We introduce a task that we call partial decoupling, in which a bipartite quantum state is transformed by a unitary operation on one of the two subsystems and then is subject to the action of a quantum channel. We assume that the subsystem is decomposed into a direct-sum-product form, which often appears in the context of quantum information theory. The unitary is chosen at random from the set of unitaries having a simple form under the decomposition. The goal of the task is to make the final state, for typical choices of the unitary, close to the averaged final state over the unitaries. We consider a one-shot scenario, and derive upper and lower bounds on the average distance between the two states. The bounds are represented simply in terms of smooth conditional entropies of quantum states involving the initial state, the channel and the decomposition. Thereby we provide generalizations of the one-shot decoupling theorem. The obtained result would lead to further development of the decoupling approaches in quantum information theory and fundamental physics.
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