arXiv subjects

Julius A. Zeiss

Publications and source records attributed to Julius A. Zeiss.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A counterexample to the quantum Hedetniemi conjecture

Godsil, Roberson, Šámal and Severini conjectured that the quantum chromatic number of the categorical product of two graphs equals the minimum of the quantum chromatic numbers of the factors. We disprove this conjecture: we construct explicit finite graphs $G,H$ with \[ χ(G\times H) \leq 1538 < 1539 = \min(χ_q(G),χ_q(H)).\]The graphs are obtained from Zhu's counterexample to Hedetniemi's conjecture by using a base graph for which the Lovász theta number of the complement, and not only the fractional chromatic number, is large. The lower bound for the first factor is the theta bound. For the second factor we adapt Zhu's argument to projections that do not commute: the step that fixes the colors of a clique is replaced by identities between operators. Both lower bounds hold for colorings by projections in an arbitrary nonzero unital $C^*$-algebra. Hence the conjecture also fails for the spatial, approximate, commuting-operator and $C^*$-algebraic variants of the quantum chromatic number. We also give smaller counterexamples certified by exact integer data. The graph constructions, the certificates and the counterexample statements in the projective formulation are formalized in Lean~4.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Optimal entanglement-assisted source coding under a balanced-difference promise

Entanglement can reduce the communication required for coding tasks, but establishing the minimum achievable cost is essential to understanding its limits. We address this question in a zero-error source-coding task where Alice receives a word and Bob knows an unordered pair of candidates containing it. Alice does not know the pair and must enable Bob to identify her word without error using shared entanglement and one classical message. The candidates satisfy a balanced-difference promise: for words in $\mathbb{Z}_q^n$ with $n=q\ell$, each residue modulo $q$ occurs exactly $\ell$ times in their coordinatewise difference. For all integers $q\geq2$ and $\ell\geq1$, we prove that the task requires exactly $n$ messages when $(q-1)\ell$ is even and two messages when it is odd. These minima allow arbitrary finite-dimensional shared states independent of the inputs and arbitrary local measurements. In even parity, this establishes optimality of an existing entanglement-assisted protocol. In odd parity, an explicit deterministic protocol achieves the optimum of one bit without entanglement. Our proof combines Fourier analysis with a combinatorial counting argument to determine the smallest eigenvalue of the associated graphs. In even parity, this resolves the spectral assertion of Cao et al.'s Conjecture 6.3 for balanced cyclic generalized Hadamard graphs. Together with an explicit odd-parity bipartition, this determines the quantum chromatic number as $n$ in even parity and $2$ in odd parity, where the classical chromatic number is also $2$. All lemmas, theorems, and corollaries are formalized and verified in Lean.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Approximating fixed size quantum correlations in polynomial time

We show that $\varepsilon$-additive approximations of the optimal value of fixed-size two-player free games with fixed-dimensional entanglement assistance can be computed in time $\mathrm{poly}(1/\varepsilon)$. This stands in contrast to previous analytic approaches, which focused on scaling with the number of questions and answers, but yielded only strict $\mathrm{exp}(1/\varepsilon)$ guarantees. Our main result is based on novel Bose-symmetric quantum de Finetti theorems tailored for constrained quantum separability problems. These results give rise to semidefinite programming (SDP) outer hierarchies for approximating the entangled value of such games. By employing representation-theoretic symmetry reduction techniques, we demonstrate that these SDPs can be formulated and solved with computational complexity $\mathrm{poly}(1/\varepsilon)$, thereby enabling efficient $\varepsilon$-additive approximations. In addition, we introduce a measurement-based rounding scheme that translates the resulting outer bounds into certifiably good inner sequences of entangled strategies. These strategies can, for instance, serve as warm starts for see-saw optimization methods. We believe that our techniques are of independent interest for broader classes of constrained separability problems in quantum information theory.

