Approximate Degradable Quantum Channels

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of approximate degradable quantum channels, providing a way to quantify how closely a channel resembles a degradable one and deriving bounds on quantum capacities.

Contribution

It defines approximate degradability, shows how to compute the approximation parameter efficiently, and extends properties of degradable channels to this approximate setting.

Findings

Efficient semidefinite program for determining the approximation parameter.

Approximate degradable channels inherit key properties of degradable channels.

Improved upper bounds on quantum and private classical capacities for certain channels.

Abstract

Degradable quantum channels are an important class of completely positive trace-preserving maps. Among other properties, they offer a single-letter formula for the quantum and the private classical capacity and are characterized by the fact that a complementary channel can be obtained from the channel by applying a degrading channel. In this work we introduce the concept of approximate degradable channels, which satisfy this condition up to some finite $\varepsilon\geq0$. That is, there exists a degrading channel which upon composition with the channel is $\varepsilon$-close in the diamond norm to the complementary channel. We show that for any fixed channel the smallest such $\varepsilon$ can be efficiently determined via a semidefinite program. Moreover, these approximate degradable channels also approximately inherit all other properties of degradable channels. As an application, we derive improved upper bounds to the quantum and private classical capacity for certain channels of interest in quantum communication.