gates in logarithmic depth. This is essentially a quadratic improvement in size (and in width times depth) over all previous implementations that are exact or approximate (for sufficiently strong approximations).

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Maximum privacy without coherence, zero-error

We study the possible difference between the quantum and the private capacities of a quantum channel in the zero-error setting. For a family of channels introduced by arXiv:1312.4989, we demonstrate an extreme difference: the zero-error quantum capacity is zero, whereas the zero-error private capacity is maximum given the quantum output dimension.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Characterization of universal two-qubit Hamiltonians

Suppose we can apply a given 2-qubit Hamiltonian H to any (ordered) pair of qubits. We say H is n-universal if it can be used to approximate any unitary operation on n qubits. While it is well known that almost any 2-qubit Hamiltonian is 2-universal (Deutsch, Barenco, Ekert 1995; Lloyd 1995), an explicit characterization of the set of non-universal 2-qubit Hamiltonians has been elusive. Our main result is a complete characterization of 2-non-universal 2-qubit Hamiltonians. In particular, there are three ways that a 2-qubit Hamiltonian H can fail to be universal: (1) H shares an eigenvector with the gate that swaps two qubits, (2) H acts on the two qubits independently (in any of a certain family of bases), or (3) H has zero trace. A 2-non-universal 2-qubit Hamiltonian can still be n-universal for some n >= 3. We give some partial results on 3-universality. Finally, we also show how our characterization of 2-universal Hamiltonians implies the well-known result that almost any 2-qubit unitary is universal.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

On the power of PPT-preserving and non-signalling codes

We derive one-shot upper bounds for quantum noisy channel codes. We do so by regarding a channel code as a bipartite operation with an encoder belonging to the sender and a decoder belonging to the receiver, and imposing constraints on the bipartite operation. We investigate the power of codes whose bipartite operation is non-signalling from Alice to Bob, positive-partial transpose (PPT) preserving, or both, and derive a simple semidefinite program for the achievable entanglement fidelity. Using the semidefinite program, we show that the non-signalling assisted quantum capacity for memoryless channels is equal to the entanglement-assisted capacity. We also relate our PPT-preserving codes and the PPT-preserving entanglement distillation protocols studied by Rains. Applying these results to a concrete example, the 3-dimensional Werner-Holevo channel, we find that codes that are non-signalling and PPT-preserving can be strictly less powerful than codes satisfying either one of the constraints, and therefore provide a tighter bound for unassisted codes. Furthermore, PPT-preserving non-signalling codes can send one qubit perfectly over two uses of the channel, which has no quantum capacity. We discuss whether this can be interpreted as a form of superactivation of quantum capacity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Characteristics of Universal Embezzling Families

We derive properties of general universal embezzling families for bipartite embezzlement protocols, where any pure state can be converted to any other without communication, but in the presence of the embezzling family. Using this framework, we exhibit various families inequivalent to that proposed by van Dam and Hayden. We suggest a possible improvement and present detail numerical analysis.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About LOCC (But Were Afraid to Ask)

In this paper we study the subset of generalized quantum measurements on finite dimensional systems known as local operations and classical communication (LOCC). While LOCC emerges as the natural class of operations in many important quantum information tasks, its mathematical structure is complex and difficult to characterize. Here we provide a precise description of LOCC and related operational classes in terms of quantum instruments. Our formalism captures both finite round protocols as well as those that utilize an unbounded number of communication rounds. While the set of LOCC is not topologically closed, we show that finite round LOCC constitutes a compact subset of quantum operations. Additionally we show the existence of an open ball around the completely depolarizing map that consists entirely of LOCC implementable maps. Finally, we demonstrate a two-qubit map whose action can be approached arbitrarily close using LOCC, but nevertheless cannot be implemented perfectly.

quant-ph↗