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arXiv2026

Sharp continuity of quantum conditional entropy

We prove the sharp uniform continuity bound for quantum conditional entropy. If two bipartite states are at trace distance at most $δ$ and $d=\dim A$, the optimal dimension-only modulus of continuity is $h_2(δ)+δ\log(d^2-1)$ up to $δ=1-d^{-2}$ and $2\log d$ thereafter, where $h_2$ denotes the binary entropy. When $\dim B\ge d$, this bound is tight for every $δ\in[0,1]$. The key proof idea was developed with the assistance of ChatGPT 5.6 Sol, building on and adapting the tight classical proof of Alhejji \& Smith [IEEE ISIT (2020)], which follows a conceptually different approach.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Fixed points in de Finetti hierarchies

De Finetti theorems convert permutation symmetry into approximate mixtures of product states and thereby justify a wide range of reductions in classical and quantum statistics. In this work we study de Finetti hierarchies in which the feasible states are additionally constrained to be fixed points of quantum channels, a condition that subsumes invariance under arbitrary compact symmetry groups. Combining the mean-ergodic theorem with the structure theory of conditional expectations, we prove a tight bound on the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of the dual of a conditional expectation, block-wise distortion bounds for informationally complete measurements adapted to fixed point algebras, and an exact type-based refinement of the chain rule for permutation-invariant states. From these tools we derive several de Finetti theorems: a double-sided extension theorem with $O\left(\sqrt{\log n}/n\right)$ convergence, an interpolation theorem whose dimension dependence is governed solely by the block structure of the fixed point algebras and which recovers the dimension-independent classical behavior for maximal tori, and a Bose-symmetric variant. Exploiting Schur-Weyl duality and Gelfand-Tsetlin bases, we further show that the rounding scheme producing certifiably good separable inner approximations for (constrained) separability problems can be implemented in time polynomial in $1/ε$ for fixed local dimensions, complementing the known efficient outer hierarchies. Applications to bilinear optimization under symmetries and to approximate quantum error correction are discussed.

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arXiv2026

Finite de Finetti for convex bodies and Polynomial Optimization

Leveraging a recently proposed notion of relative entropy in general probabilistic theories (GPT), we prove a finite de Finetti representation theorem for general convex bodies. We apply this result to address a fundamental question in polynomial optimization: the existence of a convergent outer hierarchy for problems with inequality constraints and analytical convergence guarantees. Our strategy generalizes a quantitative monogamy-of-entanglement argument from quantum theory to arbitrary convex bodies, establishing a uniform upper bound on mutual information in multipartite extensions. This leads to a finite de Finetti theorem and, subsequently, a convergent conic hierarchy for a wide class of polynomial optimization problems subject to both equality and inequality constraints. We further provide a constructive rounding scheme that yields certified interior points with controlled approximation error. As an application, we express the optimal GPT value of a two-player non-local game as a polynomial optimization problem, allowing our techniques to produce approximation schemes with finite convergence guarantees.

math.OC↗

arXiv2025

On approximate quantum error correction for symmetric noise

We revisit the extendability-based semi-definite programming hierarchy introduced by Berta et al. [Mathematical Programming, 1 - 49 (2021)], which provides converging outer bounds on the optimal fidelity of approximate quantum error correction (AQEC). As our first contribution, we introduce a measurement-based rounding scheme that extracts inner sequences of certifiably good encoder-decoder pairs from this outer hierarchy. To address the computational complexity of evaluating fixed levels of the hierarchy, we investigate the use of symmetry-based dimension reduction. In particular, we combine noise symmetries - such as those present in multiple copies of the qubit depolarizing channel - with the permutational symmetry arising from the extendability of the optimization variable. This framework is illustrated through basic, but already challenging numerical examples that showcase its practical effectiveness. Our results contribute to narrowing the gap between theoretical developments in quantum information theory and their practical applications in the analysis of small-scale quantum error-correcting codes.

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