Quantum Mutual Information in Time

TL;DR

This paper extends quantum mutual information to the time domain using pseudo-density matrices, providing a measure of correlations between timelike-separated quantum systems and connecting it to classical information bounds.

Contribution

It introduces a time-domain quantum mutual information framework that captures correlations over time, bridging a gap with classical information theory.

Findings

Defines quantum mutual information in time using pseudo-density matrices.

Shows quantum mutual information in time is time-symmetric under Bayesian inversion.

Derives a Holevo bound for classical information from sequential quantum measurements.

Abstract

While the quantum mutual information is a fundamental measure of quantum information, it is only defined for spacelike-separated quantum systems. Such a limitation is not present in the theory of classical information, where the mutual information between two random variables is well-defined irrespective of whether or not the variables are separated in space or separated in time. Motivated by this disparity between the classical and quantum mutual information, we employ the pseudo-density matrix formalism to define a simple extension of quantum mutual information into the time domain. As in the spatial case, we show that such a notion of quantum mutual information in time serves as a natural measure of correlation between timelike-separated systems, while also highlighting ways in which quantum correlations distinguish between space and time. We also show how such quantum mutual information is time-symmetric with respect to quantum Bayesian inversion, and then we conclude by showing how mutual information in time yields a Holevo bound for the amount of classical information that may be extracted from sequential measurements on an ensemble of quantum states.