Jordan products of quantum channels and their compatibility

TL;DR

This paper explores the compatibility of quantum channels, linking it to the quantum state marginal problem, and introduces Jordan products of channels with conditions for compatibility, supported by semidefinite programming tests.

Contribution

It establishes the equivalence between channel compatibility and the quantum state marginal problem, introduces Jordan products for channels, and formulates compatibility as semidefinite programs.

Findings

Compatibility is equivalent to the quantum state marginal problem.

Compatible measure-and-prepare channels may lack a compatibilizing channel.

Semidefinite programming can test compatibility of specific channel families.

Abstract

Given two quantum channels, we examine the task of determining whether they are compatible - meaning that one can perform both channels simultaneously but, in the future, choose exactly one channel whose output is desired (while forfeiting the output of the other channel). We show several results concerning this task. First, we show it is equivalent to the quantum state marginal problem, i.e., every quantum state marginal problem can be recast as the compatibility of two channels, and vice versa. Second, we show that compatible measure-and-prepare channels (i.e., entanglement-breaking channels) do not necessarily have a measure-and-prepare compatibilizing channel. Third, we extend the notion of the Jordan product of matrices to quantum channels and present sufficient conditions for channel compatibility. These Jordan products and their generalizations might be of independent interest. Last, we formulate the different notions of compatibility as semidefinite programs and numerically test when families of partially dephasing-depolaring channels are compatible.