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1. Introduction
Earlier in this decade, the title of this paper would have been am-
biguous. Until 2003, there was not any one problem which could have
been titled “The additivity conjecture.” Rather, there were a host of
different additivity questions, which we will describe in more detail later
in this manuscript. Two major open additivity questions were the ad-
ditivity of classical channel capacity and the additivity of entanglement
of formation, but researchers had also conjectured the additivity of
the minimum entropy output of a quantum channel, and conjectured
a stronger property than additivity of entanglement of formation called
the strong superadditivity of entanglement of formation. In 2003, it was
shown that these four open conjectures were all equivalent [29, 33].
c 2007 International Press
173
174 PETER W. SHOR
This unified four seemingly separate conjectures into one unified con-
jecture. Holevo [17, 18] has written recent, thorough surveys of the
state of affairs of the additivity question. There, however, has been
significant progress since then [37, 13, 10] as will be discussed later
in this paper. Several other quantities had earlier been conjectured to
be additive, including the relative entropy of entanglement, the distill-
able entanglement. These now both appear to be non-additive; the first
has been rigorously proved so [35], and for the second there is strong
evidence of non-additivity [34]
The question of the additivity of a quantity f , which is a function
defined over quantum channels (or quantum states) can be expressed as
follows. Suppose Φ and Ψ are two quantum channels (or states):
Is f (Φ ⊗ Ψ) = f (Φ) + f (Ψ)?
2. Background
Before we can describe this in more detail, we need to give some
definitions. We will be dealing solely with the quantum mechanics of
finite dimensional systems in this paper. This is because it is easier
to deal with finite dimensions than with infinite dimensions and also
because , at least for the channel capacity question, the additivity con-
jecture for infinite dimensional systems is implied by the conjecture for
finite-dimensional systems [31].
In quantum mechanics, a d-dimensional system can be represented
by a complex vector space Cd . A pure quantum state of the system is
a unit complex vector in this vector space. Quantum states are often
represented as kets, | vi, although in this paper we often omit the kets,
yielding a notation which is more familiar to mathematicians. We still
use | 0i, | 1i, . . ., for basis states of a quantum system. We will be using
the generally accepted convention in physics of representing quantum
states by column vectors.
Two pure quantum states are equivalent if they differ only by a
phase, so mathematically, a quantum state lies in a projective complex
vector space. In many calculations, however, it is much more convenient
to represent a state as a unit complex vector, and we will be doing this.
A mixed quantum state, or density matrix is a trace 1 positive1 d × d
matrix. A pure state v is equivalent to the rank one density matrix vv † .
If we have a finite ensemble of quantum states, where the probability of
1In this paper, by positive, I will mean positive semidefinite Hermitian matrix.
THE ADDITIVITY CONJECTURE IN QUANTUM INFORMATION THEORY 175
One example of quantum states with which many people are familiar
is the polarization states of light. This is a two-dimensional quantum
system (which quantum information scientists have started calling a
qubit) and thus has two basis vectors. For example, we can take the
vertically and horizontally polarized photons a basis. We call these
states
| li and | ↔i
Any other pure state of polarization is a linear combination of these
states. For example,
1
(1) |ր
ւi = √ (| li + | ↔i)
2
1
(2) |ց
տi = √ (| li + | ↔i)
2
and right and left circular polarization states are the linear combinations
with imaginary coefficients √12 (| li ± i | ↔i).
When you consider two quantum systems, their joint state space is
represented by the tensor product of the two individual state spaces.
This joint state space includes states which are not tensor products.
These states are said to be entangled. For example, the state
1
√ (| li ⊗ | ↔i − | ↔i ⊗ | li)
2
is such a state, this one called an EPR pair (after Einstein, Podolsky
and Rosen’s famous thought experiment [7], which involved a similar
physical state of two entangled particles).
Density matrices arise from pure quantum states in two ways. The
first, as was described above, is if we have a quantum system about
which we have incomplete information. If this quantum system is in
state vi with probability pi , then the density matrix is
pi vi vi†
X
ρ=
i
This theorem implies that if the following conjecture is true for 1 < p <
1 + ǫ for some positive ǫ, the minimum entropy output is additive
(3) νp (Φ ⊗ Ψ) = νp (Φ)νp (Ψ).
178 PETER W. SHOR
This was realized by Amosov, Holevo and Werner, who then conjec-
tured that this minimum output purity was multiplicative for all p [1].
This is equivalent to the additivity of minimum output Rényi entropy
of order p. Unfortunately, their original conjecture was not true; two of
the proposers of this conjecture found a counterexample not long after
their original paper [36]. The counterexample shows that the conjec-
ture is false for p ≥ 4.8. There did not seem to be any obstacle to it
holding for 1 < p ≤ 2, which was the revised version of the conjecture.
However, this has recently also shown to be false. Winter [37] gave a
counterexample which showed that the conjecture was false for p > 2.
