Joint source-channel coding for a quantum multiple access channel

TL;DR

This paper extends classical joint source-channel coding strategies to quantum multiple access channels, demonstrating that a similar approach with a quantum decoder enables reliable transmission of correlated sources under certain information inequalities.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum analogue of the Cover-El Gamal-Salehi strategy and proves its effectiveness for reliable transmission over quantum multiple access channels.

Findings

Quantum coding strategy analogous to classical approach

Reliable transmission under Holevo quantity inequalities

Quantum simultaneous decoder enables joint source-channel coding

Abstract

Suppose that two senders each obtain one share of the output of a classical, bivariate, correlated information source. They would like to transmit the correlated source to a receiver using a quantum multiple access channel. In prior work, Cover, El Gamal, and Salehi provided a combined source-channel coding strategy for a classical multiple access channel which outperforms the simpler "separation" strategy where separate codebooks are used for the source coding and the channel coding tasks. In the present paper, we prove that a coding strategy similar to the Cover-El Gamal-Salehi strategy and a corresponding quantum simultaneous decoder allow for the reliable transmission of a source over a quantum multiple access channel, as long as a set of information inequalities involving the Holevo quantity hold.