The structure of this counterexample led Hayden [13] to find a coun-
terexample for all p, 1 < p < 2. Shortly afterwards, Harrow [10] found
a counterexample for the additivity of Rényi entropy at p sufficiently
close to 0, which numerically seems to work for 0 ≤ p < 0.12. (This is
equivalent to multiplicativity of minimum output p-norm.) Thus, if the
conjecture holds, it most likely holds only for the von Neumann entropy
case of p = 1.
We now describe the structure of Winter’s counterexample [37],
which holds for 1 < p < 2. We take m random unitary transformations
over an n-dimensional Hilbert space, U1 , . . ., Um . Now, let
m
1 X †
Φ:ρ→ Um ρUm
m
j=1
and
m
1 X †
Φ∗ : ρ → Um ρUm .
m
j=1
It can be shown that if m grows faster than O(n log n), then Φ(vv † ) and
Φ∗ (vv † ) are close to random for all v, so for Φ and Φ∗ , all the eigenvalues
of any output density matrix are of order 1/n. However, if we consider
the EPR state
1 X
w=√ | ii | ii ,
n
i
then Φ ⊗ Φ∗ (ww† ) will have one large eigenvalue. This is because for
any for any unitary U ,
1 X X
w† (U ⊗ U † )w = ( hj | ⊗ hj |) U | ii ⊗ U † | ii)
n
j i
1X
= hj | U | ii ⊗ hj | U † | ii
n
i,j
1X
= |hj | U | ii|2
n
i,j
= 1,
THE ADDITIVITY CONJECTURE IN QUANTUM INFORMATION THEORY 179
where the last inequality holds because U | ii and | ji are two different
orthonomal bases for the Hilbert space.
The above equality shows that the terms where i = j in the expres-
sion
1
Ui ⊗ Uj† ww† Ui† ⊗ Uj w
X
w† Φ ⊗ Φ∗ (ww† ) w = w† 2
m
i,j
contribute a total of 1/m. Since the other terms are positive, this shows
that (Φ ⊗ Φ∗ )(ww† ) has an eigenvalue larger than 1/m. If we choose
m = n1+ǫ for ǫ small, this will give a counterexample to the maximum
purity conjecture for any p > 2, since the maximum p-norms of each
of Φ and Φ∗ are approximately n(1−p)/p , and the maximum p-norm of
Φ ⊗ Φ∗ is approximately 1/m.
Inspired by this result, Hayden [13] found a counterexample to the
conjecture for any p > 1. This is not quite so easy to understand intu-
itively, and the calculations are somewhat more difficult, but the basic
idea behind the counterexample is the same. Here, the two channels are
Φ(ρ) = TrB U (ρ ⊗ v0 v0† )U †
and
Φ∗ (ρ) = TrB U † (ρ ⊗ v0 v0† )U,
where U is a random unitary transform.
or any state that can be derived from this state by local unitary trans-
formations. That is, if we have two unitary transformations on the two
Hilbert spaces UA acting on A and UB acting on B, then (UA ⊗UB )ψEP R
is also an EPR pair. By convention, we take the amount of entanglement
in a single EPR pair to be one bit.
It is fairly easy to quantify entanglement of pure quantum states
(recall these are vectors in our tensor product Hilbert space). The
amount of entanglement in a pure quantum state v consists of
EP (v) = H(TrA vv † ) = H(TrB vv † ).
It is a theorem [6] that any two pure quantum states with the same
amount of entanglement can be asymptotically interconverted with high
efficiency, using only local unitary operations and classical communica-
tion. That is, suppose we have a pure quantum state v. We denote the
quantum state of an EPR pair, ψEP R above, by ψ. Then for any fixed
small ǫ > 0, there is a large enough n so that, if two people, Alice and
Bob, hold A and B respectively, then Alice and Bob, using only local
quantum operations and classical communication, can convert v ⊗n to a
state ρ that is very close to ψ ⊗(1−ǫ)nEP , i.e., such that
⊗(1−ǫ)nEP
ψ† ρ ψ ⊗(1−ǫ)nEP > 1 − ǫ
where EP is the pure state entanglement of v. We also have the reverse
theorem, where we interchange the role of v and ψ above, so that we
start with nEP EPR pairs: ψ ⊗nEP and we end with a state ρ that is
very close to v ⊗(1−ǫ)n .
We call a transformation that can be performed using local quan-
tum operations and classical communication a LOCC operation. In this
model, we are allowed to perform local quantum operations conditioned
on classical variables, i.e., on the outcome of measurements or on clas-
sical information that Alice has received from Bob (or vice versa). This
is thus a class of transformations that is quite difficult to characterize.
When we try to prove analogous results for mixed states, that is,
we try to quantify the entanglement in a mixed state ρ, something
unfortunate happens. There is no longer a single good measure of en-
tanglement, as there was with pure states. We can look at the number
of nearly perfect EPR pairs we can obtain from many copies of a mixed
state ρ, analogous to the theorem we stated for pure state entanglement
above. This gives a quantity is known as distillable entanglement, ED .
We can also define the amount of pure entanglement asymptotically re-
quired to create a mixed state ρ using LOCC operations. This gives a
quantity called entanglement cost, known as EC . In general, these are
not the same for mixed states. There are bound entangled states ρ with
ED (ρ) = 0, so no states close to an EPR pair can be created out of
any number of copies of these states, but still with the entanglement
cost EC (ρ) > 0 [20]. We do not have any nice formulas for distillable
THE ADDITIVITY CONJECTURE IN QUANTUM INFORMATION THEORY 181
i
It is then known [14] that
1
EC (ρ) = lim EF (ρ⊗n ).
n
n→∞
The question of whether entanglement of formation is equal to en-
tanglement cost, that is, whether we really need the limit in the above
expression, is equivalent to the question of whether entanglement of
formation is additive, that is, whether for two density matrices ρ1 and
ρ2 ,
EF (ρ1 ⊗ ρ2 )) = EF (ρ1 ) + EF (ρ2 ).
The structure of the states may need a little more explanation here.
We have four Hilbert spaces, A1 , A2 , B1 and B2 , and we work in the
tensor product A1 ⊗ A2 ⊗ B1 ⊗ B2 . We have ρ1 ∈ M(A1 ⊗ B1 ), ρ2 ∈
M(A2 ⊗ B2 ). The definition of the entanglement of formation assumes
that the quantum space is a tensor product of two systems. In each case,
this tensor product defining the entanglement of formation is between
the “A” and the “B” compenents of the system.
There is a stronger conjecture about entanglement of formation than
the additivity. It is called the strong superadditivity of entanglement of
formation [35, 3]. In this case, we have an arbitrary entangled state ρ
in a Hilbert space which is the tensor product of four systems, which
we again designate as A1 , B1 , A2 , B2 . The conjecture is
EF (ρ) ≤ EF (Tr2 ρ) + EF (Tr1 ρ)
where the entanglement of formation is defined over the A-B split of
subsystems, and the partial traces are over the 1-2 split of subsystems.
Strong superadditivity of EF is easily seen to imply additivity of EF
[35], whereas it is harder to prove the reverse direction.
We now turn to the definition of the classical capacity of a quantum
channel. Recall the definition of the capacity of a classical noisy channel.
A classical noisy channel can be thought of as a stochastic map from
a random variable X representing the input of a channel to a random
variable Y representing the output of the channel. Shannon’s theorem
says that a noisy channel N has the capacity
max I(X; Y ) = H(Y ) − H(Y |X)
p(x)
182 PETER W. SHOR
Here, the vj are in system A and the wj are in system B. We let σAB
be
q − jΨ(vj vj† ) ⊗ wj wj†
X
Ψ ⊗ Φ(ρAB ) =
j
We now add a third Hilbert space, C, to the mix, and work in the
space A ⊗ B ⊗ C. We define
qj Ψ(vj vj† ) ⊗ wj wj† ⊗ ej e†j
X
σABC =
where the ej are orthonormal vectors in system C.
We now have a tensor product of three systems, and can apply the
strong subadditivity of entropy to σABC
H(σAB ) ≥ H(σABC ) − H(σBC ) + H(σB ).
But we find
σB = Φ(ρB ) ≥ Smin (Φ)
and
qj S(Φ(vj vj† ) ≥ Smin (Ψ)
X
H(σABC ) − H(σBC ) =
j
which proves the theorem.
Note that this does not automatically prove the additivity of channel
capacity if one of the two channels is an entanglement breaking chan-
nel; the proof that additivity of minimum entropy implies additivity of
channel capacity invokes the additivity of Smin for a different channel.
However, a more complicated calculation also proves the addivity of
channel capacity if one channel is entanglement breaking.
The proof of multiplicativity of νp for depolarizing channels is more
complicated. The key tool is the Lieb-Thirring inequality [25]. Recall
that the depolarizing channel in d dimensions is
∆λ (ρ) = λρ + (1 − λ)I/d
THE ADDITIVITY CONJECTURE IN QUANTUM INFORMATION THEORY 185
where
(i)
ρB = TrA e†i ei ⊗ IρAB .
The clever step in the proof of the lemma is to factor (Φλ ⊗ I)(ρAB )
1/2 1/2
into matrices M1 M2 M1 so that we can apply the Lieb-Thirring in-
equality. We then apply this lemma to the state
ρAB = (I ⊗ Ψ)(σAB )
to get multiplicativity. The last term in equation 4 together with d−1/p
gives the bound on νp (Ψ), provided we select the proper decomposition
of the depolarizing channel into dephasing channels. The second to last
term gives the bound on νp (Φ) = νp (∆λ ), and the rest, combined with
the details of the decomposition of the depolarizing channel ∆λ into
dephasing channels, result in the desired inequality.
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